Motivation: drive or drivel?

We all lack the motivation for something sometimes, why is that? Mostly we lose the motivation at work, to do household chores, to visit family we’re not too terribly fond of, to go to a particular party or event. What makes motivation ‘drive’ or ‘drivel’?

A good friend of mine has lost motivation at her work a long time ago. She works in a bureaucratic institution and she told me her boss is a twit. She has no support from her colleagues at work. The directors seem to be taking work away from her, instead of giving her other tasks. The only reason she is there everyday is the paycheck she knows will help her family. She goes through ups and downs trying to keep going until she can pursue another career. How do we cope with being in an environment we do not feel to be inspiring? How much of that feeling do we contribute ourselves? How much of the depressing atmosphere is in fact of our own making? Is it no wonder people react to us the way they do if we’re in a negative state of mind a lot of the time?

Truth is: our attitude towards life (and work) is our own. I have found this even with my work. I really like my work and go through periods of inspired action but also through ones with tedious tasks where I wonder what the heck I’m accomplishing. I think everyone has these periods. I always find that it’s my own decision in fact to not let work or life inspire me. I may have been tired for a while, frustrated at lack of progress or amount of work.

Naturally the odds can be stacked against us or we can blame the recession again. This is called the easy way out. We did however choose to be in this life or work situation so why not stop complaining about it and change things up to the point you can? It’s easy to keep going on and on about a situation and bore your friends and family to tears. How about finding out what it is you can do within the limitations? Truth is others DO NOT care to hear about your complaints or worries. It’s not interesting. Just keep it to yourself and talk about something else instead. It works for me. Focus on what DOES work and what is fun. There’s always SOMETHING and the funny thing is: once you’ve changed your mind things start taking off again. They always do. It can happen in just a few seconds.

What you give attention to grows, what you give energy to expands. You might as well give your energy and attention to positive developments. If that all seems too trying think of this: there are so many people out there surviving on crummy wages and doing mundane activities yet they make the best of it. Most of us should be ashamed to rabbit on about how much 'hard work' our life is. My friend Miranda is happy to be getting up at 5 am every day and doing cleaning work at 6 am every day as she knows it will help her clear negative finances. She is on a mission and proud of it and so am I. The benefit of her work is that she has met a lot of new people that will become new clients to her in future. She sees it as an opportunity to do relationship building, in which she is very good. So out of something that could be uninspiring to the max, she has found a blessing.

So I guess my point is: all of us have a winge now and again. Once or twice is fine, but then it’s time to stop. Just make sure you realize you’re turning into a boring person if you keep at it and it’s not helping yourself at all. I got to the point when I had enough of listening to my inner jabber. I was disappointed with my own attitude. I tend to be a positive person and I was starting to depress myself. Then I had enough. Snap out of it before you stop liking yourself I thought. It worked.

Work is not life but it fills most of our day. We might as well love it. This is your life and your choice. Don’t wait for someone else to give you a solution, it won’t happen. Bugs Bunny is not going to visit and ask you how you’re feeling. Surprise yourself and others by being kind to them and asking them about THEIR day. It’s not all about you, it never was. Make someone else’s day better and you’ll see that your own will start to improve as well. "Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-That's all folks!"

I received a lovely email from my friend Steve as response to my post:

"The main reason that motivation is hard or difficult to generate is that people do not get disturbed enough to change where they are at. With the example of ones job is their pay check and nothing else is more than likely that ones life outside the general 9 to 5 work day is this is all there is. This example unfortunately descibes the hypnotised robotic existance that is most of our lives. Statements like I get to go to work can change ones perspective and how you can look at the earning cycle. What is the earning cycle? Well lets break it down to needs and wants. Needs: we need to house ourselves, feed ourselves and clothe ourselves with the latter a more recent modern concept. Out side of these things there are wants so after we pay rent or mortgage, put adequate food on the table and make sure that we are coverd up appropriately when in public we have whatever is left. Maybe for a car, boat, fast motorcycle a holiday home, a cup of coffee from the local cafe. These are wants. Due to our wanting for something different(work conditions) something more (better pay) something extra (better service) we find ourselves in a state of disatisfaction. We feel that we have no choice. We think that by changing jobs that things will change and sometimes they do but not always.One las thing regading wants is, we all want to be happy and joyful and this can only really come from within. That mindset that when I do this or have that I will be happy. This is far from the truth as we still continue to look for that which will give us what we need from outside of ourselves, when the real truth is when we have different thoughts about something our perception changes and we have now the power to feel good."

Steve

Paperwork and the story of Health

I have been accused of not liking paperwork. This is true. Paperwork is a necessity of the modern life. Even though I can appreciate its practical effect then it doesn’t have to mean I have to love it. I am the one doing the bookkeeping at home. Why? Because my dear one wanted me to learn how to do book keeping and to keep an eye on our finances. “It would be good for me”. Sigh. Thanks dear.

A while ago Nico and I had to re examine our health insurance. We were with a company that we thought was professional and good. Truth is; how the heck do you know? You read the small print and then get too bored to pay proper notice. You hope for the best, pay your premium and forget about it.

I met Jason our insurance broker through a business network and no, we didn’t have income protection. Why would we need it? We’re in our 30s, young, healthy etc and so forth and didn’t see a need for it. We naively thought that if we needed an appendix taken out that the Dunedin hospital would look after that. Now that idea would need revisiting we were politely told. I had the distinct impression that we had been missing out on doing something very clever. And I hate missing out.

I told Nico that it would be a good idea for Jason to go over our insurance stuff. As Jason happily went through our data a week later and showed me spreadsheets and impressive understandable data, I wondered how come we always think of these things when it’s usually too late. Jason showed me an independent study which listed companies that are walking the talk (or not) and being the best qualified in the market. The results showed which ones would pay out more if we got slightly flattened by a truck. I was also told that women are more expensive to insure then men which surprised me.

Jason doesn’t always advise his potential clients to change companies. Every situation is different. What IS important is to insure wisely. Nico and I both have income protection now which ensures that if one of us suddenly departs this world or gets sick for an extended period of time, that we are looked after financially and therefore medically. Jason’s company Finluca Services helps to make sure people are not being ripped off and that they are also not being over insured. (http://www.qualityliving.co.nz/)

Why Jason likes to wade through all the papers is beyond me but I’m happy he has done this for us. We are now officially ‘sorted’ and I can go back stuffing the paperwork in a folder and forgetting about it but at least I earned the right to do so.

Vacation?

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”
(Seth Godin, in his latest book ‘Tribes, We need you to lead us.’)

People have the tendency to not make themselves responsible for their own lives. “No my boss made me work overtime and I hate what I do anyway so it all sucks” “My husband wants me to lose weight and that’s why I come to the pool every day to swim” “He never listens to me and I don’t feel happy in our relationship”. See what I mean?

Yes it’s human to have a good whine to someone else and say boohoo my life is so boring, tough, hard, difficult, lonely, unsuccessful, stressful, unsatisfying or un-fun (if you feel that way, that is). Problem is that IT DOESN”T MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER to say these things to other people. Have you realized that?

I was feeling tired last week and had a whinge to my poor mum on the phone. It was so annoying! Basically I wanted a cuddle and for someone to say all right you lovely get of your bottom and get on with it. This is enough and you don't want to act this way. It’s fine to realize I had landed in the old trap again of wanting to achieve too much but the side effects are that it gives me the frusty dusties. So I decided to snap out of it before I had a chance to get the fever of the poor-me-disease. It’s no fun for people around me and it doesn’t get us anywhere EVER.

Right, here’s the recipe for battling boohoo-ness:

a) Give yourself a hug or ask your partner to provide you with a cuddle. (Take it easy on yourself)
b) Find out why you are feeling down, depressed, tired, disappointed, angry etc. Talk about it or write it down. Don’t take it out on others, find a boxing ball instead.
c) Start a diary; write things down often to get it out. That or see a therapist/counselor regularly. (I write this blog and find that helpful, if it’s very personal I write it in my own diary)
d) Start exercising, it gets the stress beasties out of your body and it’s good for the brain. Eat well to compensate for energy loss until you build up more stamina.
e) Team up with a good friend to establish your goals and follow up every week on progress. Share.
f) Don’t desire to do too much (I do and by crikey I’m a hard learner…) and nip perfectionism in the bud. It’s a right killer.
g) Don’t do ANYTHING someone else wants you to unless you want to do it also. Motivation goes down the gurgler if you persist and it causes resentment.
h) Practice your sense of humor. Remember to LAUGH. (Once we were funny, hang on how did it go again?)
i) Take up a weekly hobby or sport that makes you very happy. I absolutely LOVE dancing.
j) See friends and hang out. Enjoy dinners and playing with their kids.
k) Allow yourself to be lazy at times (this I find very hard, sleep in? Like WHEN?)
l) Stick to your new plan! Yeehaaaaaaa. = victory.

The truth is this:
Being grateful creates happiness. Appreciate what IS there, let go of how you think it SHOULD be. And: be patient, things will fall into place. Hang the frust dusty jacket or give it to charity.

DIY or getting a specialist

Are you often wondering as well whether to tidy up your garden or have a guy come in to mow the grass and kill the weeds? My husband and I have had discussions in the past about our lifestyle block. What shall we do with all the paddocks and what are we going to put where?

To be honest I am always very happy to get someone on board who knows more about a specific topic then I do. This is because of two reasons:
1.) I like delegating (love it!) and 2.) I have a tendency to not want to rack my brains about things I know are way out of my league.

When I met Stefan Mutch, our landscape architect, I knew straight away I met a guy who knows his stuff. He showed me designs he had done and as a creative, I was impressed. Presto! I thought: no more discussing trees and paddocks and what natives to plant where and going over details that make my head hurt. Great! Please hand me my glass of wine thanks very much.

So we started off with a wee chat on the land and Stefan visited us and got onto it. He started describing his ideas with great gusto and we started to picture his Grand Vision for our modest block of green. Nico my husband was listening to him with a little sceptical glare in his eyes at first because of all this excitement but got into it when Stefan kicked it up a notch. He started to 'paint' the way the new driveway could go and how that would improve the privacy of our block and the setting of the house. True, it’s easier to move a driveway then a house of bricks and also it would give our house that ‘sitting on a hill nestling in the trees look’ satisfyingly snoring in the sun. I was straight away sold on the whole concept from start to finish. Brilliant!

It took another session of convincing my DIY husband that yes, Stefan was the expert not us and that yes its worthwhile investing in a professional who actually knows what he is doing. Why? Because 1.) Peace of mind as he does the working out what goes where and 2.) More time on our hands to deal with other stuff and to actually have time to go to the beach.

Isn’t life great? Don't you just love professionals...

Procrastinating

Procrastinating: being wary of the inevitable and making life easier in brackets by sticking your head in the sand. Also look up; denial, blissful forgetfulness and pussy footing.
The famous To Do list. (Ewww ….. scary like cooties)

How to deal with this?
Advice I received through an inspiring read:
Make a list and start with the To Dos putting the ones you resent or hate most at the top. This way, the further down the list you get the easier things are and the more your day improves! Great idea. I tried this in the weekend and I have to say that after window cleaning (inside and out and we own a 4 bedroom) it wasn’t too bad. I got plenty of other activities of my list as well and once the late afternoon rolled round I had perked up realizing that yes! I had conquered the procrastinating bug. Jolly golly me! It worked!

I also have a small agenda that contains the To Dos. Why? Because I used to write them on post its that got lost in my handbag and I conveniently forgot about them thus creating marital problems.
How to avoid marital problems:

Write stuff down and do it, otherwise you’re toast, dead duck a l’Orange, ultimately unrecognizably parked in a very small room at the local Morgue. You get my drift.
“Just do it”

Uhuh…