What motivates you?
 

Poll to follow...

I'm not very motivated

Fear of Failure.
Leads to a constant search for happiness because no matter what is achieved there is always the fear it will be yanked away at any moment.

Neither. What primarily motivates me is wanting to be a good person who does the right thing. And wanting to be their for the ones I love / care about

Im motiveted to do a good job so I can slack off at other things.

I should give some more context to this. Friends and I were debating sports and I contend that the greatest athletes in any sport are great not because success motivates them but fear of failure does/did.

This. I am trying to learn to enjoy what I have rather than search for what I don't have.

That would have helped lol

Partially fear of failure / letting down people ... partially just wanting to do the right thing, because well ... its the right thing to do (oh and a dash of 'anal retentiveness/perfectionism' I hate feeling I could have done something better and didn't).

Ill add the bottom part if yours to mine as well. I'm hard on myself and want to feel I did the best I possibly could

FWIW, given the context I'd have flipped my answer.

I've always heard the opposite, that the greatest athletes are completely unafraid to fail so they don't hesitate to try to succeed.

I know next to nothing about psychology but isn't perfectionism a result of fear of failure?

With sports its none of the above for me tbh; its the challenge of it - I love playing soccer but I'm fairly slow and far from agile ..... but I've found over the years I can hold my own by using body strength and positioning, but its tough especially against younger frankly better players ....

I like testing myself and seeing whether I can manage to do ok in such circumstances.

(its the same with board games and suchlike tbh, I don't enjoy the winning as much as the challenge of pitting myself against others and have had games I've lost which I've enjoyed far more than games where I've thrashed someone)

According to 'psychology' it is if its an unhealthy thing - however as with most things there are different types and levels of perfectionism.

I try and balance my approach by concentrating on positives if I fail at something and remembering that life is a learning experience and you learn more from failures sometimes than from your successes.

Fear of never fulfilling the potential people see in me.

When I played baseball and now that I play adult softball, I always go up to bat with the "don't fail" attitude. Don't miss the ball when swinging. Don't get out. Reaching on an error is not a success, exactly, but it is definitely not a failure.

I can extend that philosophy to the rest of my life. I don't care if I'm not first place, but I absolutely don't want to be last place in anything.

It may be why I never had the drive that "winners" have. But I have a perfectly happy middle-of-the-pack life.

I'd agree that most elite athletes, top innovators, and similar people at the top of their profession tend to be motivated by fear of failure.

I think people do tend to read "fear of failure" as a few different things. Usually something negative, or as if it makes them a wimp to fear something. I see it as a fear of inadequacy and the fear of not being good enough.

Fear is proven as the most powerful motivator time & again, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the people who are best at things tend to be driven primarily by fear. But those that do succeed are more fearful of failing than of other things...which is what I think it separates them as the top of what they do.

That differs from my mindset completely. Playing floorball as an adult, my mindset was to make a play / score a game / make a great pass every time I got the ball. The exception was when I played with one specific guy who yelled at people a lot and Then I started becoming afraid of making s mistake and I played worse because of it. I didn't play with him often though. My skill level was rather low playing with people who played their entire lives, but nobody played harder then I did. I never felt the desire to be the best, but wanted to perform the best I could with the skill I had

I was once asked in an interview whether or not I wanted accolades or wealth and I answered that I wanted to get as far away from Bankrupt as possible. They asked why and I talked about my upbringing. It seemed to go over ok. It was mostly I guess that my family always had an anxiety about money issues throughout my childhood and that is really an insidious type of anxiety as a kid. you're always always worried about something you dont really know anything about. To this day I'd say I continue to try to get as far away from zero as possible.

God. God motivates me. God and little baby Jesus.

This 1000x times.

Very well said.

People who told me that I wouldn't amount to anything and I would be failure (had a surprising number of people who said those type of things to me as a child/young adult). I wanted to prove them wrong so badly, so I work that much harder to just stick it to them. Not a healthy way of motivation, but it worked for me.

This is my answer as well.

Gummy bears at the end of the day.

Depends on the activity.
Work - Money (stop paying me and I will stop working)
Activities - The challenge of finding out if I can succeed at something.
Life in general - Making people I like happy my exceeding their expectations.
Animals - The fear of failing to do as much as I can to make their life as good as possible (I like animals, people not so much).

Fear of success.

No, maybe it's more the thrill of failure.