Confession: I Seldom Feel Motivated

So often we believe that in order to do something, we need to be motivated to do it. The problem, however, is that motivation can be confusing. What we really mean is that we need to “feel” motivated in order to do it. That is where the problem lies.

When my alarm sounds every morning, I don’t feel like getting up. Right away my brain starts searching for excuses. I don’t feel like getting up. I’m tired. I didn’t get enough sleep. At that moment, I am not at all feeling motivated. In my sleepy state, I am not thinking about my health or my dreams. In that instant, all I want, is the pleasure of going back to sleep. I’ve been getting up at 5 a.m. for months, and I still feel the desire to shut off my alarm and go back to bed. Habit, however, is what makes me get out of bed. 

The same is true with exercise. I am always excited to start a new workout routine. The first fews days, the excitement will help me to do the workouts. When the initial excitement wears off, I usually ended up quitting. Because when I challenge my mind to think of a reason to stop working out, it rewards me with several. When we start looking for excuses, we will find them everywhere. Adapting a daily routine, however, has helped me to overcome myself from self-sabotaging. Today, I did my 69th consecutive workout. I no longer think about it, I just do it. 

For years, I thought that I had to be inspired to write. As it turns out, I can write every single time that I sit down and put forth the effort. Sometimes my thoughts are better than others, but I can still write. Deciding to write a daily blog has helped me greatly with my life. It has taught me that I can do the hard, uncomfortable things, if I try. 

God gave us the freedom of choice. He wants us to bring our flesh under subjection and control it accordingly. Honestly, about the only thing that I ever feel like doing is eating junk food and sleeping. I have to make myself do anything beyond that. The more that we take action, and do the things that we don’t really feel like doing, the more control we will have over our lives. 

I don’t want to wake up one day, and realize that I have wasted my life. My goal is to enjoy each day. To do the hard things, and to celebrate the accomplishments. I used to think that I wanted to be ordinary and just blend in with the world. Now I realize that God did not create me to be ordinary. He wants me to serve Him, to push myself beyond each trial, and to live an extraordinary life. The only way to do that is to stop allowing fear to stand in my way, and to put my light on a candlestick for the whole world to see. 

These little actions like exercising, getting out of bed when my alarm sounds, only eating healthy foods, etc,. help to prepare me for the harder battles in life. Because I don’t always feel like going to church on Sundays, reading my Bible, praying, and serving God. So I am teaching myself to do it anyway. I will not allow negative feelings to always control my actions. 

Love and blessings, 

Candida