I really like the idea of thinking about our emotions as the fuel that powers our motivation engines.
When you look at the fundamental principles for how an engine works it is basically a controlled explosion pushing a piston to generate mechanical force. For this process to work you need three critical components. Start with oxygen and gas, then introduce a spark and boom… you have ignition and a running engine. When you get the mixture right the engine runs smoothly and effectively. Get it wrong and it sputters out and dies or you can cause catastrophic failure.
There is a ton of room here for analogy and metaphor. Especially when you start to talk about the key components of the engine that regulate fuel and air flow, or the effectiveness of the ignition system. Maybe you have some rust in your tank, that’s clogging up your fuel filter leading to a lack of gas reaching the carburetor (yup, that was a real problem in Thumper my 1972 Dodge pick up… I miss that truck). How about routine maintenance being analogous to self-care.
The core idea is that we have our emotions (the gas), and we have our thoughts (the air)… the world around us often provides us with activating events (the spark). We need to make sure we are properly regulating both our thoughts and our emotions in order to get the right level of combustion (motivation) to power our lives effectively and efficiently.
