Do not be Motivated

Do not be Motivated - just DO!

'Your motivation is your pay packet at the end of the week.' Noel Coward.

My actor mate Rob has done bloody well, starring in a number of west end and TV shows. When I met him in the mid-noughties he was the tech on my first gig at the Lawrence Batley theatre. He was twenty-one. Tall, handsome, funny; he'd appeared in musicals at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, in adverts, and in Heartbeat and Coronation Street. He also had one of the most beautiful singing voices I had ever heard. Yet he would cry because he couldn't motivate himself to chase more work.

'I will motivate myself,' he said, 'but when the time is right. When I get more than one day off a week from teching the pantomime. When my sister’s back from her gap year in Africa and I don’t have to worry any more about her getting malaria or being Simba sushi. When I’ve done the round of auditions for drama colleges and one of them has said yes. Though even if they all say no I’d probably have the mindless arrogance to think they’re wrong and I was right. But all this crying doesn't quite go to waste, either. I sometimes do it in the mirror. Then I can verify what we really look like in hysterics mode and recreate it onstage. Except I'm not ever onstage at the moment. But I will be when I can get myself motivated.'

I told him not to motivate himself.

'How can you not motivate yourself?' he asked.

'Like you’re not, for example. Miss out motivation. It’s the middle man. Either be earning money the way you want to, or do things that could potentially result in you earning that way. Ermintrude the Cow in The Magic Roundabout didn't need to be motivated. She just did.'

'Did what?'

'Stole a mechanical digger to rehearse living in her dream state of being a number twelve bus going via the Haymarket. It will never be "One Fine Day" - ask Madame Butterfly. The time is never right - ask the Mad Hatter.'

Rob thought about it. Then he said, 'I've never heard this topic approached from quite this angle before.

Story of my life.

#motivation#motivated#bemotivated#getmotivated#motivate#success#

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