A little Motivation

Do you feel so down that the only thing that can lift your spirits is eating a chocolate cake? Then by all means do eat it already! Then get up and keep moving. I know it sounds so easy to tell someone; eat the cake then get going! What if they can not afford that cake to begin with? What if they do not have it in them to keep going? What do you do at that moment when you have no or little motivation to keep going?

When faced with a challenge in life, the first instinct is to fight back, be defensive and protect yourself. But you soon realise that you can only fight back so much. After that, you feel drained, less motivated and almost always you want to give up.

The feeling of giving up can be so strong that it outweighs any other rational thought. It is okay to rest at that point. Take a break, draw yourself out of the situation for a while and focus on other areas of your life. You will realise that when you take that break, after a while, you will get clarity on the matter at hand. Perhaps, an idea of how you can face that challenge comes to mind, perhaps, you will get help from somewhere that you least expect.

Is it okay to give up all together? Life presents us with many choices. The challenges that you face are not unique to you, someone else in the world has gone through a similar situation and they either overcame it or gave up. Before you give up, it is important to carefully consider all the choices that are presented to you in regard to your situation. Then make an informed decision. Is it that easy? Of course not.

There was a time in my life I was going through a tough period. Nothing was working for me. Everything that I tried, which I thought would help me, did not work. Things were really bad. I was discouraged, I felt beaten and down trodden. I felt that there was no help around me, as a result, I did not reach out for help for fear of being judged and misunderstood. I therefore chose the easy way out at that time for me. I gave up. Was it a good idea? No it was not. Did my giving up give me any sense of relief, no. It did not. If anything, It just made things worse for me.

I was then faced with dealing with the consequences of giving up, which I admit was not pretty. But consequences, I dealt with bravely. Would I have done things differently at that time when I looked back, yes of course. One of those things was to reach out for help, which I didn’t.

What am saying is, life presents you with choices. Giving up is one of the choices. Don’t give up, choose those choices that seem less favorable to you. Choices that will make you feel you will be judged if you ask for help, choices that will not be an easy path if you take, choices that will require you to work a little extra hard, choices that will make you get out of your comfort zone. Make a choice that you know, is a tough call and yet it will give you the desired results that you need in order to keep moving.

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – JK Rowling, Harry Porter and the Chamber of Secrets.