Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One of my favorite quotes was simply life isn't for everyone. There was a once a philosopher who justified suicide and then he justified life. He was brilliant until one day he couldn't justify life and killed himself. In your case, your thinking is simply in the hierarchy of needs. I wanna be fat and think about exercising to justify the excessive food intake. This is normal in the sense we have a lot of fat people who want to be thin but their desire to be fat outweighs the risk of being thin. I say risk because being fat insulates a person emotionally from feeling vulnerable if they were a healthy body weight.
There was another saying, do you live to eat or eat to live. I said, neither. I eat for sport and use self hatred to force myself to go to the gym so I won't get fat. I remind myself how weak I was for gorging on massive amounts of foods. After I finish my workout I forget the conversation I had in my head until the next time I overeat. I repeat the same process until it become so automatic, that I do not need to do it anymore. It's like classical conditioning with the exception that I am reconditioning myself to be healthy.
I'll take a swing at this. The activities that you mention above are all structured, very slow in progression, pragmatic, and "safe." I think that your sub-conscious mind is craving a more immediate and potent stimulus. However, your conscious mind doesn't know how to provide this and is actually more content being comfortable. So it's a constant struggle between craving comfort and "danger."
I'm starting to believe that everyone needs some sense of danger every now and again to feel alive. By danger I'm not necessarily talking about bungee jumping or skydiving, though for some people that is what it takes.
I'm not suggesting that you go out and take risks that could harm yourself or other people but maybe your life has become too "safe"?
I don't think that motivation can exist in a vacuum. Highly motivated people aren't getting their motivation from nothing. The more I study these people the more I find that they are transferring that "energy" from other sources. Sometimes the sources are neither pretty or considered healthy by society.
Some people are also good at achieving positive feedback from their actions which only gives them more power for, more actions.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed but merely converted from one form to another. I'm beginning to believe that this applies to human motivational energy as well.
I think I understand what you're saying, but where do you suggest one get the energy for motivation?
Maybe you had a lot of past lives and you are now "world-weary." Or, maybe you are just subtly chronically depressed/dysthymic.
Willing to try an experiment? Go off all entertainments/media for a few months. No movies, TV, pleasure reading, music, mindless internet surfing. It clears the mind wonderfully.
Read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.You seem to be stuck in imagining yourself in future scenarios---rehearsing the future---rather than facing who you are now.
The bold portion is strikingly accurate. I believe I've read that book, but it might be worth another read.
I think you need some short term goals to help you develop a habit of following through. Let me ask you this. Do you make your bed every morning? What does your car look like? Is it a complete mess all the time? Do you have regular habits such as cleaning house? Or organizing your personal items, etc. Anything you do on a consistent basis other than going to work?
I don't make my bed, but that's because I don't care what it looks like. Its purpose is to be a place to sleep. I do clean, but it's not regimented in any way. When my place gets messy, I clean it.
my two cents,,,,we take the path of least resistance(towards comfort)
I believe the first step in the most difficult, but once its taken, it gets easier
try a slow comforting step, like combining a comfort zone with exercise, listen to your fav music while working out- think at first, just 15 minutes, thats it,,,,just 15 mins,,,, every other day, then increase when you start to feel better
Your premise is flawed, at least in my case. It's not starting I have a problem with. I've started all kinds of stuff. It's sticking with the program that I struggle with.
Probably time to remind you of something you may have lost sight of.
Human Beings have an incredible knack of identifying things that change, out of place, out of sequence. At out core our best survival tool is the game of "whats wrong with this picture?" The downside to this is that in order to "play this game well" our ground of being needs to be relatively stable and unchanging. For this reason we tend to have an instinctive resistance to change. In fact this instinct is so strong that when we cross paths with someone who is constantly changing things, we tend to view that as a Pathology and we tend to keep distance between ourselves and that person.
To answer your question, your resistance to change is perfectly normal. Even if you KNOW that something is good for you and will improve the quality of your life, you will tend to resist participating in that activity because it will require you to accept change that you instinctively resist. This is why most people will advise you NOT to think about it (IE. "Just do it") or to join a group of people (IE a club, a gym) that is attempting the same change.
The ability or willingness to accept change is set when people are very young ("Give me a child before they are 7 and they are mine for life."--the Jesuits) and without coaching becomes more entrenched as you get older. No real point....just some thoughts.......
FWIW.
I don't disagree with any of that, I just need to find a way to overcome it.
I don't make my bed, but that's because I don't care what it looks like. Its purpose is to be a place to sleep. I do clean, but it's not regimented in any way. When my place gets messy, I clean it.
I was asking because if you want to make following through with long term goals a habit, you need to start with short term goals. It will give you the fulfillment of completing something. But you have to think of some short term goals that you want to accomplish. I think it is a valuable goal to live in a neat house. I never used to make my bed either. But for me it was a way to begin setting those goals.
I participate in another forum for folks who have varying degrees of difficulty keeping house - some are in very serious squalor others just have somewhat messy homes.
One of the main recurring ideas there is that Motivation Follows Action, not the other way around. Waiting for inspiration will get one nowhere. Doing even the first tiny step does make a difference.
Perfectionism is also often a problem for people who know exactly what they "should" be doing and know how to do it but don't get going. Learning how to do something without striving for perfection is a big challenge. Better to try doing whatever it is in some limited way - deciding to exercise a little bit once a week and achieving that goal - then after a few weeks upping it to twice a week. Developing new habits and routines over time does work.
One think that worked for me was to change the words I used. Chores were boring and tedious but for me doing a Task did not have the same feeling. I also came to realize that when I backslide that I should not think of it as Starting Over but to think of it as simply Continuing where I left off - even if I had done almost nothing for two weeks and my house had gotten messier. I didn't need to feel guilty about my failure - I had stopped doing what I had been doing and now I was picking up where I left off.
I hope this may give you some new perspectives to consider.
I find that on my most productive days, I wake up early and start doing and simply do not stop. If I stop, take a break, look at my Facebook, turn on the TV or open up a book I'm reading...I won't get back up and moving again. So if I have a lot to do, I just don't give myself the chance.
If there are specific things I MUST do that day, I might spend time leading up to the day planning it, making a list. Wake up, brew coffee, and carry my coffee cup around as I do this, that and the other thing. Don't think too far ahead, just put one foot in front of the other.
Also it seems easier for me to build good routines early in the morning. Every day I straighten my bed (not perfect, but the covers are pulled straight) and then fold laundry on it and put it away, do any other housework I can see that needs doing, and basically busy about until a specific time (6:30) when I have to stop and get ready for work. I'm up by 5AM doing this. It feels amazing to start the day empowered by exerting some control over things that need done.
I know that many other people go walking or jogging early in the morning, too. I think there is just something about being active at a ridiculously early hour...
Or you may need accountability. You might actually need another person to answer to, someone who will call on you and take the lead in activities like this. First of all, I'd suggest you actually pay someone for guitar lessons. Yes you could teach yourself online for free. But you won't! If you have someone expecting you to show up and learn, that might change things. And there is a reason that the world has personal trainers who are paid to motivate individuals to exercise. Not everyone is a self-starter.
If you can't find the will in yourself, you could perhaps find it through another person. There is no fault in this. Many people mesh with a partner and both become stronger.
Make sure they are not just like your own personality. You don't want to reinforce procrastination or other undesirable traits. Maybe choose someone with a lot of fire signs?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
