I was laying in my bed trying to come up with a good blog topic. I wanted to write about something that’s relevant and relatable. But it seemed like any and every idea I had wasn't good enough. And that thought right there was when it hit me, so I let the words pour out and here we go. Take a minute to picture something for me. I want you to imagine a rock. This rock can be big, small, wide, thin, smooth or jagged. Got it? Cool. Imagine a beach next to a gorgeous, crystal clear ocean. Close your eyes and picture your rock, sitting half in the sand, about five feet away from the water. All of a sudden, it gets really windy. The ocean gets choppy, maybe the sky changes colour and whatever is on your beach (leaves, sand, etc) starts moving in the wind. The longer the wind blows, the higher the tide gets and eventually, the rock is only a few inches from the ocean. In case you haven’t noticed, this whole situation is a metaphor. You are the rock, the sand is anything holding you back, the ocean is everything you want and the wind is the push you need to accomplish your goals. My ocean was confidence, my sand was a negative mindset and bad thoughts like “I’m not good enough” and my wind has been a big mix up of things. If you read the title, then you’ll know that the wind is really what I wanted to talk about, especially because it will look different to me than it will to you. The “wind” is supposed to represent the things pushing you towards your goal (the ocean). I thought push was a good word because it can be applied to both the metaphor and the real meaning. This leads me to my first kind of specification thing. There’s a difference between push and shove. A push can still be gentle, like a cute little nudge or something not very hardcore. The harder you push, the more immediate your results will appear. But something super important to realise is that you absolutely need a balance of short and long term wind so that you will not only reach the ocean, but so that you will stay there. Tying this back into our metaphor, a stronger wind blows your rock closer to the ocean sooner. But your rock will never make it to the ocean with just short, strong gusts of wind, it needs to have a gentle breeze constantly moving it towards the water, even if it's at a slower rate. Hopefully this whole metaphor thing isn’t confusing you, the whole point was to make everything easier to understand but I’m switching back to real life now (for the most part). My wind changes a lot, but that is a very good thing because it means I am growing and learning and adapting. Right now, a lot of my bursts of wind look like this:
I am most definitely not at my ocean yet but I am proud of my movement and I will keep moving forward until I get to where I want to be. Stay safe and stay sane, - Nevada J
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At some point in life, I think we've all struggled with motivation. As humans we want to feel motivated and to find the meaning in the things that we do. Motivation is an extremely tricky concept. Occasionally, we are able to get motivated, and we find ourselves wrapped up in excitement. Most times, it's practically impossible to figure out how to motivate ourselves and we end up in a non-ending spiral of procrastination. Personally, I struggle with motivation on a day to day basis. I think it's safe to say as soon as I wake up. I have to motivate myself to get out of my bed. This is REALLY hard for me because I have a very comfortable bed, and many pillows. School also plays a big role in lost motivation for me, due to unmotivated teachers, a lack of interest in many school subjects/activities, and ect….. Whenever I get a task, whether that be an assignment or life things. I immediately had a fixed mindset on that task. This was something that was not working for me. However, throughout my life, the most surprising thing i've learned about motivation; is that whenever I have started looking at a task with a new mindset and attitude, that dreadful task became easier to do. There are four different types of motivation we fall into, Extrinsic Motivation: Extrinsic motivation comes from outside us. We do it because we are impelled to, This is effective for simple activities, it is less useful when you want a person to be self-driven. Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation is done for internal reasons.motivated by working for an inspiring leader or in areas where they have a personal interest. Introjected Motivation: Introjected motivation is similar to intrinsic motivation in that it is internalized. The distinctive aspect of this is that if it is not done, then the person feels the tension of guilt. Identified Motivation: Identified motivation is where a person knows that something needs doing but has not yet decided to do anything about it. I think the essence of motivation is perfectly explained by Steven Pressfield when he says “At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.” Albuna Maliqui It’s summertime again and the sun is finally shining. For me that means going out and doing stuff with my friends instead of staying in my warm and cozy bed like during winter. But why is it that are we so much more motivated and have more energy in the summertime? And in general how do we get motivated? Okay, i get it, of course we are excited for summer when it has been cold and rainy outside for a long time. We can finally do sport outside, sit in a cute little coffee shop and just be active. i can personally say that i am more likely to do so in the summer. But there have actually been studies showing that sunlight has an influence on us, for example on our social behaviour. But it is not always nice out and sunlight is unfortunately not the only thing we need to motivate ourselves so here is what else can help us with motivation: 1. success: success is motivating! when you work hard on something and it turns out well you are more likely to work harder and to put effort in your next project 2. to-do list: it personally motivates me when i have a to-do list that i can work on and see how it gets shorter and shorter r 3. result: keep your goal in mind and remember what kind of result you want to achieve 4. reward: give yourself something you can look forward to or that you can treat yourself with if you did a good job For me these tips help to motivate myself, when i need to study for an exam or finish an
assignment, for example. On the other hand, staying motivated is a whole different skill that is very important if you want to improve and work on something in the long term. Viktoria D. In our life, we will be setting goals for ourselves to become a better person. Well however not all these goals we set for ourselves will be accomplished. But is there a way or ways to increase the possibility of accomplishing most of our goals? First, we need to start with setting a goal that motivates you. which means setting goals that you are actually interested in. If the outcome is not that important for you, or if you think it worth too much to accomplish it, then there is a great chance of you giving up working towards after a few weeks or even after a few days. Therefore “Motivation” is the first key step to achieving goals. Then, after you have set a goal that motivates you, you’ll have to consider if the goal you have set is SMART. When I say SMART I’m not saying you have to be super intelligent it means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Specific, “Your goal must be clear and well defined”. When you have a goal that is clear and well defined you will have a specific destination and direction so you can reach it smoothly. If not, you might feel lost or don't know what to while you’re approaching your goals. Measurable, make your goal measurable means give it a time period so there is something to measure and compare if you have improved. For example, “I want to increase my Math mark by 10% in the next 3 month” instead of “I want to improve my Math”. Attainable, When you’re setting a goal make sure your goal it's possible for you to achieve it. You will only demoralize yourself and erode your confidence if your goal is unachievable. Relevant, make sure your goal is actually relevant to the road you’re going to take in the future. If you are aiming to become a great singer then you should set a goal towards singing, writing songs and musical instrument. In this case “I want to increase my Math mark by 10% in the next 3 month” will not help too much. Time-Bound, A goal should have a deadline. Adding a deadline to your goal will increase your sense of urgency this will make you work harder and more efficient at achieving that goal. Also, this means that you know when you can celebrate success. Finally, Stick With It! That's the most important part of accomplishing your goals. When you have set a long term goal you might not notice any difference, building a daily plan and a reminder to keep yourself on track and ongoing is very important. Achieving a goal can be hard but no matter how hard it is and how much work it takes as long as it’s worth it then you shouldn't give up. Eventually, when you have reached your goal you will be so proud of yourself.
Martin G For me and my experience with motivating myself was when I started working out and going to the gym. All it took for me and as cliche as it sounds, I looked in the mirror and thought I don’t like the way I look, and after that I started going to the gym. Now I know it isn’t as simple as saying your going to the gym, you have to actually go and dedicate time out of your day to go. In the beginning it was tough. I thought that results were going to appear right away, but they didn’t. It took about 8-10 weeks and I started to see solid results. I was happy, but not truly satisfied with myself. So I started to work harder, stay at the gym longer, lift weights, and cut unhealthy foods out of my diet. After about 4-5 months I had lost 35 pounds, and started putting on muscle. I started feeling more confident and happy with how I looked. Now the real challenge is keeping the weight off and not going back to your old habits. It helped that I had my family to help support and motivate me to keep the weight off and improve my work habits at the gym. Some of the habits I have and follow are:
Now I know that the gym isn’t for everyone and there are other ways to participate in fitness activities that keep you active and healthy. Here is an article that talks about ways to stay active and motivated. To conclude my blog post I’d like to say that you don’t have to be the strongest person in the gym, your not there to impress people, you are there to make yourself healthy and fit. Most people procrastinate going to the gym or working out, all that you have to do is just dedicate time, it doesn’t matter how much time, to doing some sort of fitness activity. As long as you are happy with your progress that is all that matters.
Jake V Being unmotivated can stop you from doing a lot of things. It's hard to find the motivation to get your homework done eat healthy work out or pretty much anything. It took me forever just to open up my computer and work on this. There is so many things i would like to do however i feel unmotivated and like i have not enough time or simply do not feel like it. There are multiple ways to feel motivated such as set a goal, plan days in advance or get someone to help. This website has 16 ways to help you feel more motivated. https://zenhabits.net/get-off-your-butt-16-ways-to-get-motivated-when-youre-in-a-slump/ It can take a while to stop feeling unmotivated weeks days months or even years. There's many ways to try and become motivated. Personally i feel like making goals help a lot. When you reach your goal you feel accomplished like you have done something. Even just getting a simple assignment done for school can make you feel like you did that. Until you find out your grade it can either make you or break you. Whenever i get a bad grade i just stop caring. Even creating simple things to start get you motivated to help. If you want to start sleeping earlier start off gradually and build up to it. Try and find that person who will believe in you to do what your trying to get motivation for. If you don't have a person to help you try adding prize to your own goal. Most importantly believe in yourself. https://jamesclear.com/how-to-get-motivated Zoe L.
What motivates you to do things is it money pride family and friends or self accomplishment. Yourself to do it that is what motivation is. Perhaps you wake up in the morning and your really tired and you don't want to go to school, however then you think my parents would want me to go and they would be disappointed if I didn't go so you go cause they motivated you to go. Motivation is a strong thing and has a huge impact on all of us, because a lot of us are scared of letting our loved ones down and hurting them or disappointing them. However it can also be for self accomplishment too and having pride in our actions and choices. Doing something we didn't want to but then we do it and and we feel self accomplishment. Not only can you have motivation at school but at work, am sure there has been some point in everyone's lives where they didn't want to go to work or didn't want to do something that was asked of you at work. something that motivates me when that happens is money if I don't go to work well then I wont get paid for that day and I make less money. However if I do go I get that money and when my paycheque comes out and I got paid for that day there is that feeling of self achievement again. Sports is another thing that we can get motivated for because you have to play sports outside and there are some days where its raining and cold outside and you don't want to go, then you think well if I didn't go I would be letting down my team and disappointing them because they need me we are a team. You go because you don't want to let them down and then you win and it feels so good that you went and were able to celebrate that victory with your team. Motivation is key to everything and really helps you in life. It helps you to do things that maybe you don't want to do but should or have to do. Its also great to be not only motivated by yourself but by your friends and family they help a lot to. Helping motivate others is fantastic too and something we all should do because we get farther in life by doing so. Makaela
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