What if the problem was never motivation, but not having something worth fighting for?
I watched the first episode of the first season of S.W.A.T.: Exiles today, and there was a scene that stayed with me.
The SWAT team was rescuing a child from her abductors. During the operation, one of the officers got into a fight with one of the criminals.
The fight probably lasted two or three minutes. But what struck me wasn’t the fight itself.
It was the focus.
There was no distraction. No hesitation. No checking out. No thinking about whether he felt like doing this today.
He was completely there. And when you think about it, of course he was.
He was fighting for his life.
The person he was fighting with knew that if he lost, he could die or go to prison. So, he was going to do everything he could to prevent that from happening.
And the officer knew the same thing.
He knew that the other person was willing to do whatever it took to stop him from putting those handcuffs on.
There was no room for distraction.
There was something at stake.
And watching that scene made me think about how differently we often approach our own lives.
We say we want more.
We say we want a different career, more money, a business, freedom, a beautiful home, the ability to travel, meaningful work, better relationships, more time, a different life.
We set goals.
We make vision boards.
We buy planners.
We write things down.
We tell ourselves we’re going to change.
And then Monday morning comes.
We’re tired.
It’s raining.
It’s too cold.
It’s too hot.
We don’t feel like going to work.
We go anyway because we need the income.
And then we come home exhausted and watch television, scroll on our phones, talk to people, do ten other things—and the thing we said we wanted gets pushed to tomorrow.
Then tomorrow becomes next week.
Next week becomes next month.
And eventually, another year has passed.
And I started wondering:
Why don’t we have that same level of focus when it comes to creating the lives we say we want?
I’ve actually experienced a tiny glimpse of what that kind of focus feels like.
Many years ago, in Guinea, some friends and I decided to go out late at night to study for our high school final exam.
While we were on the road, we encountered a soldier. He was extremely drunk. And then he pointed his weapon at us.
I have never been in a physical fight where I was fighting for my life, but in that moment, I understood something about focus that I had never understood before.
Everything disappeared.
I couldn’t hear anything else.
I wasn’t thinking about my plans.
I wasn’t thinking about school.
I wasn’t thinking about tomorrow.
There was only one thing I could see.
I was looking for someone to open their door and let us inside so that this man would not shoot us.
That was it.
One problem.
One objective.
Everything else became irrelevant.
And that experience came back to me while I was watching that scene.
Because when something is truly important to us—when the stakes feel real—our ability to focus can become extraordinary.
So, what happens when the thing we’re trying to protect isn’t our physical safety?
What happens when we’re trying to protect our future?
What happens when we’re trying to build a life we actually want to live?
Maybe we don’t need more motivation.
Maybe we need something worth fighting for.
What Are You Actually Building?
Before you can fight for the life you want, you have to know what that life looks like.
And I don’t mean having every detail figured out.
I don’t.
There are still parts of my future that are completely in the dark.
But there are things I can see.
I can see the woman I want to become.
I can see pieces of the life she lives.
I can see how she spends her days.
I can see the freedom she has.
I can see the way she works.
I can see the way she earns her money.
I can see the people around her.
I can see the environments she chooses.
And I can see something else very clearly:
I don’t want to spend the next two, three, four or five years living exactly the way I am living now.
That doesn’t mean I hate my life.
It means I know there is more for me.
And if I want that more, I have to participate in creating it.
I can’t simply want it.
I have to build it.
And this is where I have to turn the question back on myself.
Because I have started so many online businesses.
I’ve had so many ideas.
I’ve created things.
I’ve learned things.
I’ve planned things.
I’ve imagined what could happen.
And for a long time, I didn’t get the results I wanted.
I could blame the algorithm.
I could blame the market.
I could blame timing.
I could blame circumstances.
But if I’m completely honest with myself, there was another problem.
I wasn’t giving the thing everything I had.
Not consistently.
Not with the level of focus required to actually give it a chance.
I would start something and then get distracted.
I’d have an idea and move on to another one.
I’d make a plan and then stop following it.
I’d know exactly what I needed to do and find something else to do instead.
And then I’d wonder why my life wasn’t changing.
But how can my life change if I’m constantly abandoning the actions that could create it?
That realization has been uncomfortable.
But it’s also freeing.
Because if I am part of the reason nothing changed, then I am also part of the reason it can change.
“If I am part of the reason nothing changed, then I am also part of the reason it can change.”
Finding Something Worth Fighting For
I think we sometimes choose goals because they sound good.
More money.
A successful business.
A beautiful house.
Travel.
Freedom.
A better body.
A relationship.
A promotion.
But wanting something in theory isn’t necessarily enough to move us.
You have to know why it matters to you.
Where do you want to live?
How do you want to spend an ordinary Tuesday?
How do you want to earn your income?
Who do you want to wake up around?
What kind of work makes you feel alive?
What do you want your home to feel like?
What do you want your days to contain?
What are you no longer willing to tolerate?
And perhaps most importantly:
Who are you becoming?
Because when your vision becomes personal, your decisions start to change.
You stop asking, “Do I feel like doing this today?”
And you start asking:
“Does this move me toward the life I’m building?”
Those are two very different questions.
Fighting Doesn’t Mean Destroying Yourself
And when I say you have to fight for the life you want, I don’t mean you have to work yourself into the ground.
I don’t mean you have to be productive every minute.
I don’t mean you have to wake up at 4 a.m., hustle seven days a week, or sacrifice your entire life in the name of achievement.
That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about devotion.
I’m talking about refusing to keep abandoning yourself.
I’m talking about continuing to show up for something that matters to you.
“I’m talking about devotion. I’m talking about refusing to keep abandoning yourself.”
Sometimes fighting for your life means working.
Sometimes it means resting so that you can continue.
Sometimes it means saying no.
Sometimes it means learning something you don’t know.
Sometimes it means starting again.
Sometimes it means letting go of something you thought you wanted.
Sometimes it means sitting down and finally admitting:
“This isn’t the life I want anymore.”
And then doing something about it.
No One Is Coming to Give It to You
There is a point where you have to take responsibility for your own life.
Not blame.
Responsibility.
There is a difference.
You may not have chosen everything that happened to you.
You may not have started with the resources someone else had.
You may have experienced things that made life harder.
But at some point, you still have to ask:
What am I going to do with the life I have?
Because no one is going to hand you the life you secretly dream about.
You have to create it.
You have to build it.
You have to make decisions that support it.
You have to protect your time for it.
You have to learn what you need to learn.
You have to keep going when the excitement wears off.
And you have to stop treating your own dreams like they’re optional.
Maybe that’s the part I’ve been missing.
I don’t need another motivational speech.
I don’t need another burst of excitement.
I don’t need to feel inspired every morning.
I need to remember what I’m building.
I need to remember the woman I can already see.
And I need to become devoted enough to her life that I stop abandoning it every time something easier comes along.
Because if I don’t want to spend the next five years living the same way, I can’t keep giving my future whatever time, energy and attention happen to be left over.
I have to give it something deliberate.
Something real.
Something consistent.
Something that says:
This matters to me.
And maybe that’s what motivation was never able to give me.
Maybe what I needed was a life that felt worth showing up for.
A life worth protecting.
A life worth building.
A life worth fighting for.
Journal Prompts
Take your time with these. Write until you reach something true.
- Think of a moment in your life when everything else fell away and only one thing mattered. What did that focus feel like, and what made it possible?
- Describe the woman you can already see. How does she spend an ordinary Tuesday — where does she wake up, how does she work, how does she earn her money, and who is around her?
- If nothing changed, what would your life look like five years from now? Be honest. How does that picture make you feel?
- Where have you been abandoning the actions that could create the life you want? What do you tend to reach for instead?
- What are you no longer willing to tolerate?
- This week, what is one deliberate thing you can give your future — not the time and energy left over, but something you choose on purpose?
With all my love,
Salima
