During the last week or two I have several challenges in my work about getting photos taken and then downloaded for applications and printing. One of the interesting things that is happening is that the school has a very expensive camera so that events can be recorded and used in the yearbook. Recently, when I asked to use the camera at one our important soccer tournaments out of town, I was refused permission for its use. And when I asked for the A-V technician’s time to take some photos even at local games in the school, I was also denied permission. So then one of the students volunteered to go to the soccer tournament out of town and take photos with a cheaper camera, but now every time I go looking for her to download the photos, she is nowhere to be found.

Under normal circumstances I would become angry and give the administrators a few choice words of how stupid they are acting. I did try it. It didn’t work. So now I am facing the fact that there is a part of me inwardly that is somehow not allowing the camera work to happen. In order to do this change work it is important for me ot think of photography as metaphor for my inner process. What photography does, through the use of a camera, is to record images of things. In my case the need is to record images of specific events. It can be extremely motivating for others to see action shots in a slide show or posted photos on a board or in a book that spurs them on to even greater achievement. Because I am having problems in the photographic process, I can assume that something is wrong with my own inner recording process which means that I can’t take and remember images in my brain very well.

My memory for visual content is having a difficult time working. The first issue is connected to authority. In the outer world I am not allowed to have access to the camera or staff to assist me. When I get a cheaper version of what I want, it turns out that the person taking the photos is irresponsible.

To solve the memory issue, the first thing I can do is give myself permission to have really beautiful and exquisite memories by realizing that the authority for my memory rests within myself, not outwardly from protective administration. Isn’t that an interesting revelation that I can just give myself permission to have wonderful memories. The second issue seems to fall right on the heels of the first. If I have permission to have beautiful memories, then my inner camera will record things with very high quality of color and clarity, but because I don’t give myself permission for the highest quality of memories, I tend to have cheap memories so I just become irresponsible with them and forget them.

What this means is that motivation to get to a higher level of performance in every endeavor depends upon a high level of memory recording. When I give myself permission to take excellent photos in my mind of events and actually do the mental recording, then my motivation goes sky high.

If this is true about memory and its effect on motivation, then I have to examine how it happened that my mind was allowed to have such cheap memories and then become irresponsible and unmotivated. What I realize, as I reflect on the question, is that I believed that people outside of myself were responsible for giving me great memories by telling me how wonderful my performance was. Now I understand that I can be in control of my own memory by doing the recording myself.