Map It Out

 

You are lost - now what?                                                    

After we take a look at ourselves in retrospect of a long journey and see where we are in life, either with our diet, our health or any other area, a lot of times we are not happy with where we have arrived. Unsure of how we got to this point in the first place, it’s even harder to find our way back to the place we liked before.  Now we are lost and don’t know where to begin to find a way out. Per example when I was graduating high school the teacher asked us to write down where we see ourselves in the year 2000 (it was 1986). I thought I was going to be this competent business woman wearing a skirt suit with my hair in a bun. Instead, in the year 2000, I was actually graduating from the Police Academy.

One thing to remember is the happy picture we had in our minds in the first place. What did that picture look like? Where were you? How did it feel? And where are you instead today?                     

This thought process can also be transferred to when we look at our health and our bodies. When we start working on ourselves to become the person we want to be, it is easy to get frustrated and lose sight of any victories we have gained so far. The changes that were planned are harder to implement than we think and we expect results much faster than we see them. “Rome was not built in one day” is the phrase that comes to mind. But why don’t these words make it any easier to accept the pace of our success rate? 

Acceptance

First of all we need to forgive and accept ourselves.

          Second, we need to be patient with ourselves.

It’s funny how we expect other people to be patient and forgive us but we don’t give ourselves that courtesy. 

If it is health that needs improvement, remember that it is a natural transformation.

1. It takes approximately two weeks for your body to realize that a change is happening; either in diet and/or exercise. That means give your body at least two weeks time to notice what you are doing before you give up.
2. Also, it is widely known that it takes 60 days to break a habit. If you are trying to break a habit of eating before bedtime, then you have to implement eliminating eating before bedtime for that amount of time before concluding that it is not working.
3. The good news is that it only takes 21 days to create a new habit. Did you notice that programs or product companies give you a trial period of 21 days? It’s so that you have enough time to try it before you change your mind and find it’s not working for you.  

To eliminate a bad habit is easier done when replacing it with a new habit, because it takes less time for us to get used to it. Does that make sense?

The bottom line                                

• Don’t give up trying to find contentment after only two weeks or less.
• Make a list of things that you want to eliminate or change.
• Then write down what you want to do/be instead.
• Think of the steps you need to take to get from A to B (e.g. to get from an unhealthy body to a healthy body, replace french fries with asparagus)

 Once you have the road map to health, create small milestones and check them off as you arrived there. Milestones can be anything like having gone one week without fried foods. Or arrived at 5lbs less than when you started. As you focus on your map and your milestones of healthy steps, your focus is also shifting away from the unhealthy things that you don’t want in your life. The things we focus on in life manifest themselves and before you know it, you arrived at the goals you have set for yourself (e.g. looking like Barbie). Make yourself reminders if you need to. But mostly, after you conquered each milestone, reward yourself.
Preferably do it with non eatable things -
but how about a new movie? 



    

Why are you not motivated?

By the time we graduate high school, we think we know ourselves pretty well. We know what kind of job we would like to do, what our favorite meal is, which clothes suit us, and activities that are fun to do. We also know what kind of people we like to spend time with.

But then something unfortunate happens and suddenly we chose not to do the things we like. Maybe we started to feel bad about ourselves. In our head we might think we are just not motivated or tired. Maybe we are too busy to do it or don't want to take the time. Where does this thought come from?

In life, when we are younger, we have all these exciting expectations and ideas that we want to make happen. We are full of energy and excitement. We have goals and ambitions that we set and strive for. We have had no bad experiences that tell us we can't do something. But then stuff happens; suddenly we are thrown a curve ball and have to solve a problem before we can take the next step toward our goal. And then there comes another hurdle, or obstacle, that we  need to overcome to continue on our road toward our goal. Pretty soon, we have had to move a lot of things out of the way so that we forgot what road we were on in the first place. Things had to be done in order to stay on the path and that lead onto another path. These little side steps can really throw a person off their original thought process.
Years down the road we sit there and wonder why we feel so  overwhelmed and exhausted. "How did I get here in the first place? And why do I feel so unmotivated?" We lost focus.
While we lost focus, we also were too busy to do the things we like, spend time with the people we like, wear the clothes that suit us, and move toward our goals. The only thing we didn't do was take care of our own cognitive well-being. Now we are not content anymore and don't even feel good about ourselves.
Discontentment can lead to depression. Lack of motivation can be one of the symptoms of depression. Now, I believe there are two types of depression: 1. Chronic depression, which has to do with neurotransmitters and a chemical imbalance in the brain and needs to be treated. 2. Circumstantial depression, which was caused by discontentment and uncontrolable circumstances and events.
The second one can be mended without medication and may be fixed faster than the first one, but it requires work. 
When we are unmotivated caused by depression, we tend to let ourselves go and distract ourselves from the problems we are having to deal with. It's just easier to look the other way. As a result of that, we neglect our health and mind. Maybe we start eating to feel better. We stop doing any type of activity or sports because we don't feel good about our body or don't even have the energy to do anything. We don't come around other people because we have the believe that we would not be good company anyways and we don't want to gloom everyone else. There may be many other reasons for not doing anymore what we used to like.

When we suddenly neglect our healthy diets, activities, and exercising, we are not doing our mind a favor. In fact, this will only snowball into bigger and more problems. When our health is affected, we limit ourselves in the things we can do. When we are eating healthy food, we give our brain the nutrition it needs to think healthy thoughts. When we go for a walk or exercise,(or do things we like) we release chemicals in our brains that will help us feel better (endorphins are called the "feel good" neurotransmitter). Once we have and do the things that our body needs to function at the most productive level, we can think of solutions to better our situation and feel the way we used to.                
My thought is if we feel unmotivated, we should take small steps to better ourselves. Start with eating healthy food for better nutrition. Then start walking. You don't have to fit into a sexy outfit right away. Just start moving and get your blood circulating. It's amazing how ideas will flood into ones mind and  solutions will pop into ones head that could make circumstances better.
The biggest part with guiding thoughts is meditation. You can pray while you walk or paint. Keep focusing on the solutions, not the problems. When you focus on problems, you will get more problems. But if you focus on what is good right now and how to get more good things, then more good things will come.
It might sound simpler to say than to do. But everyone can take 10 minutes out of a busy day and just go for a quick walk.
Whatever your focus is, that is what you will find. If you go into the wilderness looking for a tiger, you will find a tiger. We need to focus on the things we want, not what we don't want.
Once you start seeing how your mind shifts, you will start getting more motivated doing the good things for yourself.
Give it some time, maybe a couple of weeks or a month. You didn't get to this state over night either. When you start giving yourself the good things you once did, you will feel and see how you deserve to be treated well. You treat yourself good and you will find others and life itself will also treat you well.
The important thing to remember is, as long as you have a healthy mind, you have the ability to make positive changes and better your life and your circumstances. Your circumstances should never control your state of mind and and your happiness or even stop you from doing what you like.


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