Giving 100% until you have an answer

Last year while flipping channels, I  caught an interview with Baron Wolman, the first photographer for Rolling Stone Magazine on PBS’s Roadtrip Nation. I was captivated by his candid answers and his enthusiasm and somewhat surprised at how inspired I felt from such a brief segment.  Now, every time I watch it again online I feel renewed energy and a need to keep going past mediocre until one extreme or the other is reached

One particular piece of advice stuck out the most:   ‘you’ve got to give it 100% and really, really try until it works or it doesn’t.’ I think we are all inclined to forecast current mediocre results as an imminent sign of failure instead of just what is – in the middle.  That’s not the time to give up, nor is it time to hedge your bets by splitting your energy and your commitment.

You can watch the six minute clip here: www.roadtripnation.com/BaronWolman

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, how to stay motivated, taking risks

How to get yourself motivated quickly and actually get things done

Motivation isn’t just necessary for the big things, like climbing mountains or swimming with sharks. It’s also critical for getting the small, but necessary, things out of the way so that mountain climbing can be more than a dream. In my experience a lack of action is often tied to a being overwhelmed with either the possibilities or the size of a task, and rarely due to a lack of desire.  After all if you didn’t have any desire (at least for the result), would the task or project even be on your radar? Probably not.

Unexpected free time

Most of us have thought at some point, ‘if only I had two more hours, I’d…’  Have you ever had the gift of unexpected time, and then wasted it by wandering around wondering what to do first?   For example, the power goes out at work and you’re sent home early, another parent unexpectedly offers to keep your kids for the afternoon, etc., how many projects or chores would be first on your list?  The idea is so delicious to most of us that it’s like trying to pick only one kind of candy in a candy store. But before you know it, the free time has expired and you feel guilty for wasting the opportunity.  To get past that inertia of too many choices, as fun as it can be:

1. Give yourself five minutes to make a list of the most important things to get done
2. Look over the list and see if you have everything you need for each one. Cross out the ones that don’t meet this criteria.  For example, if the power goes out and you can’t work on the computer, ironing probably isn’t going to be feasible either, but writing a letter to your aunt probably is.
3. Pick one of the remaining items on the list and just jump in and start.  It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t get completely done or if you start thinking that something else should have had higher priority.  This was unexpected free time, not a contest, so getting traction on anything is a bonus.

Overwhelmed by chores

Last winter I had a bad cold that kept me in bed for two solid weeks; when I emerged the house was a disaster. The dishes had piled up as had the laundry. Dust kitties had set up small cities, the weeds in the garden caught the scent of chaos and well, you get the idea.  The choice of where to start when there is so much demanding your immediate attention can be equally paralyzing as sudden free time and enough to send anyone back to bed in the hopes that the problems will disappear on their own.  It rarely works to take that approach, but neither does diving in and going full tilt until you fall back exhausted and defeated.

The best strategy is to divide whatever needs to be done into small chunks of either time or task.  So, if there are a lot of dishes to do, wash one sink-full or one washer load and then move on to something else like putting in one hour of weeding.  Be sure to put breaks into your routine and a few small rewards, like sitting down with a cup of tea.  Eventually it will all get done and probably faster than you were thinking when staring at the enormity of it all.

A major change in habits

It sounds so simple when someone says they want to get in shape or get healthy or spend more time together as a family.  Not necessarily easy to accomplish, but any of these things sound like the tasks are straightforward and all that’s lacking is motivation.  However, all of these things, and several others, are multi-habit changes.  Take getting healthy for example.  That’s probably going to involve changing shopping habits, cooking habits, eating habits, exercising habits, time management habits, stress response habits, and on and on.  No wonder people try to dive in and find themselves falling off the bandwagon. It’s just too much to tackle all at once without a team of professionals always at your side.

In these situations, you can get and keep your motivation by changing just one habit at a time.  Start with the very next thing that will be coming up in your normal schedule like grocery shopping. Get your desired changes in place for a couple of weeks and then start working on cooking at home with calories and portion size in mind.  Habits don’t change over night no matter how badly we want them to.  Be proud of yourself for changing even one habit for the better. It takes time and consistent use of the new habit to well, make it a habit and not something you have to think about.

Particularly when it comes to weight loss, be careful of setting yourself pass/fail tests and rewards, like losing x amount of weight for a big event, if that kind of project doesn’t stay on track it’s likely to backfire.

The scary or distasteful tasks in big goals

No matter what the dream, there are probably some parts of accomplishing it that aren’t all that fun.  It could be getting up too early to go running or my personal least favorite, cold calling for information. It doesn’t really matter what it is, what matters is if procrastination over the unpleasant or terrifying tasks is keeping you from moving forward.

If this is where you need motivation, the trick is to break the task down into the smallest possible actions and then tackle them one at a time.  So if I need some information from someone that I’ve never met, finding the company website is one task, obtaining the phone number is the second, making an appointment with myself to make the call is the third. If it’s getting up early, then deciding on the time might be the first task (is it 4:30 am  or 5:00?)  Then setting the alarm but not making yourself get up and then getting up at that hour but not going outside to run. There may be days when you can two or three sub tasks done like getting up and going running but don’t pressure yourself if it takes a week – that’s almost certainly faster than you were getting there before!

Need even more tips?  Here’s an entire blog on the subject of motivation.

Technorati Tags: feeling overwhelmed, motivating yourself, taking action

Inspiration from irritation

As I’ve been working the kinks out of this site, I’ve been learning some interesting things about myself.  I get really embarrassed by what I see as completely avoidable errors; I found six broken links that were broken because I had copied the html code incorrectly. An easy and human kind of mistake and completely fixed within an hour. I’m still struggling with feeling like I should have focused more on those details; never done it in the first place or caught it sooner!

As I was messing around with all the online tools I also solved a mystery.  A handful of people have been putting my name in search engines, going to my photography site which has my name as the domain (www.julietchase.com) and then leaving immediately.  I could tell the latter because the average time on site was around 1 second. Ouch!  It’s hard not to be flattered by strangers googling you, but then for them to leave without even looking at my work?

How would you feel if an adult film actress had recently changed her name to yours?

Quite.  I’d probably be more irritated if I didn’t laugh picturing men with umm, certain expectations suddenly staring at landscapes and flowers! No wonder they left so quickly. But on another level, it made me realize that little mistakes are going to happen and what I’m not doing may actually be more serious. There’s a lot more I could be doing to promote my business and thereby dominate the search results for my own name. Instead of feeling defensive, I’m feeling inspired to go the extra mile and keep working to hit that tipping point.

As part of that I’ve been thinking about how to make this site’s content more meaningful and consistent. I thought I’d start by doing more posts and trying to structure them a little more to the days of the week so Inspiration & Motivation on Mondays, Tools & Exercises on Tuesdays, Humor & Fun on Wednesdays, Books on Thursdays, and continuing my Journal on Fridays.  For now I’ll continue to take the weekends off. However, if there are things you aren’t finding out there in the great wide world of the web, I’d be interested in hearing about them.  Maybe that’s the missing link! I need all the help I can get on this mission:-)

I’m curious to know if something similar has happened to anyone else? Or what you would do if you suddenly found yourself sharing your name like this?

Technorati Tags: challenges, Importance of Motivation, inspiration from unusual sources, tipping point

The need for instant gratification

Today I found myself yearning for instant gratification and feedback. I’d been brave and dived into the template code to add the “subscribe by email” link in the header. You probably didn’t notice that it wasn’t there yesterday, but it wasn’t.  After nudging it around a little so that it fit in with the other header links I found myself really wanting a hundred people to instantly show up and use it.

They probably will over time but when? I have no way of knowing and that leaves me uncertain that it was even worth doing. It’s not hard to find people placing the blame for the need for instant gratification on the fault of the new millennium, new technology, too much money or what have you.  I think it has more to do with the speed of change and the confidence that comes with repetition.  Growing a garden is never the same thing twice, but after you’ve done it awhile you have a general sense of the sequence of things; approximately how long before you can claim the seeds will not sprout and will need to be replanted or whether it’s realistic to pull a test carrot to see what’s up under  ground.  But you don’t know any of that the first time you try it. Probably in a year from now if I were to do this again I wouldn’t even blink until a month(?) had passed, but by then if I were to start a new website all the other variables are likely to have changed significantly.

So much of our lives now are spent on ‘first times’ from blogging and social networking media to new cell phones with new buttons and beyond.  I love the constantly changing modern world as much as the next person although I admit I wouldn’t mind some of the confidence that comes from repeating an experience occasionally.  I take a certain amount of comfort in knowing that nobody else really knows the answer either.  They hand out their best guess and advice but if they’re really making an effort they’re as uncertain of the outcome as the rest of us. At least that levels the playing field and we all have the same chance to become experts!

Technorati Tags: dealing with change

The energy for change often comes from adversity

I remember the moment I decided to take charge of my own unhappiness instead of just hoping that something would come along to fix it.  It was a few months after 9/11 when I was working for a large software company famous for its testosterone-driven management style.  Not surprisingly they were having trouble retaining female employees so they decided to offer a series of  forums open only to women. I think it was supposed to make us happier with our lot or something. I only remember two things the first speaker said; one was to take $50 in $1 bills and scatter them in your sock drawer so that every morning you’d feel wealthy (don’t knock it ’til you try it:-)  and the other was that if your manager is publicly undermining you in meetings you need to quit because that’s an unfixable situation.  So I did. It took a few months to work up the courage but I did it and I didn’t have another job lined up.

Then I got the speaker’s slim book from the library and ping-ponged through recommended reading lists until I started to realize the difference between a real dream and a rescue fantasy. I doubt I would have done any of that, or attended that talk if I’d just been mildly discontented.  I don’t think my story is unique; it seems generally true that peaks are paired with valleys.  The more extreme the valley the higher the potential peak.  Avoidance  will result in no pulse; an even line of endurance often masked with Prozac (at least in the case of some of those software colleagues.)

So if, or rather when, you find yourself in the valley of adversity, let the frustration and the hurt and anything else negative that might be happening fuel you towards positive change.  Look at it as starting from the bottom and just open your ears  and your mind to new inputs.  Check your library listings, community centers, and the local Y for free talks.  Walk into the library and just browse the shelves to see what catches your eye.  Discretely eavesdrop on conversations on the bus. Actively seek to be listening but let the answers come of their own volition. As long as you aren’t looking for justification for staying down you are bound to find some nugget of advice, some quotation or idea that get your juices flowing again. It probably won’t involve anything  quite as drastic as quitting a job, but you’ll know what’s right for you because it will germinate and take root.  It will stay with you until you take the appropriate action.

Technorati Tags: challenges, difficult people, how to find happiness, Importance of Motivation

Celebrate the Vernal Equinox

Spring comes to the northern hemisphere this weekend (March 20th).  For those of you that don’t keep track, the equinox is when there is an equal amount of daylight and darkness.  From the equinox to the summer solstice (June 21st) the days will get longer and longer, by just a handful of seconds each day.

It’s Nature’s perfect example of making great strides in small steps.  So pick something that you really want to do more of like reading to your kids, walking in the neighborhood, or emailing your friends and follow the sun. Add just a tiny bit each day; one more paragraph, one more page, one more house on the next block.  In just three months you may not recognize how far you’ve come until you compare it against where you started… and then it will be Summer.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, baby steps, relationships, routine, setting goals, time management

A little daily electronic encouragement with Notes from the Universe

I’m not a big fan of having ‘stuff’ show up in my email inbox on a daily basis.  Even if I’ve signed up for it, often as not I’ve relegated it to the spam filter within a month because they pile up or require too many clicks.  But not always. There is something about the Notes from the Universe that is appealing in the quirky encouragement they offer.  After a year I still find myself looking forward to it each morning (Monday through Friday) like the fortune cookie with a Chinese meal. Sometimes they’re eerily on target, other times not, but never depressing and so far they haven’t repeated.

Maybe it’s just having a positive anonymous perspective to put on things but it does seem to help face down the daily challenges and discouragements.  Be sure to scan down the email to the punchline (below the advertising.) There is always that last little garnish that many people miss – I suppose it’s to get you to read the advertising but just scroll down to the same spot quickly!

Technorati Tags: abundance, encouragement, everyday moments, uplifting

« Previous Page