Last night I was rambling on to my husband about several assorted events from earlier in the day when I accidently rambled onto the fact that I lack self-motivation.
When I was in school I found the necessary drive to complete projects and study for tests based on deadlines and dates that were imposed by teachers/professors. When I'm at work, I tend to be motivated by the fact that people are watching me and I have goals and deadlines to meet and therefore, I'll kill myself to make sure things are all hunky-dory. If I'm planning a party or I know people are coming over, I'm a mad woman trying to clean my home to perfection. Yet, when it's a deadline imposed by me for me, it just doesn't seem to bare as much weight, unless someone else is involved.
The good news--I think I've figured this all out.
First of all, I love myself. If I let myself down, I know I'll forgive myself. I always do. Case-in-point: A few months ago I was inspired to get into really good shape over the summer. Since I live in the middle of nowhere I decided to order several workout DVDs, because driving to the gym just wasn't an option and being a first order procrastinator, I'd find a reason not to make the trip. Once the DVDs arrived I had planned on doing the videos every weekday, taking Saturdays and Sundays to relax. At first, things were going great. I was alternating my cardio workout video with my ab video and I could not have been more pleased. However, after about two weeks of this, and not even a full two weeks (I refuse to do the cardio video if my husband is at home because I know I look like Denise Richards on Dancing with the Stars) I stopped doing the videos pretty much all together. I was so disappointed in myself, but being an old softy (literally and figuratively) I just let it go, telling myself as I looked at my less than perfect abdominal region in the bathroom mirror, that I don't look that bad.
Besides loving myself, which in my opinion, is completely healthy, I have decided with all the stress I put on myself to live up to other's standards, why should I waste any extra motivation I have stored up on things I'm just going to forgive myself for later? For instance, when I first got married (which wasn't that long ago) I tried to make our bed everyday because I thought it was important to my husband. My husband's family is obsessively neat. His mother vacuum's the floors almost everyday, she doesn't own an automatic dishwasher because she would rather do it herself, and everyone under her roof makes his bed everyday. I admire her ability to do such day in and day out. I hate to vacuum and I'm lucky if I get to it once a week. I can't live in a house without a dishwasher because I'm afraid of putting my hands in dirty dishwater (there's food particles floating around in there!) and I've never made my bed everyday-- except when I was in college.Making the bed everyday started out great, but I one day I didn't find the time to do it and my husband didn't seem to mind-- he didn't even notice. Soon I noticed that the mornings where he was the last one out of bed, he didn't make the bed-- he did not even attempt to make the bed! I realized that if he did not care about the bed, then why should I? After all, just getting out of the bed and getting dressed takes pretty much all the motivation I can muster. I soon got over the bed making thing.
Of course, I'm motivated to do the things I like to do. I never have much trouble finding the will to read a book, watch a TV show, or do a little Internet shopping. I'm afraid that this all comes down to an ugly four letter word--LAZY. As bad as I hate the word and all that it implies, could it be that I'm lazy? At best only a few people realize that I have a tendency to be that way. Most of my colleagues, former professors and teachers, even my closest friends and acquaintances would never guess me for a sloth because I work too hard at work, I'm too organized and put together with my projects, and my house is always too neat for when people come over.
In actuality lazy or not, motivated or burnt out, we should all say a quick prayer for my poor husband, the guy who probably thought I was the type of girl the made her bed everyday.
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