Today we’re going to talk a little about
motivation. I’ve currently made it to the middle of my holidays and let me tell
you, out of the piles of work I have facing me these holidays I have done not
one bit of it. I’ve pathetically “worked” on my TOK plan and done a couple UMAT
drills, but I have achieved nothing of substance. The to-do list on my
whiteboard is dismally uncrossed, unchecked, and unaccomplished.
“But it’s good that you’re having a rest!
You’ve been working so hard!” I see two problems with this claim you’re giving
me to feel better about myself. One, I haven’t even been enjoying my holidays.
For the most part, I’ve slept it away. And not in a good way. I go to bed late
and I wake up late. I go to bed late doing stupid unnecessary things like
starting a movie at 1am or going on a trailer-watching binge on Youtube. I
really don’t know how I manage to pull it off. The sun sets so fast, you can
barely catch it. Two, I have not been working hard in the school term. I really
haven’t. I’ve felt no sense of motivation for the latter part of Term 2 and
it’s really just getting worse. I don’t know why I feel like this because
unlike previous years, I didn’t have a successful run of mid-year exams to make
me feel like I was safe and satisfied with where I was at. I did shit in
mid-years (well, not shit, but not a 45). That should’ve motivated me. It
didn’t.
I started off the year so great. I had
weekly self-evaluations where I thought about how productive I had been that
week and whether I had wasted too much time on unnecessary frivolities. Fuck, I
even kept a scrapbook of my done-wells and could-improve-this-weeks.
I’ve lost the motivation and the drive that
I so wholeheartedly emphasize in my applications and CVs. How do I get it back?
I’ve told myself I need to get it back for so long but still have not done
anything to actively look for it.
I am currently in a dense, dark forest
tripping on twigs that I have laid down myself. Twigs that I yell at for being
in the way whilst complaining about whoever laid down those twigs in the first
place. How dare you shed your limbs, tree!!!! How dare I kick them directly
into my own path!!!!
So I thought it was time to bring back
something that has worked for me before. Chastising myself publicly on a
semi-open forum, on the internet. Funny our generation, isn’t it?
I suddenly remembered last night that I had
completely forgotten about “3 things”. I thought to myself: if I did ‘3 things’
today, what would I write about? I would write about my pretty-looking breakfast
of breakfast at 2:30pm (though I put 3.5 tablespoons of baking powder instead
of 3.5 teaspoons…). I would write about my brother chasing me around the house
begging me to make a 3-minute brownie for him after I had JUST made one for my
dad and one for myself. And I would talk about reading a painfully angsty (but
delightfully so) novel on a whim (which I started yesterday at 4pm and finished
at 3am).
Sidenote: the book was called Love, Rosie
and I watched the trailer for the upcoming movie on youtube first and then
decided to read it. The movie has Lily Collins and Sam Claflin so their faces
stayed in my mind for the whole of my reading journey. The book is basically
seven seasons of shitty day-time TV plotlines crammed into 450 pages which
sounds awful but it was very enjoyable. You can read it here if you want: http://marimarister.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cecilia-ahern-love-rosie.pdf
Anyway!!!! MOTIVATION!!!! Yes, well, the
whole reason I brought up the “three things” thing is that if I looked back on
that day, sure, I saw positives but it really was emphasized to me how little
shit I actually accomplished. And lemme tell you, that was one of my most productive
days of these holidays!!!!
So hello world, this is me (etc etc to tune
of saddle club song) I am here to get myself motivated. I thought I could just
write “goals of term 3 holidays” on my whiteboard and just motivate myself with
that word: “goals”. “Goals” always sounds better than “assignments and other
shit I actually have to complete”.
But now I need PROPER goals. Goals I can
chip away at. How about we start here:
- · Wake up before 10am
There we’ve already got one that’s probably
quite achievable! But in order to get that one done, we need this one:
- · Go to bed before 2am.
You might consider that late but I can’t
write “go to bed before 1am” cuz it just aint gonna happen.
Here’s some I’m gonna have to make sure I
stick to if I actually want to get shit done:
- · No more tv shows or movies unless it’s a weekend and before 9pm.
- · No facebook/twitter/youtube from 8am – 8pm
And here are some that are either going to
be a bitch to maintain or actually be okay:
- · Minimum 45 minutes of UMAT practice everyday
- · Minimum hour work on EE everyday
It’s small, but I sure do hope it gets me
going.
OK so let’s motivate ourselves here. What
are we doing this all for? For our futures, goddammit!!!!! Why do we subject
ourselves to self-loathing and feeling sluggish and gross for not doing
anything when the answer is staring us right in the face?!?!?! GET OFF YOUR
BUTT VICKY!!! The storm has passed, the sun is out, and the sky is fucking
blue!!!! Why are you taking naps from 3pm to 6:30pm?? Why do you set an alarm
at 9:30am and wake up at 12 instead?
I can’t keep calling myself hard-working if
I don’t work. I can’t keep complaining about being unproductive and then not go
and be productive!!! It makes no sense, and I don’t know what I’m doing it!
It’s so fucking dangerous getting into a cycle of laziness because it’s so hard
to crawl out of. Do you know why it’s hard to crawl out of? Because when youre
that lazy, you don’t even fucking move, let alone crawl1!!!!!
I can’t keep dreaming about Harvard and
Medical School and 45s if I don’t actually actively work for it!!! People are
so hard working all around me! My parents, my friends, my teachers… so why am I
still on my ass every night doing shit-all?
Youtube videos about motivation isn’t going
to motivate you. No matter if it’s iiSuperwomanii telling you or Crashcourse
psychology, motivation comes from inside you. You can’t drive yourself if
you’re slamming on the brakes, if you’re refusing to touch the accelerator and
if you’re too lazy to move your fat foot to change gears and stop freaking
stalling!!!!
THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO DO AND SO MUCH
YOU CAN ACHIEVE AND YOU HAVE TO START NOW OR YOU’LL COME CRYING BACK ABOUT HOW
MUCH YOU COULD HAVE ACHIEVED AND HOW MUCH TIME YOU WASTED AND HOW MUCH YOU
REGRETTED EVERYTHING!!!! BUT LIKE EVERYTIME, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CHANGE A
THING!!!
There are still 11 days of holidays. Make
up for the last 10 days of nothingness. You have an opportunity to make up for
lost time. It’s not too late, it’s time to get your shit together and get serious
about whether or not you really want it. Do you want it? You do, you tell
yourself you do, you know you do, you tell others you do. But it’s moved to the
back of your head and you think you’ll be able to get it without trying. You
won’t. It’s as simple as that. You need to work to see results. You need to put
your time and your sleep and your energy and your soul and your fucking BRAIN
into that shit!!!! You will not be able to sail through this term, and these
holidays, and the exam period like you’ve been doing in the past. You will not.
Not if you want what you want. You can’t afford to be demotivated. You can’t
start term 3 like you ended term 2. You can’t carry that mentality into term 3.
People say shit about “there’s no such thing as ‘can’t’” and they are fucking
wrong because you CAN’T KEEP PULLING THIS SHIT AND PULLING THE WOOL OVER YOUR
EYES!!!! YOU CAN-FUCKING-NOT.
There is such thing as can’t because there
is such thing as “can” and you are going to open a “can” of whoop-ass on your
work and stop fucking around ok
