What gets you moving?
To that Mom, with 2 littles in the stroller and the dog leashed around her waist, running down the sidewalk, I saw you and think of you often.
To the man, I am assuming was well into his 50s, I watched you running down the path today and you kept me going.
These strangers will never know the motivation they gave me but I intend to pay it forward.
Where do we find our motivation?
Are we too determined to find it from within? Have we been trained to think that we should have everything we need inside of us and if we can’t muster it on our own are we just not smart enough, not strong enough? Are we lacking the will power that others must have?
I wonder if too many times we look at others and judge their lifestyles, think they must have it so easy to be able to do all those things they post about, and tweet about. Would it be more beneficial to us to look at them and think, ‘If they can do it, surely I can too’.
In college I was trained to remember that children are watching every move we make and that is one of the areas of my training that really has stuck with me as a Mom. But what I am coming to realize more and more is the amount of people, other than my children, that are seeing my actions and the amount of actions, of other people, that I am seeing.
When I drag myself out of the bed in the morning to go for that early morning run because after looking at my schedule for the day there is just no other guaranteed time that it will happen, I do not know who is driving down the road, sipping their strong coffee, on their way to the early shift that will remember seeing me out there in the morning and lace up their running shoes, pull out their yoga mat, or take one step towards one goal that they had set for themselves that day. Full disclosure here, I’ve become one of those runners. You know, the kind that lets their Facebook world know about (almost) every run they take. But here’s the thing, I want to share because I want whoever sees it to know ‘If I can do it, you can to!’ Like I said before, maybe it’s not a run but whatever it is YOU GOT THIS!
I think of that Mom, with her whole life out on that sidewalk often. It did not look easy for her. I don’t think that she had a house full of supportive people just sitting around her and she stood up and said ‘I’m taking both kids AND the dog and I am going to go for a run to keep me healthy and energized’. I am not saying I picture her totally alone but as a Mom, I’m sure that given the chance she would have loved to lace up her shoes and take a little time alone. When it gets hard and my head is sharing with my heart the million reasons I should not grab my shoes I picture that Mom, if she can do it, I can do it.
The definition of motivation is,
· The act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something
· The condition of being eager to act or work
· A force of influence that causes someone to do something
One reason I do the things I do is because I never know who is watching. The lesson I learned while spending the last years of my career leading a team of women to be their best and provide the best care is that I could talk, teach and preach till I ran out of breath, and it wasn’t until I started changing my actions and words on a daily basis that they started changing theirs. It wasn’t until I started to believe I was worthy of doing/being better that they started to believe it.
You can find motivation in being better for yourself or you can find motivation in being better for others. My wish for you is that you find it!