Make Fear a Nine Day Wonder - Motivate Yourself with Fun!

Written by Cliff Kuhn, M.D.


Have you heard something referred to as a "nine day wonder"? The phrase refers to something that causes a sensation for a brief period of time and then fades into obscurity. The origin of this phrase is usually tied torepparttar nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) as Queen of England. This reluctant queen met an untimely fate. More on that later...

I added a new Fun Commandment recently to address a very pesky and persistent nine day wonder we all face - fear as a motivator. Fear is a great motivator...for a brief period. Then it does worse than fade into obscurity; fear adds to our load of stress and pressure. So I'm calling for an end to this nine day wonder's reign with my Fun Commandment, Motivate Yourself with Fun Rather than Fear.

Motivating yourself with fun rather than fear pays big dividends in myriad ways. Making this choice accelerates your ability to communicate, rests your brain, lowers your stress, increases your tolerance for pain, among other things. In this article, however, I am focusing on one incredibly important and impactful side effect of this Commandment - using fun to motivate yourself increases your creativity.

Creativity is an ability highly sought by businesses and employees alike. Creativity is trumpeted in every mission statement and praised by every CEO for good reason - we know that creativity brings breakthroughs! Sincerepparttar 122742 ability to create breakthroughs is both a highly sought after and also a highly marketable skill, creativity gets a lot of deserved attention.

Yet there are still many myths to dispel about creativity. One ofrepparttar 122743 biggest myths is that creativity is fueled by time pressure. Time pressure is an example of fear-based motivation because it involves trying to escape a negative consequence rather than moving toward a positive outcome. Deadlines are a reality, but using fear to fuel our creative juices hasrepparttar 122744 opposite effect.

The alternative is to use fun as our motivator. Theresa Amabile, head ofrepparttar 122745 Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, has been studying creativity for 30 years. Forrepparttar 122746 past 8 years she has collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven large corporations. She and her team scoured journals for moments when people struggled with a problem or came up with a new idea. The following rules for using fun to motivate creativity are inspired directly from Amabile's research.

Run Freely (A Lesson About Courage)

Written by Gabriel Daniels


One afternoon, many years ago, I went to pick up my mother from work. I got there a little early so I parkedrepparttar car byrepparttar 122741 curb, acrossrepparttar 122742 street from where she worked, and waited for her.

As I looked outsiderepparttar 122743 car window to my right, there was a small park where I saw a little boy, around one and a half to two years old, running freely onrepparttar 122744 grass as his mother watched from a short distance. The boy had a big smile on his face as if he had just been set free from some sort of prison. The boy would then fall torepparttar 122745 grass, get up, and without hesitation or without looking back at his mother, run as fast as he could, again, still with a smile on his face, as if nothing had happened.

At that moment, I thought to myself, “Why aren’t most adults this way?” Most adults, when they fall down (figuratively speaking), make a big deal out of it and don’t even make a second attempt. They would be so embarrassed that someone saw them fall that they would not try again. Or, because they fell, they would justify to themselves that they’re just not cut out for it. They would end up too afraid to attempt again for fear of failure.

However, with kids (especially at an early age), when they fall down, they don’t perceive their falling down as failure, but instead, they treat it as a learning experience (as just another result/outcome). They feel compelled to try and try again until they succeed. (The answer must be...they have not associated "falling down" withrepparttar 122746 word "failure" yet. Thus, they don’t know how to feelrepparttar 122747 state which accompanies failure. As a result, they are not disempowered in any way. Plus, they probably think to themselves that it’s perfectly okay to fall down, that it’s not wrong to do so. In other words, they give themselves permission to make mistakes, subconsciously. Thus, they remain empowered.)

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