The other morning, my husband said to me that I was a person who had “motivation plus”. I asked him, “Motivation plus what?”
“Just that," he said. "Motivation and then some.”
One of the biggest obstacles that we face when we're trying to do courageous things is maintaining our motivation. It doesn't matter what your goal is--staying on track is both the key to success, and the toughest thing to achieve.
If you're a blogger, maybe you've felt this when you've written post after post and no one's left a comment. Or, if your Instagram isn't getting the interaction you expected. Or, if you're growing a business as a side-hustle while sticking it out at a job that's less than fulfilling. Or, if you've eaten nothing but green smoothies for a week and hit the gym every.single.day, but can't convince the scale to budge. #ugh
There is not a day in our lives when hard things won’t present themselves for us to face. The goal, though, should not be to avoid these moments, but to embrace the opportunity to strengthen our resolve, and fortify our character.
These are the moments when we become who we are meant to be.
Maybe some of our determination and motivation is part of our nature at birth. But, for me, a whole lot more of it is about those moments when I struggled the most--the times when I got out from under something I didn’t think I could get out from underneath. Those were the really honest moments of my story when I learned who I was.
Motivation, then, is a form of hope. Staying on your path happens because you have hope about the future you want strengthened by the obstacles you've already overcome. Short version: hope is a function of struggle.
Oh boy...that sounds a whole lot like math. Okay, let’s really break that down...
Function (noun): The purpose for which something is designed or exists.
There are a few things we confuse with hope, though.
Hope is not a wish. It’s not a passive desire for some good fortune to serendipitously cure what ails you. It requires your participation and action in order to exist.
Hope is not an emotion. It’s not something we feel. It’s something we learn--a cognitive behavioral process we cultivate through adversity.
Hope is most definitely not optimism. It is not conviction that things will turn out well. Hope is about having faith that however things turn out, you will be able to meet that outcome.
Not only does hope see us through struggle, but conversely, our struggles build a ‘hope reserve’—the bank of hope that we can draw upon in hard times. It’s a cyclical relationship between struggle and hope where each fortifies the other.
It should not be our goal in life for tasks that are equal to our abilities. But, instead, for building the powers and abilities that are equal to our tasks.
Then, the doing of these hard things is no miracle. YOU are the miracle.
Download my FREE Strengths Inventory worksheet to discover your personal power, leverage your strengths to overcome obstacles, and achieve your biggest goals. This worksheet is perfect if you want to live your most authentic and courageous life!
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