We are always looking for some kind of motivation, right? Motivation to lose weight, to clean the house, to stay on task, or to finish a project. How do we define motivation and how do you find it?
What is motivation, really? It is the difference between getting up and doing that thing and staying on the couch binge-watching your favorite show.
Let’s go over some background info first, shall we?
1| Defining Motivation:
After some digging, I’ve found the word “motivation” comes from “motive” which is something (such as a need or desire) that causes a person to act or a reason to do something.
So in turn motivation is only ever going to be a quick mindset shift to what gets you off the couch. But you can not rely on it to be a long term thing.
2| There are 2 types of motivation:
- Extrinsic motivation
This is from outside of you. You can be doing this thing for a reward or someone else or something is motivating you to do that thing.
Picture this as your mother in law saying she’ll be at your house in 15 minutes. And your house is a disaster. So you run around all your living spaces picking up toys, putting things away, yelling at the kids to help you because we can’t have other people seeing our house that way. (like that one funny video that was on Facebook for a while!)
2. Intrinsic motivation: this is coming from within. You are doing something because you want to, you have an interest in it, or you like it. You have a strong desire to do it.
Picture this as you just taking 15 minutes, picking up toys and putting things away as part of a routine that you do every day. You are not in a frantic rush. You do it because you enjoy the way it feels afterward.
What’s the difference between the two?
The first scenario is from others, from the outside. They are coming over and you don’t want them to see the house in disaster mode.
The second scenario is you do it for you because you like the way it feels when it’s all picked up and put away.
Motivation, unfortunately, doesn’t last very long. If you’re like me I can get so motivated to do something but by the time it comes to do it, I’ve lost any and all motivation and cannot get it back to save my life.
Then I sit there and feel discouraged because I cannot get that positive energy back.
Where did it go? Right?
I was probably only extrinsically motivated at this point. I watched or listened to something that got me all pumped up for a little while. But it dissipated. Since motivation doesn’t last long, it has to be frequently rebooted.
There needs to be a balance between getting extrinsically motivated and staying intrinsically motivated. Outside sources can only get you so far. It’s up to you, to your determination and discipline to keep it going and move forward. This is different for each person.
3| Keeping Up With Everything
There are so many things the come with mom life. You probably know by now that I love making lists and plans 😂. Write down everything that you’re working towards. Is it meal planning? Budgeting? Cleaning? Maintaining? Exercising?
Then re-order them in a way that’s most important to you right now.
I think we sometimes want to be the best we can be in all areas of life at the same time and it’s an impossible task to do all at once.
Focus on one thing to get better at.. at one time
If you’re wanting to be better at cleaning the house. Then focus on getting better at that, find the products that work for you that help you, practice at moving a little faster, not getting sidetracked as much, keeping to your schedule you set for yourself, actually doing it when you say you’re going to.
Then, add in another thing until you can count on yourself for that thing. Then another… and soon you’ll be great at all of them. They just need individualized attention at first.
4| Finding Joy in Cleaning
What did you just say, Antoinette?! There’s no joy in cleaning, just like there’s no crying in baseball, am I right?! Haha!
There actually is joy and for me, it comes at the end. When I see it all finished and put together. I know that I did it. I’ve honored myself and my schedule. I’ve made it pretty for me. It’s clean for my family. It’s presentable if and when people come over. And most of all, I’m not embarrassed.
5| Staying Consistent
There are three different levels of cleaning you do for your home: quick, medium, and deep cleaning. Your medium cleaning level routine should repeat every 2 weeks so it’s easier to clean without having to take up much more time. I’ve found for me, it’s the perfect balance between scrubbing and waiting. If you need a longer amount of time, then go every 3 weeks. I know that people often hire maids to come once a month. Something is better than nothing. But the longer you wait, the more physical energy you’ll have to put into it because more dust has settled, more grime, more hard water stains, etc.
It’s going to take a while before you get used to it. Dave Ramsey says that it takes at least 3 months to get used to budgeting and changing your spending behavior. Of course, there will be an adjustment period on how to get your cleaning down.
If you need to take a break for a day, skip it, and then be sure to come back to that cleaning task so it doesn’t get left behind.
6| Getting Rid of Things
Decluttering and purging is something we need to get into. The more uplifted and freer you will feel. The less visual clutter you will have and have more mind space. Of course, not everyone wants to be an extreme minimalist. But the less you have out, the easier it is to clean.
Ditching the things that no longer serve us, work for us, weigh us down, is something that we should be doing in every space of our homes. If you’ve seen Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, you’ll see that people feel so much better when they don’t have all this stuff taking up so much unnecessary space in their homes and lives.
The deep cleaning level is where I go through and purge things I don’t use, don’t need, don’t want, and free up space. Then I can go through and reorganize the area so it’s functional and clean.
7| Feeling Like You Are Never Catching Up
There will be days where you feel like you’re so behind. But just keep at it. I just heard this analogy from Brooke Castillo about goals and going to the grocery store.
You know that you are heading to the grocery store. Sometimes, there’s traffic, there are red lights, so you take a lot longer than you expected, there might be a detour, so you have to turn around and go a different way, but you still end up at the store. When it comes to goals, it’s the same way, although once we hit a roadblock, we give up. I know I have. I’ve had this freaking goal to lose weight and get fit for years now and every time I start and if I end up binge eating or skipping a workout, all is lost and I give up. But if I just kept going, I would be a lot farther, if not at my goal weight by now.
There may be days that the laundry sits in the washer too long and backs up all the other loads you have. There will be times you scheduled in your cleaning but the kids are sick so you can’t do it that day.
As long as you know in advance to expect delays, it’s not so bad when it actually hits. Just schedule it in, and come back to it.
My husband always says to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. You just move on and start again tomorrow.
“It’s not the big things that add up in the end; it’s the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary.”
the compound effect
Motivation and Discipline
Even if you’re moving slower than the pace of a snail, you are moving forward. You are making progress. You won’t get to your destination overnight. Most of the time the thing we’re aiming for is not a one-time destination.
Getting healthier and exercising is something that will never end.
Organizing will always be a work in progress, meaning, you will still have to work to maintain every space.
I have to remind myself of this every day. I look at who I’m aspiring to be and what I’m aspiring to do and think that I put in a hard day’s work and I should be at the end goal already.
For example, as you may know, one of my current goals is to hit my goal weight and now get healthier. That reminds me I need to post a goal update! Anyways, I follow these fitness gals on Instagram and I do one workout and burn some calories and expect to look like them now when in reality it takes so much more than that. I have to remind myself that it takes discipline to get from point A to point B. Getting up every day and making it happen for myself.
Wrapping things up
Watch a video/listen to a podcast from someone that inspires you to get you going.
Stop thinking about how much time and energy that it will take and just start on the task at hand. Once you start, you’ll be done with it before you realize it! We dwell on things and spend more mental energy worrying about it, then the actual time it takes to actually get things done!
