Tag Archives: motivation

New Things? Or Missed?

Every thought of mine, includes the potential there is something new, I don’t know … or something I have missed. I have these loop-around thoughts that keep rechecking everything I have written… everything I do. It’s an OC thing. Sometimes the re-evaluation runs rampant, and completely overwhelms me.

But then… there are those times when it leads me to new knowledge about myself. It’s not like a light bulb coming on… it takes a while to sink in. I have to look all around it. I have to understand what it means. And if I can do anything about it… sometimes it’s just not that big a deal. So what if the volume is always at an even number. It does not diminish my life. I will not spend time or effort trying to extinguish it.

Sometimes… it turns out to be very important. These can build up, to create new opportunities for me… even if small. Over time, I have found how to avoid things, or the outcome of those things… other than just avoidance. I’m back here aren’t I?

The process has been very slow. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way that have hurt my chances. But I really have got better!

I still lack the motivation to do things. Many days, I do very little. My motivation has gradually slipped away over the years. I haven’t got very far on this one. I think I am better … but I am nowhere near satisfied.

Soooo…I keep paying attention to those little things, and looking for what I may have missed… or what might be new. It is my own little spiral curriculum!

How to Motivate a Mountain

I may not actually be a mountain, but when it comes to getting me motivated, I am as much so.  I do not know how to motivate myself… worse, I do not know how Lori can motivate me to do things around here.

It is a difficult situation.  It comes back to the problem that I do not know what if feels like to be “happy”.  My psychiatrist and I talked about this.  My brain is confusing what might be “happy”, with the feeling of moving into depression.  Now that is for some later Blogs.

For now, the problem is how do I teach my brain to understand what is happening?  Success – that is what I need to experience more of.  Then I think it will get easier to motivate myself.

BUT for now, nothing is working!

Motivation is a Big Issue

I struggle to be motivated enough to much of anything most days.  And why should I do anything, when it usually goes wrong?  Or I end up hurting someone, or letting someone down?  So why is lack of motivation a problem?

At least those are some of the questions that run thru my mind.  There are many more…  But motivation is a huge issue for me.  Anxiety, depression, fears, and more all drain away what motivation I might start with.  At night, I do very well at planning what to do the next day.  That does not mean it will happen.  It usually doesn’t.

Once I get going, I can accomplish a lot.  I have a complete wood, and metal shop in the garage.  I can make most anything.  And I am fairly good at it too – I was a journeyman machinist for 4 years!  And I like making things.

But I have to get started.  And therein lies the catch.  I have spent the lion’s share of my life believing I can not succeed – no matter how well I plan, I will fail.  That is not a productive attitude.  I can intellectualize that is not true.  I do usually succeed.  But emotions and fears can swamp any logic I use.

So what do I do?  Usually I sort of wait to have the motivation just hit me.  The key there is to not ignore it, or give the negative feelings time to build up.  It works pretty well when things are all set to go.  The only real stopper here is when there are things I have to move, or clean up, or such before I can even start – that gives the negative feeling too much time to grow before I can actually start my project.

There is usually a very narrow window to getting started, and I have to be ready for it.  I am trying to learn how to recognize this situation, and how to look for, and be ready for acting when the mood does hit.

There are so many things to learn.  I feel as if starting about 8 years ago, I have been finally learning how to live with who I am.  It has gone very well at times, and not so well at others.  But all I can do is keep trying.  Motivation is a tough one because there are so very many thing that affect it.  I don’t often see things coming.

I have to just be ready for the feeling to hit at any time.  At least I don’t usually miss it.