Motivation

Because it’s the New Year, and people typically make New Year’s resolutions, I’ve been thinking lately about motivation. Without motivation, New Year’s resolutions tend to fail within the first thirty days. So, why is so easy for some to conjure up this confounded ambition, and for others so difficult?

I know of people who just seem to get up in the morning full of motivation. These are the people you see walking or running outside in the cold temperatures, the people who before 8:00 o’clock AM have: eaten breakfast, ran five miles on the treadmill, showered, and scraped off their iced windows on the car. I wake up and wander aimlessly around the house for awhile, thinking about all the things I need to that day that I’ve already been neglecting for weeks before. I wake up and barely take five steps before I’m tired again and seriously consider jumping back in bed for the rest of the day.

What I’ve been wondering, is where do these ‘motivated’ people get their motivation from? Were they fed more spinach and veggies as a kid? Did they drink less pop and eat less sugar? Is there a strand of motivational DNA that only a selected few receive? If I knew what gave people ambition I would do everything in my power to get it, of course my power might not be very motivated, considering I’d be running on non-motivational DNA. I would love to be able to get up early in the morning and do my kickboxing workout, eat a hearty breakfast and in turn have energy the rest of the day, but it just doesn’t seem feasible to me. I need at least 9 hours of sleep each night; whereas I’ve found that most motivated people only need 7 to 8 hours. I don’t have the time to be motivated.

What really irks me is the fact that most motivated people will get what they want out of life. These are the people who will dream big and not stop until they’ve achieved them. They even have an air of confidence around them, a motivated aura, if you will. And then there are people like me, who will struggle each morning just to get out of bed. And then we’ll think of all the things we could have had, but didn’t have the energy, or the motivation to do.

This is why I didn’t even make a New Year’s resolution this year, because without motivation I will fail. And if I don’t make a resolution, I can’t fail.

It’s a sad fact of reality, and unfortunately I didn’t eat a lot of spinach growing up.