Moving on.
This time of year always has me thinking about the start of the new year. It's almost like a have a month to prepare for my new life. The start of a new year makes me want to be a whole different person. I find myself saying things like "from this day forward..." or "after today I won't...." Yea, then nothing ever happens.
I have been focusing on my motivation (or rather, lack there of) lately. I'm starting to realize that motivation isn't something you necessarily have, rather, it is something you do. Recently on Facebook, I asked a general question about motivation: "Where do you find your motivation?" The answers that I received back, were not what I expected. The majority of people said that they just. do. it.
Maybe Nike is on to something-ha!
Of course there were some very good ideas for holding yourself accountable and self motivation, but the comment that was the most frequent was to just put one step in front of the other. Maybe this is something that a lot of other people don't struggle with, but it is definitely something I do. I am able to generate a lot of ideas for things that I would love to do. They sound great in my mind and I think "oh that should be easy!" but then, when I attempt my idea, it turns out to be easier said than done. The process usually ends with a lot of excuses as to why I didn't accomplish my task. Anyone else have this problem? Please tell me I'm not alone.
Slowly God is doing His work in me. He is showing me, at a pace that I can handle, that all of my excuses are empty ones. They have no substance. They may be fears, shortcomings, or just plain nonsense that I have developed in order to justify my lack of motivation. When you really don't want to do something, or something becomes hard, it's easy to find a reason not to. I often find myself asking if it is really worth my time or energy. Rationalizing an idea away can be quite easy.
Trust me, I'm an expert at it!
All my life I have been concocting all sorts of reasons why I can't accomplish my on going to-do list. I don't want to do this anymore. By second guessing myself and coming up with excuses, I'm left believing that I'm incapable of doing a lot of things that I can definitely do. It's almost paralyzing to some degree. I think enough is enough.
As this new year approaches, I have a new perspective. Not only to I want to focus on giving myself realistic tasks to accomplish, I also want to make sure that I'm not creating any excuses. I want to be sensible about what I want to tackle and set up a plan to finish those tasks. And when I start hearing myself make up excuses, I want to be able to immediately put an end to them. With a lot of prayer, focus, and understanding, I think 2014 will be completely different than 2013.
I'm excited! I'm excited to grow even more as a wife, mother, and follower of my heavenly Father. I'm excited to show my little boy how healthy his mom can be. I'm praying that God will continue to create in me the mother that my little boy deserves. I'm so thankful that through Him, and Him alone, I can be changed into an entire new person.
Thank you Lord for your amazing power and understanding.
P.S. These pictures have nothing to do with the content of this post, but you have to have pictures right?
This is a great post. And you're right about the pictures- I got a ton more followers when I started posting pictures, even if they had nothing to do with my blog post. Here are a few things that have helped me in the whole writing thing:
ReplyDeleteSubscriptions: I subscribe to Writers Digest (magazine) and Writer Unboxed (blog). A lot of their articles are about writing novels, but they do have some free-lancing/blogging advice. I'm sure there's some kind of blogging blog out there (hehe) and you may already subscribe, but those have really helped me better my craft.
Critique partners: My critique partners are invaluable. Whenever I finish a book, I send it off to a group of four ladies (all writers that I met at a conference) and they send it back with red ink all up and down the margins. I agree with some of it and I disagree with some of it, but it's made me a much better writer and editor.
Writing books: Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is wonderful. Just wonderful. Some of it's about writing fiction but most of it is just about writing. Stephen King's On Writing is good, too, but it's mostly about writing fiction.
A plan to get butt-in-chair: Do some crazy goal, like you will blog every day for a month. Or every weekday for a month. Or three days a week or whatever. Challenge yourself to meet that goal and then reward yourself when the month is up. Write out a list of possible blog topics so you're never stuck for material.
This is all assuming that you want to blog/write non-fiction. If you want to write fiction, more power to you! It's wonderful! ;) Try to get your hands on a copy of Writers Digest's January 2014 edition, the subtitle of which is, "Write Your Novel in 2014!"
All the best!
I have no advice...just wanted you to know I love that black and white family photo of you 3! :)
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