Changing my mind

A little bit ago a good friend of mine wrote a thought provoking blog post. You can read it here. I really enjoyed reading it but kinda put it in the back of my mind. But then over time I found myself constantly thinking about the question posed at the end of the post. How do I find motivation and live in the now?

I realized a few things about myself as I thought over it. I too struggle with putting everything into the future. I think it is easy to do this when the future holds something you consider to be "better" than your current situation. But what about now?

I find in general, I must be motivated by a positive force. Take exercise for example. The way my mind works is: alarm goes off, I think no way, I press snooze, I tell myself I am a fatty and need to get to work, I go back to sleep anyways, I wake up two hours later feeling even more self loathing than before, and the day is a total negative failure before I even leave my bed. This is how things go when I don't focus and try.

Scenario two. The successful one I spend every day trying to train my mind to follow: alarm goes off, ugh but  I tell myself I can do this, I get up, I go run, I feel so much peace, I push my limits, I prove to myself I can do hard things, I go home, I shower, I start my day feeling empowered and proud.

My point is, insulting myself, threatening myself, and putting myself down gets me nowhere. I have to stay upbeat. I have to give myself pep talks. I have to change my mind every minute of every day to boost myself up. I have to do things because I want to, and that want has to come from a positive, productive place. When I slip up, sleep in, or don't get things done in the day, instead of beating myself up I just make a charge to do better the next day. That is how I respond productively. It has got to be positive or I get nowhere. So after figuring out how I get motivated in general I moved on to the NOW part.

I am excited for my future. I think that is a good thing. I believe your future should always hold things you look forward to, otherwise carrying on might be a bit challenging. But we all know there are pros and cons to any situation. That shiny future I am looking forward to will hold things I don't love. There are some things now, that are better than they will be in the future. Reminding myself of these things, is how I love the now. Embracing the things I know will not always stay this way makes me live for now.

The other major component to me living in the present is just taking things an hour, a day, and a week at a time. What am I doing TODAY. What am I doing right NOW. How can I make TODAY count. And I do this, by staying positive, which keeps me motivated.

All of these things don't come naturally to me, but every day I work a little towards changing my mind.