Too many times we think that if we just go to the gym we would become fit and healthy. Or, if we just sit in classes at school we will learn everything we need to know. For some people this works but there is an underlying detail that is often missed when we see others have success with this. The desire or goal from within.
In the overnight sensation on Netflix, K-Pop Demon Hunters, there are examples of this throughout the movie. The main character Rumi thinks that by achieving her goal of "sealing" the Honmoon will solve an inner struggle she has. As she strives to achieve her goal, things just seem to keep falling apart and getting worse. She has the motivation to have her environment change her, and yes she has the motivation to achieve the goal but the key is how. Yes I said you need motivation to have your environment aid in your change but if you go to the gym to eat pizza, you have motivation to go and do something there but is it the best motivation?
Magnet Motivation
This can be compared to two magnets, where both of the negative (or positive) poles are pointed towards each other. no matter how much motivation you have to get the two together they will continue to push each other away. Once you have something to stop the other magnet you can put the two together but sometimes that isn't what is actually desired. If you can flip one of the magnets around you then can have them effortlessly come together.
Putting this in terms of K-Pop Demon Hunters. Remi every time she pushed to achieve her goal of sealing the Honmoon she seem to have something keep pushing her goal further away. Only when she accepted herself and her abilities and accepted the help of her friends (all of them) was when she was able to "flip the magnet" around everything just seemed to work. She didn't achieve the root goal she had set out to achieve but by involving her support structure she was able to achieve a better stronger result.
Emotional Motivation
Early in the movie Remi was anxious and excited to seal the Honmoon, but it was this motivation that actually highlighted one of the initial catalysts of the issues of the movie. Remi, refused to take a break in attempts to achieve her goal. By not taking a break it actually triggered her personal downfall. By taking a break you can recover enough to achieve the most of our goal. One real world example is the track runner who doesn't want to loose the next race so they keep running and pushing as much as they can even just before their next race. When the next race arrives the runner, who kept training and didn't take a break, has no strength to run the race ends up doing far worse than they could have if they had taken a break. This is the same for those who choose to cram before taking a test.
When Remi followed her distraction (not giving any spoiler in this category), she was able to take a break and at that point she was able to preform the song she had not been able to preform due to exhaustion.
Acceptance Motivation
Remi throughout the movie struggled with an inner conflict where she saw herself as a problem. Because of this inner belief she pushed away all those who could and wanted to help her. At the climax of the movie she is faced with her inner struggle that has fully surfaced. Only when she accepted herself as she currently is, she was able to achieve far more than even she could imagine. When you identify your weakness, struggle, conflict, and are able to name it, at that point you can leverage the strengths of it.
Personally I have always suffered from "oooohhh shinny" syndrome. This is a condition where something catches my attention and I hyper fixate on it for a couple hours to a couple of weeks. As soon as I figure out how it works I move along and never have intrest in returning to the item or topic. This is a common issue with ADHD and Autistic people. I learned I have about a three week cycle on these topics. I have learned that if I want to focus and complete a bigger part of the shinny object, after three weeks I need to set it down and go do something else. After about three weeks I can cycle back to the topic and make more progress on it for about three weeks. When I push too hard on it, I face burnout and almost destroy any remaining hope of returning to the topic. (similar to the emotional motivation) Because I have identified this behavior within myself, instead of fighting it, I ride the cycle on ooohh shiny and I am able to more effectively work on projects. Yes it takes me more time but I am able to work on much larger projects, instead of abandoning the project.
When you internalize the goal you want to see is when you can let you influence effect your environment and when that happens you will achieve your goals.
K-Pop Demon Hunters highlights many areas of personal growth and it is a great movie to see examples of how this journey can play out. We didn't even get into Zoe, Mira, or Jinu, each of these characters highlight different growth and motivation examples. When you approach shows from a learning lens you can see many great examples on how to achieve the goals you want to.
Image Credit: Netflix - K-Pop Demon Hunters
