Where not being motivated got me (and Michelangelo)

This weekend I went to an exhibition of Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel with my family and parents. My mother has an Art History degree and could honestly talk to you for hours about an innocuous looking fresco turning it into the most interesting thing ever, and the kids are really into painting, crafting and art it was a lovely afternoon. Here they are talking about The Last Judgement.

One thing I always like to think about with “great things” is the history of them. For example how does a great wall of China get built or St Pauls Cathedral, a Pyramid or a Louvre etc. If you think about it loads of the stuff around us is just bonkers-mad ideas turned into things as a result of incredible motivation. 

Even in the modern day, somewhere once got super motivated and was all “hey lets build a Hadron Collider under Switzerland” for example and way I see it… nobody got in the way and stopped that mad bunch until it existed. Motivation is an incredible force. So much so we feel like it’s the only way to get truly great stuff done.  

This isn’t another blog about how we should all be motivated and skip to work though. 

In fact it’s quite the opposite, I know the world isn’t like that and bizarrely I had a great lesson in this looking at Michelangelo’s famous fresco’s and learning about how they came to be. 

So, what if you personally don’t feel so motivated? Can you still achieve stuff? What if you woke up today feeling like rubbish and facing a pile of work that isn’t your preference?  

The major take home of this trip to the art gallery was the history of how it happened. 

It surprised me but fed into something I’ve known for a long time about motivation, and it's relationship to great work... which is that it’s a total bunch of nonsense. The two aren't really connected you can be very unmotivated and do great things, as much as you can be highly motivated and not do great things.

Michelangelo knew this too, he wasn’t in any way shape or form motivated when he did this amazing work of art. The guy didn’t want the job. Period. When I say he didn’t want the job, I’m not just saying a polite turn-down of the commission, read on… 

He didn’t see himself as a painter, in fact he was probably more talented as a sculptor. So much that he relocated out of Rome to get out of the way of so many demands of his painting. The man had made his money and wanted to concentrate on the sculpting jobs he actually wanted to do, making worlds finest statues from Marble, thank you very much. As you can see from the Pieta, he had a fair point here.  

Basically he was getting ‘mither’ as we would say in Manchester so moved back in with his mates in Florence (the Medici’s, which were the Renaissances' version of the Bezos or Gates family). 

The Pope in Rome at the time ‘persuaded’ him to paint the chapel… using a private army. Let that sink in, it ultimately took the literal Pope combined with a literal violent army to convince him to return to Rome and paint the Sistine Chapel.

Within these paintings he hated doing so much, he’s doing portraits of his boss as the devil and self-portraits himself as someone skinned alive (see below circled). I think this hate gave him a certain freedom a lot of conceptions were broken and challenged (painting Gods feet or back etc, like I say Mum likes to talk about this stuff). I personally think he did this because the man simply gave zero f***'s about what people thought of his delivery of the task in hand, but also figured he was doing it anyway so may as well produce work to his world-class standards. A kind of weird freedom you give yourself when you realise you aren't motivated but are still awesome.

I’ll stop doing my Dan Snow thing now and get to my motivation point… 

It got me thinking about motivation and how much we truly need it. Also how sometimes we can be super good at doing something, but also really dislike that job. 

We get fed a belly full of this motivation stuff in the media everyone has to be ‘motivated’ all the time. Well Michelangelo wasn’t and look at what he did. I’m happy to admit neither am I some of the time. One of my favourite things about my team is how we can all honestly express when we aren’t feeling up to it much, and help each other out.  

I lead a business which means is 80% of my time is made up of difficult motivation moments (accounting, legal compliance, supplier management, financials). I hate all of these jobs. You start a company out of love for a particular activity and before you know it you’re clearing several hours of to-do list to battle to get back to that activity.  

Outwardly however, the perception is hopefully of someone running a successful business, spending good time with the kids, great family life etc and generally good vibes. Honestly despite the above I wouldn't have it any other way. I just have to be honest with myself am I motivated and loving the prospect of another compliance report or supplier negotiation?

I’m not comparing my achievements to Michelangelo but on a mental level I think it’s best when we all admit to ourselves that something isn’t particularly what we would prefer, but we make the decision to get on with it anyway. 

I did this many years ago and I just stopped giving two hoots about pretending to like stuff. A bit easier when running your own company but very possible to do all the same, as my team do and I know many others also do. 

What’s the point of this, basically, embrace your inner lack of motivation. Admit to yourself when it’s there. You can’t help it. Being honest with yourself is always the best way. Some jobs you enjoy some you don’t but 99% of success is showing up you ask me. For me, there’s nothing wrong with that, and frankly it’s in these moments the real great work sometimes gets done. 

However be very conscious that just because you aren’t enjoying it at the time… it doesn’t mean you aren’t producing incredible results. It doesn’t mean people aren’t massively appreciating you and it certainly doesn’t make you less worthy of recognition.  

Focus on that aspect of things next time you are faced with your own version of the Sistine Chapel and get that low motivation vibe. 

After all you are in the company of at least one Genius* and might be about to do something awesome anyway. (*Michelangelo not me)