Tag Archives: Motivation

Winging it…..

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Today I was very organised.  For me.  

I got up early to switch on my laptop and check that the Powerpoint presentation I had carefully prepared last week looked as good as when I switched off on Friday, in readiness for a two-hour talk to professionals and foster carers about drug use and young people.  To my utter horror, I couldn’t open it.  I had saved it to the wrong drive and the only way I could access it was if I docked the laptop in at work.  No time to go into the office as I had to be in another part of the county in 45 minutes time!!

Fortunately, I had printed off a copy of the slides with the idea that I would jot down some notes over the weekend.  That didn’t happen, obviously, but I did at least have the text I had carefully prepared before me, so I hurriedly typed out another set of slides, jumped into the car and arrived with seconds to spare.  The new Powerpoint presentation lacked the pretty patterns and font that the original had sported but it saw me through the two-hour talk I had to give. Nobody was any the wiser and I managed to appear knowledgeable, professional and confident to all those present.

I thought I had stopped doing that.  Leaving it to the last minute, I mean.  I have got much better in recent years at preparing myself for things.  (I think that comes from living with Mr OCD actually!!) but it has certainly taught me that life is so much easier if you plan ahead.

On the other hand, I actually think I perform better when I leave it all to the last minute.  I get an adrenalin rush from the panic that, I believe, fuels my creativity.  I could be called (and indeed have been called) a procrastinator. I leave things and leave things, choosing to do anything and everything rather than the task at hand until there really isn’t any other option but to do it.  But is this procrastination?  Or is it simply ‘doing other things’?  I prefer to think of it as the latter.  I still manage to pull it out of the bag and it must work for me as I have successfully completed a degree and a masters using this technique….

A tutor on a management course I attended told us there are two types of people – ‘steppers’ and ‘squigglers’.  The steppers follow a set pattern to achieve a deadline, whereas the ‘squigglers’ appear to be all over the place in the process of getting there.  Both arrive in the end.  The steppers find it harder to deal with a setback in their well laid plans whereas the squigglers never had a plan in the first place so can carry on regardless.  That’s not to say it’s plain sailing for the squigglers.  Leaving things to the last minute leaves no room for error.  But that’s quite exciting, really.  Isn’t it?

Isn’t it??

 

 

What I Love #1

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I think I can include this next post under the LOVE heading.  It is, after all, something I love…..It could have fitted in nicely with last month’s theme too though, of motivation.  But I wasn’t actually doing it then so it will be fine here…..

What am I on about?

EXERCISE

Those people who know me well may have had to read that a couple of times to make sure they hadn’t misread it.   You didn’t. I said EXERCISE.  I love EXERCISE.

For years, I have found it hard to keep myself motivated to do anything physically taxing.  I have been known to park as near as possible to anywhere, to avoid walking and I positively hated the gym.

But, something happened last month. I saw the light.  And now, I am a keep fit convert.  

A Born Again Exerciser.

I’ve had phases of doing different types of exercise, it’s true.  I enjoy badminton and I don’t mind swimming (apart from the getting changed and the getting in and out of the pool. Oh, and the swimming). But recently, something has changed.

I took up a new hobby, burlesque dancing.  I’ve only been twice but I’ve found my ‘thing’.  I love it because, not only do you prance around in a provocative way, looking alluring and sexy (in my head, in my head, ok??) but you also get to wear frou frou outfits, with feathers and lace and SPARKLY bits.  What could be more fun??  I don’t really care about the dancing bit, I just LOVE the attire!  But the dancing is the exercise.  So I’ve cracked it.

However, the more surprising thing, for me, is that I LOVE the gym now.  Well, maybe not the gym exactly, but my personal training sessions.  This love of training was sparked by a television series that is on currently, Fat Fighters (not Fat Losers as I previously wrote. Oops!).  Prior to this, I paid to have a trainer but I dreaded going.  Watching the programme, I was suddenly inspired.  And I texted my trainer to sign up again.  I now go religiously every Saturday morning, a time that suits me.  I realised that planning to go after work was the reason I hated it.  It’s too late for me and the traffic meant I was always stressing about making it in time.  I now get to have a little lie in on a Saturday before going to the gym and waking myself up properly.  It’s great!

But the main point of this post really is that I have a totally different attitude towards exercise.  Instead of being something I HAVE to do to be healthy or lose weight, it is something I do because I WANT to….

I love that

(That’s not actually me in the cocktail glass.  But it could be, one day!)

I Love my Motivation!

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Well, we are almost at the end of January.  My initial resolve was to take part in the 365 Project and post on the same theme for a whole year.  I chose motivation but quickly realised that I’d bore myself, let alone my readers, if I posted up about that for a WHOLE YEAR!!  So, I decided to adapt the idea and post on the same topic for a month.  I also allowed myself not to post every day.  I pretty much abandoned the 365 Project in fact!

Anyway, I have, more or less, posted motivationally themed stuff throughout January, I think, and I intend to end with a summary of how my own motivation has helped me to keep up my fitness training and started all the other things I said I would do.

Or rather, that WAS the intent

Unfortunately, I’ve just returned from a slap up meal of Tapas with copious amounts of wine and I really feel a bit of a fraud talking about how determined I am to eat healthily and keep fit.

Although I did go to a personal training session at the gym this morning. AND I have been walking regularly. AND…and this is the bestest AND….I have joined a burlesque dancing class.  So far, I’ve only been to the taster session but I’ve signed up for the full six weeks.  It’s so much fun!   The challenge for me is how to look alluring whilst trying to follow the steps.  Not quite there yet but I’m hopeful!  Anyway, I highly recommend it as a fun way to exercise.

And, joking apart, I am really enjoying my exercise, whatever form it takes.

The Italian classes are great fun too, not too hard but I’m learning new stuff.  It’s fun doing the class with KD who has a fantastic accent and we practise our new words during the week so I fully expect to be fluent by the end of the course (well, I hope to be able to order wine and food at least. Or just the wine even….).

As for the other projects I had intended to pick up on, well, the photography is slow. The weather has been poor and I have yet to find the subject that inspires me….but I will. I am a frustrated photographer.

I have not done any more drawing and I have totally forgotten about the needlecraft apart from a brief spell (one evening) where I got out the knitting needles for half hour.

Still, it’s only January.  Eleven more months to achieve my goals!

I have decided to make my theme for February ‘Love’.

Amore.

Not sure what I’ll post yet but isn’t that the beauty of it all?

Ciao Belle.

 

2012 so far….

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Buona Sera (practising my Italian)

Well, it’s the end of a very interesting and pleasant week.  I have taken up a new challenge , the Italian class, which has given me something to focus on and it reminded me how much I love languages and learning new things, which made me feel good.

I have had a very rewarding week at work with some lovely, positive outcomes for the young people I work with.  Which makes me very happy.

This morning, I saw the most wonderful sight on my way to an appointment.  I drove past a field of horses, probably about a dozen and possibly a mixture of ponies and horses (I’m not really a horsey person so I can’t tell the difference – ponies seem a bit fluffier to me and smaller but that’s all I know).  Anyway, I had to pull over and watch them as they were so entertaining.  They were chasing each other, frolicking, playing and just generally having fun.  I wished I had my camera with me and I will definitely go back there to take some photos or film them at play.  That made me happy too.

I have also decided to give up on going grey.  I have been growing out HALF my hair for a while now, to see what it looks like ‘au naturale’ (blimey, she speaks French too!).  When I say half, I don’t actually mean left vs right.  I have a (dyed) pink/purple fringe and I used to have dark brown for the rest of it.  This bit, I have left to grow naturally.  After several trims, it is pretty much its natural colour now.  Which is a rather unattractive mish mash of brown, grey and silver, in no particular pattern.  There are just ‘clumps’ of different colours.  It isn’t a good look.  The grey isn’t healthily glowing either.  It’s matte.  So, today I have decided to end the experiment and revert to dying the lot again.  It may not look natural but it certainly looks better than the current faded effort…..

Tomorrow I start back at the gym and get myself back on track there.  I’ve just made enquiries about a Burlesque dance class too so that may well be another on my list of projects this year.

And I get my new car radio fitted.  It has been awful with nothing to listen to other than the sound of the engine this week.

So far, I’m liking 2012 🙂

I expect I shall look something like this when I am doing the burlesque dancing…..

Cheese-aholics Anonymous

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Having said I would NEVER go to the gym again once my personal training sessions were finished, I have just booked myself in for 14 more, starting on Saturday.

Now, how’s THAT for motivation?!?!

The fact that I look like a big fat cheese due to the ridiculous amount of the stuff I have eaten over Christmas and New Year, is neither here nor there…..

365 Project. A year of projects!

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It’s always nice to have a new project I think.  Unfortunately, I have many ‘new’ projects -started and never finished.  Needlework, knitting (I still have a cardigan I started for my six month old daughter.  She is 29 now), painting and drawing, machine embroidery, web designing, photography, blogging (well, that’s kind of consistent in a fluctuating way), gym and keep fit….the list just goes on.

So, this year, I am going to write the list out and work my way through it and do every one of these projects by the end of 2012.

To add to the list, and a brand new project for me, I shall be starting Italian classes next week with KD.

I’m really looking forward to this as it is a very different sort of project compared to my usual ventures.  It is only a 12 week course, just to get us through our next holiday in Italy in June.  As long as they teach me how to say “Just leave the bottle on the table thank you”  and “mine’s a double”  I will consider it money well spent…..

I found the solution!

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Last year, around the beginning of November I think it was, I had some sort of ‘awakening’.  I have always struggled with exercise and I had reached the point where I just didn’t know how I was going to stick at anything.  I was a member of the gym, I had a personal trainer and I still hated it and I still made excuses not to go.

Being in the business of motivating others I felt a complete failure, not being able to motivate myself to do something I knew would be good for me.

About this time I went on some training.  Solution-focussed brief therapy training. I blogged about it at the time –  solution-focussed fitness plan 

I volunteered to be the ‘dummy client’ and I had to bring something for the trainer to work on, to demonstrate the technique.   I blogged about my first day in this previous post but there was a second….and a third.

Something clicked after that second day.  I realised that I had been approaching it all wrong.  I didn’t like the gym and it wasn’t working as I kept cancelling my training sessions.  So I knew what I didn’t like but I had no idea on what to do about it.   It was decided in this training/therapy session that I would try out some other types of exercise until I found one I liked.  I agreed to go for a bike ride and to walk after work at least twice a week between this session and the final one.  I had to come back to the third day, two weeks later,  with a report of my progress. 

The training focussed on when I had enjoyed exercise.  I realised I liked exercise more if I had company. So, with the help of KD, I started my plan that weekend.  We went on an exhilarating bike ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Every night that week, even though it was dark, we (and the dog) went for a walk.  A brisk walk. In fact it was a little TOO brisk for my liking at first but I had promised to try things out so I stuck at it.  After only three nights, I had started to enjoy it and my pace quickened.

I kept up the walking with KD almost every evening after that, until just before Christmas, mainly because of social commitments.

The most surprising thing (to me) was that I started to enjoy going to the gym.  I had 5 sessions left with the personal trainer.  We agreed I would only go once a week, rather than book two sessions in which I dreaded and that I would go on Saturday mornings, rather than after work.  This really worked.  I am most definitely a morning exerciser!  By the time I got to my last session, just before Christmas, I was almost sad that they had finished.   In fact, I will probably book some more in soon….

After three weeks, I had lost weight but, much more importantly, I felt so much fitter.  My blood pressure came right down and I felt energised.

Christmas and New Year have caused me to slip back slightly.  I haven’t done any exercise, apart from one walk and I’ve been eating all the wrong stuff.  But I still feel motivated and I know I will get back to where I was.  I have decided to start again properly on Monday, since we are having another Christmas Day on Saturday with plenty of food and drink….

I am now, obviously, a HUGE advocate of solution-focussed therapy!  If you focus on what works, rather than what doesn’t, you are going to succeed.  Trust me – it works!!

365 Project – a new plan!

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Yes, I know the idea is to blog about the same thing for a year but, seriously, a year of motivation posts?  If I haven’t bored everyone to death by March I think I will have lost the will to live anyway….there is only so much you can write about motivation.

So, true to form, I’m giving up!  Well, I’m not actually giving up, I’m just adapting the challenge to suit me. I have decided to stick to one theme per month, January being the month of motivation and February being the month of whatever it is I decide it will be about and so on….

I think I can cope with that, there will still be some structure to it and it should hopefully be a little bit more interesting than a whole year of me trying to find something interesting to say about motivation.

Does this sound like the ramblings of a de-motivated person?

Not at all.  In fact, I am INSPIRED!!!

Now, the question is, can I still be in the 365 project???

This is me, pondering…….

Zero out of Ten

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Woops

The challenge isn’t going too well so far is it?

Day two and I nearly didn’t manage to post.  I have a nice little blog post half typed out on my Macbook but it needs tidying up.  It looks like an essay or some lecture notes at the moment….

Anyway, I suppose this counts as it shows I am struggling with my motivation today.  First day back at work tomorrow since Friday 23rd December 2011.  It’s going to be tough. I have enjoyed my break and being able to do very little as and when I want.   My motivation to do anything much apart from drink Cointreau is ZERO right now…..

However, I DO know that I work better under pressure so I am fully expecting to have a SURGE of inspiration as soon as I get back to work and I don’t have the time to write

WATCH THIS SPACE!

I wonder how many times this year I will be saying “Watch this space”?

Anyway, here’s a photo I took of a squirrel on Boxing Day in the cemetery where my dad and nan have memorials.  He looks like he is thinking very hard about his New Year Resolutions, don’t you agree?   I wonder what they are.  Probably won’t be to give up smoking.  Which is what my next post will be about (if I can be arsed)

Project 365 – The Conception

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Well, after spending most of the night awake, pondering on a topic to write about for a whole year (yes, I really did spend half the night thinking about this!) I have decided that the topic I am going to write about for a whole year is

MOTIVATION!

I have chosen this theme for several reasons

1. I find the whole topic of motivation fascinating.  My job means I teach motivational techniques to help my clients think about change and it never ceases to amaze me how powerful these motivational tools can be or how much can be achieved when the motivation is there

2. Despite the above, I sometimes find it very hard to motivate myself.  This blog is an example of where I have flagged and lost some of my drive to write.  The 365 project inspired me to try and stick at something for a whole year so, what better topic to write about than motivation?  I’m hoping it will inspire me to keep up with my blog!

3. I am trying very hard to become fitter and healthier this year.  I am hoping a daily reminder to stay motivated will encourage me to keep at it!

4. I can incorporate sketches and photos if I am inspired, something I really want to do more of this year as part of my resolution to start being more creative again

And finally

5. I can get away with writing a post saying very little if I can’t be arsed and say I just didn’t have the motivation that day!  The perfect get out!!

If you are intrigued by what I might write about over the coming months, well so am I!  

I have no idea where this will take me but I hope it will be a bit of a voyage of discovery for me and possibly for my readers!!