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Motivation

It is the beginning of October, and my life is slowly becoming chaotic. I have 15 hours of class crammed into two days, volunteering 3-5 hours a week, am looking for a job that will allow me to work 12-16 hours a week, and am trying to maintain a social life between friends, family, and my boyfriend. Did I mention that midterms begin in two weeks?

Last May I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish over the summer. I was able to cross everything off of my list, except for one thing: "Rediscover motivation." It would have been great for me to accomplish that, as that is where I am currently struggling. My life would be so much easier if I had motivation. I already have the organizational skills, and the time to do everything.
So what does motivation consist of anyways? As much as I do not like to consult in Wikipedia, it actually has my favourite description of motivation: "Motivation is the activation of goal-oriented behavior. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic."

Pretty simple, right? I wish. Motivation is something one needs to have in order to get anything done. It is related to ones emotions, while yet remaining distinct. It is a drive. We are motivated to eat by our hunger, and the desire to live (although this is a more subconcious example of motivation and drive). I guess I struggle to motivate myself on a concious level. I am the one paying for my school work, I am the one that is in full control of my grades, and I am the one that has the power to create a decent schedule which to study and succeed within. So why don't I? I want to succeed, and I want to perform to the best of my abilities. Shouldn't that be motivation enough? I still fall short somehow.

I think for me, my problem is that I live off my life by what I feel. I am not meaning my emotions, as much as I am referring to what mood I am in. Although closely linked, my emotions and moods are not the same thing. It is kind of like when you get a craving. That is how I live my life. I wait for a craving to hit me. Which does mean that I do crave cleaning, working, and studying from time to time as much as I crave partying, reading, running, and watching movies. Strange as it may sound, it is the way I operate. So in order to motivate myself, does that mean I need to completely restructure the way I live my life?


Perhaps the reason I'm not motivating myself is because I don't want to risk failure. There have been times in my life where I strove to achieve something and worked hard at it, only to not succeed. Perhaps fear is what is holding me back from truly motivating myself to my full potential. Is it time for me to do some deep soul searching and possibly face my fear of failure?

I'm not entirely sure how I am going to end up going about motivating myself, but I have confidence that I will, and that I will in turn succeed. Maybe all I need is belief in myself. Or just a few swift kicks from my friends and those around me.

In case any of you are like myself and are struggling, there is a website called www.motivation123.com that has some interesting ideas. You can find some interesting information, without signing up (again, just realize it is limited). I think it is worth a look.

To myself and all of those surrounding me, best of luck. Maybe we need it, or maybe we just simply need to hold more faith in our abilities.

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