Motivated

Motivated

Dictionary meaning:  to provide with a motive or motives; incite; impel

Synonyms: give incentive, innerve, inspirit, set afoot, spark, trigger, pique

Antonyms: depress, disconnect, discourage, dissuade

The best thing I can do when I am feeling disconnected, discouraged or even depressed is to find myself some good old fashioned motivation. “Easier said than done,” you say. “Oh, believe me, I know.” But really, isn’t life just a series of habits we develop along the way? Some are good habits, such as making the bed as soon as we get up in the morning. Some are bad habits; chewing our nails. Some are destructive; choosing to feel discouraged, and some are healthy; like choosing the apple over the hot fudge double chocolate brownie. I wonder….how will I choose today?

As I dropped my daughter off at school this morning I found myself anxious about my plans to write today. The truth is that I am afraid I won’t follow through and I am really tired of letting myself down. By the time I got back this morning my mind was already busy looking for excuses as to why I should wait until tomorrow to put all of my thoughts on paper. So I went about it in a whole new way. I reminded myself that this writing daily thing is new to me, and I cut myself some slack. Not everything I write needs to make sense, in fact nothing needs to make any sense to anyone but me. I find I write best when I stop looking for perfection. Who is perfect anyway? I feel motivated when I allow myself the idea of failure. I am walking motivation when I give myself room to learn and lots of space for error.

I am thinking about my daughter now and how she goes about her day, “J” as if motivation were her middle name. Children are not born making excuses or putting off what needs to be done “now”. I suppose that if I did not remind my daughter that it was time for her to get dressed for school in the morning that some days she may sit around in her pyjamas watching TV all day. But in her world however, there are rules (followed most of the time) and I believe that it is in following those rules that she stays motivated. Note**sometimes rules need to be broken, what fun would life be otherwiseJ. I wonder though how many of us are lacking in the motivation department because we are breaking “the rules” too often. Personally I have let this bad habit of feeling discouraged consume me for too long so today I will write myself a new list of rules. My emotions are my choice and I choose to be motivated not discouraged. Motivated is the emotion of the day! May we all feel this motivated all year through!

Rule # 1: Choose to feel motivated.

Rule # 2: If feeling discouraged, see rule # 1.

Rule # 3: Do not forget the rules.