GYM VLOG #5

Author: Julia Dulgerova

The word motivation comes from the word ‘motive’. Meaning, the needs or the drive within a person. You create motivation within yourself. While inspiration comes from external sources that mentally encourage you to do something.

I think we can all agree that at times we feel super inspired by something, and it makes us want to accomplish something great, but this feeling ebbs and flows. Sometimes we feel super inspired to reach a certain goal, for example when the new year comes along and you have all these resolutions you want to accomplish, but as the year goes on, the excitement for your resolutions begins to dwindle away.

And you may reach points in your life (this happens to all of us) when you truly feel like you’d rather do nothing and just nap rather than do whatever task at hand is important like schoolwork, house chores, cleaning your room, getting to your job on time as a few examples. But it is extremely important to turn that frown upside down! Because your life depends on it.

Let me explain.

You may tell yourself things like:

“I’m too tired to go to work, I’ll just stay home. I’m young, I have my whole life ahead of me”

“I just won’t do this assignment, who cares. I’ll figure it out when the times comes”

“I’ll just sip on this energy drink and eat this junk food. You only live once!”

But is this really a good way to think? Is this a way to think that moves you toward your goals or a more meaningful life? I think we can all agree it’s not.

The decisions you make today will impact your future in drastic ways, even if it doesn’t seem like it does directly. Do you remember liking something like a video game, clothing, jewelry, a particular movie or mindset that you were so sure of…something you would have gone to battle to protect and argue for because you believed it was so amazing, and then just a few short years later, you may change your mind. Remember that we change over time as we grow and develop into adulthood, making smart choices can protect us from the aftermath of a fad when we are younger.

You don’t go to work because you don’t feel like it, which leads to routinely skipping shifts or full days of work and can lead to getting fired and a lack of a good recommendation for a job that you are truly excited to be a part of in the future. These types of behaviors can also lead to not having the money for the things you want and need, and ultimately this will make you even more sad and tired.

And as you grow and mature, this can affect your life in many ways. You might not be able to commit to a job and be responsible enough to keep it but your bills being paid depends on this job, so you sure can’t get fired. And all because you were a careless teen and made terrible decisions, now you don’t know what it’s like to make good decisions when it means the most.

You don’t do your assignment and you get a zero, seeing that zero in the gradebook makes you upset and you continue not handing in your work because it all seems pointless, and you end up even more sad and tired. Remember that negative action usually leads to more negative actions and positive actions lead to more positive actions. I love the idea of the power of compounding. Power of compounding means that small positive actions can have a powerful return on investment. So making small changes in your routine to be more productive and motivated will pay off in amazing ways that you could have never predicted before!

But this can show itself when you are applying to colleges or taking courses because you missed key information and chose to be careless with your education.

You sip on that energy drink and eat junk because “It tastes good” and “you only live once”, until your body is drained from the malnutrition, you can’t focus on daily tasks, you crave more sugar and junk but never feel fulfilled, and you result in being even more sad and tired.

And as you grow older you develop health issues that you might think cannot be reversed, all because of your eating habits as a teen. You may start feeling tired, bloated, or get constant headaches. And as you grow more serious issues can arise like arthritis and troublesome menopause.

What I’m trying to get at is, no matter how old or young you are, your decisions today will impact your future even if you like it or not.

And that’s a tough pill to swallow, but I’ll tell ya what, the truth hurts!

But it may be hard to make good choices if you are not inspired or motivated. First, it’s extremely important to know the distinct difference between motivation and inspiration, so I’ll explain it for you.

This means that, although it’s not possible to always be inspired by something, it is tough but completely possible to stay motivated. It’s all about your mindset! And here are a few things you can do to stay on the track of motivation.

You can start by reminding yourself of your goals. Are the choices you’re making today getting you closer to what you want to accomplish? You may have great aspirations to one day be a scientist etc. , but making bad decisions and being careless sure isn’t going to help. It’s a challenge to reach goals, and it’s not going to be easy. Keep a journal where you log your progress, that way if you feel unmotivated you can look back and see how far you’ve come.

When we are leading with proper intentions, we feel good within ourselves and when we are not, we know it, we can feel that ache of our instincts telling us this is not the right path. We should pay attention to those feelings. You may not realize it right away, but our bodies know when something is off, and our brain is signaled. It’s our responsibility to pay attention to those signs and trust our body.

Wise words of Cody Johnson from his song, “Til You Can’t”

“If you got a dream, chase it, ‘cause a dream won’t chase you back”

Going along with reminding yourself of your goals, make weekly checkpoints to see how you’re doing. Did your choices this week bring you closer or further from your goal? It’s ok to have days off to rest and relax, but it’s important to have balance.

If you had a week of wonderful accomplishments, reward yourself! Spend some extra time on self-care, or get a yummy treat, whatever floats your boat.

Don’t overwork yourself and take breaks. Even the people that seem the most productive and determined get overwhelmed, so don’t pressure yourself. If you are working on an assignment, take breaks of 5 minutes every 30 minutes or so. Or if you have a week to do your work, stretch it out over the week and don’t cram it all into the last couple of hours.

If you didn’t make great improvements some weeks, don’t be too hard on yourself. Being too hard on yourself makes you lose sight of your goal, and you associate the negative feelings with what you want to accomplish. Failure is a part of human life, and failing brings you closer to your goal because now you know what not to do.

Something I find very helpful to keep me motivated is to find things that represent my goals. Whether that’s a Pinterest board, a manifestation chart, a specific YouTube channel that shows what you dream of accomplishing, a book, etc. I personally love making a Pinterest board of images of the things I wish to accomplish, I print them out, and glue them onto a posterboard that I hung above my bed. Every night before I go to bed, I look at it, and every morning I see it. It reminds me of what I want in life and starts and ends my day in a good spirit and mindset.

But something that can greatly get in the way of your motivation, is procrastination. I can admit that sometimes I procrastinate. If I have homework to do, I won’t always do it right away but rather I wait till the last minute which stresses me out even more.

So here are some things you can do to beat procrastination.

The number one reason we procrastinate is because distractions do their job and distract us. Identify the things that distract you and get rid of them. Sometimes that means putting your phone in your closet, in a different room, or even deleting apps and social media. You cannot become motivated if you are wasting your time. You can hang notes around your house of quotes or reminders that will keep you on track.

I use the rule of putting on my shoes for the gym and doing 5 minutes. I will always do way more than 5 minutes, but I feel like if we create a small rule of “getting started” we often don’t feel so frustrated to move forward.

Set standards for yourself. Hold yourself accountable in your own eyes and in the eyes of the people around you. Maybe tell your family and friends about what you plan on doing or finishing, that way if you don’t do it they will know and that will hopefully make you actually do it.

Take some time to exercise. Nothing can beat the feeling of the way you feel after a workout, and exercise has the ability to boost our moods and make us feel more active and stronger, both mentally and physically.

Finding inspiration isn’t totally up to you because it comes from outside sources, while motivation is something we must learn to be within our own brains because it’s up to us.

Having role models too. Discuss with your parents…find people who are doing it RIGHT and watch carefully. What are they doing? What actions do they take? How do they conduct themselves? How do they treat themselves?

It is also crucial that you have good eating habits. Did you know that the neurotransmitters that are responsible for your happiness and motivation are born in your gut? If you have a bad diet, the microbes in your gut flora become sad and they separate from each other and there become holes in your gut flora, also known as leaky gut. Junk food feeds bad microbes and so they begin to grow and populate your digestive system. These bad microbes don’t produce serotonin and dopamine the way good microbes do. And you become more susceptible to things like depression and bad mental health, especially because dopamine is responsible for motivation and serotonin is responsible for happiness. So don’t be careless about the things you eat.

The choices you make today will impact your future self. And depending on how you choose to spend your teen and young adult years, will either be detrimental or positive towards the health of your body when you’re older.

So, find things that inspire you, learn techniques that will keep you motivated, and do not procrastinate, as it will make your mental health significantly worse.

Here are some links to resources that may help you stop procrastinating and find things that inspire and motivate you!

Inspirational Book