Work is hard. It's just a fact of life, and we all come to realize it eventually. Beyond the challenge of work itself, there is a meta challenge of going to work. Getting yourself together and going willingly to do something that you know will be difficult and mostly unpleasant is a challenge in and of itself. The moment we consider how difficult the task of our work will be there is a moment of friction that can paralyze us. This is the first challenge of work, overcoming the inertia of rest to begin the output of energy in pursuit of some ends.

How can we overcome this inertia, this potent force that holds us back from our ambitions and our responsibilities? I'm sure you can name a few methods of motivation, and no doubt you use all of them from time to time in your own life.

Most methods we easily think of depend on gratification or the promise thereof. When for example we wake from our rest, beginning our day in peace, then come to the point where we must rouse ourselves to go to work, be it at an office, a construction site, a restaurant, a factory, a school, or even in our home for our families, the cessation of rest is a difficult thing to perform. We think to ourselves, "the pay day will be nice", or "this weekend I'll go out for some fun and enjoy myself as a treat", or "my family needs support and I can't let them down", or some other formulation of the same thought. Namely we think "If I do X now, even though I don't want to, I'll get Y later which I do want". This is pretty motivating, and I think you could live your entire life using just this method of motivation to overcome the inertia of rest.

Sometimes the trade isn't so obvious or forthcoming. Sometimes we do X in exchange for Y to trade it for Z to use it in the process of doing A so that we might attain B all over the span of years. Bearing in mind that the variables of the sentence need not be tangible items, one can see that the idea of work, its products, and motivations can become very complex and hard to conceptualize. The very reason we work often requires separate work to maintain. Our own motivation needs input to be sustained and as such often wains, as does the quality of our workmanship, and we start to slip, working with less vigor and more contempt. The contempt bleeds into our very being and we begin to live every facet of our lives with the same lack of drive and the same uncertainty of reason. This is not the good life. Just as muscle atrophy, obesity, cancer, and addiction, this should be avoided.

How do we overcome the collapsing of motivation?

Call it having faith. Call it being driven.

I call it dedication. Not just to your work, to your family, or to your goals but to yourself, to the idea.

Suppose you've started to slip, the trade has become too complex and you no longer see how waking up at 5am to sneak in a run, just to hurry home, shower, eat a boring but healthy breakfast and then run along to your job relates, advances or provides for your goals, your desires, or your happiness. In this moment you need to stop thinking on the trade, stop focusing on the echo and focus on the shout. You're not working to make the money or to be famous or to have a bigger house to die in, you're working because you're dedicated, you're a professional.

Focus on the shout.
Without expectation, without disappointment.
Be a pro.
Be dedicated.
Be dedicated to being dedicated.