Find what motivates you and use it to make progress

It's often said that in order for us to achieve any type of goal, we need to find motivation within ourselves because external motivation is temporary and it can fade out before we're able to do anything towards what we want to achieve.

However, does that mean we should never seek motivation from external sources? If we're motivated by movies to create video content ourselves, should we avoid watching movies simply because we should try to find motivation within ourselves?

I don't think so. What I believe is that us, humans, have a limited amount of motivation and determination at our disposal and after some time all that fades out, more or less, even if we want it or not. Sometimes we just don't feel like doing anything no matter how much we want something.

How to solve this?

Use both inner and outer motivation. Having a well defined goal and an amazing plan to achieve it is great and it will help you get what you want. But if there's any way for you to get motivated to work each day more than you're accustomed to simply because you saw a certain movie or listened a certain song, don't avoid that source of motivation and take advantage of it.

For me, it's anything that pictures a really smart and determined/disciplined person. If I'm watching any type of video content or reading any type of book/article featuring characters like John Wick, Hannibal Lecter, John Nash or even play video games where there's a character that reads a lot and does a lot of things that requires intelligence, I feel motivation to work.

Right now it's almost midnight and the only reason I'm writing this is because I recently finished reading an article talking about the Library of Alexandria and about the great writers who were part of it. All it took was for that author to mention a few people who were far superior to me when it comes to knowledge and now here I am, writing, trying to provide some content and make myself feel like I'm at least close to being as smart as those people were.

So don't limit yourself to your reasons when it comes to finding motivation. Make sure you really want to achieve your goals and make sure you're determined to do that. But when your inner motivation fades out, make sure to search for some on the outside. Even if it lasts for a few hours, that's enough for you to work a little bit more and that can make a huge difference when it comes to your accomplishments.