For more than twenty years, I’ve been fascinated by self-help books and motivational speeches. But here’s the twist: motivation alone doesn’t solve everything.
My story with motivation began during my early engineering college days. As a first-generation college student, I was fueled by pride and ambition. I wanted to prove, not just to the world, but to myself, that I could achieve something meaningful.
In early 2000s, books were my primary gateway to knowledge and to many of my generation. Not Kindle books, real paper ones. The first book that truly hooked me was The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy. It blew my mind and got me hooked instantly. Murphy explained how the subconscious takes everything the conscious mind dwells on, positive or negative, and works to bring it into reality. That idea planted the seed for my lifelong curiosity about motivation and mindset.
The early 2000s were a different world. The internet was just gaining traction, YouTube barely existed, and I still turned in assignments on floppy disks (yes, those plastic squares that now belong in museums—Gen Z, feel free to Google it and laugh). That’s when I first stumbled across motivational speakers online.
They all repeated the same lines:
“You must be consistent, disciplined, and self-motivated to succeed.”
The thing was, I already had those traits. I graduated among the top of my class, became a structural engineer, earned a master’s degree while working full-time, got married, started a family, and even went back for a PhD. Now, in my late thirties, I look back and see a life filled with accomplishments, challenges, and lessons.
When I was about twenty-eight years old. I had finished college, was working, got married, and had a stable job. Life looked good from the outside. But deep down, a feeling of unfulfillment was creeping in.
That nagging emptiness followed me around like a dark shadow. I kept asking myself: What should I be doing more of? What should I be doing differently to actually feel fulfilled? Naturally, I turned back to books and videos, hoping to find the missing piece. I thought maybe I just needed to be more motivated, more consistent, or more disciplined.
But after countless hours of reading and watching, the realization finally hit me: the truth wasn’t really “out there.” (If you’re a fan of The X-Files, you’ll get the joke.) The answer was within me—specifically, in my mindset and the way I had been programmed to think.
Since childhood, I had been conditioned to see life through the lens of other people’s expectations: go to school, earn good grades, get a degree, land a job, start a family. Do that, and you’ll be happy. For years, I lived on autopilot, chasing those milestones. Each one mattered in its own way—my degrees gave me knowledge, my job provided for my family, and my family brought me joy. But still, that unshakable sense of unfulfillment lingered.
Why? Because hidden beneath the autopilot mode were goals I deeply wanted but never pursued. They were buried under achievements that looked impressive from the outside but didn’t nourish my soul.
That’s when I remembered the first book I had ever read—Joseph Murphy’s The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. I realized I had been feeding my conscious mind with an autopilot script for so long that my subconscious simply carried it out, guiding my entire life. And then it hit me: Wait a minute—I can do something about this. I can change how I think. I can step out of autopilot. My mindset can be rebuilt.
And that was my engineering gut instinct kicking in.
Because mindset isn’t something you inherit forever—it’s something you can redesign and rebuild.
As engineers, we don’t just patch cracks; we build strong foundations. And that’s exactly what I needed to do for myself. Not just keep chasing external achievements but consciously design a mindset strong enough to support the life I truly wanted.
Here’s the lesson I’ve learned:
👉 You can’t outsource your mindset.
👉 You can’t borrow it from motivational speeches or books.
👉 You have to design it and build it yourself—brick by brick, thought by thought.
I call it “mindset under construction.” And this time, I’m the engineer of my own life.
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