In my life the path I created by my journey through it, is built up from choices I make. Some are wise, some are well thought, others aren’t and mistakes can help you learn to get back on your path, or at least prepare and warn you for future branch points called choices.

As hard as the 10th dimension theory might be to grasp, I use this as an overlay on how I perceive the world and my journey called life. Whenver you’re given a choice or you have to make a choice I remind myself that I’m at a branch on my path and I have to decide which way I am going to continue my journey. No matter how hard the choice, or how high the pressure involved, I should not stray. Sometimes it’s hard to remind myself that taking time for a choice to make is golden. But I’ll keep in mind that I do have a certain path in my head with certain goals or possibilities to take into account.

When I’m at a branch point, whether it is willingly or unwillingly introduced onto my path, I also try and consult loved ones & friends on their point of view on a choice if it were theirs to make. Asking them doesn’t push me in the direction they’re pointing, but I’ll forge the best of their advice into a alloy with my own beliefs. It might work against me or take a lot of time to come to a good choice, but for me this is a way of creating a well-founded choice which I hopefully will not come to regret.

If I do feel regrets about a certain path I’m walking, I have no problem correcting my path and branch back or into a new direrction. For instance when I was about the age of 16 I’d always thought to drive a certain car when I was older and capable of buying it, eventually this did not serve as the only option. I think of it as a goal that was set under beliefs and circumstances known to me at that time. Later I came to other conclusions and felt that I’d rather have a car for it’s function than it’s status or my past beliefs. So I reconsider the options and even though I might have had the money for it, I wouldn’t have made the choice for that car I thought to be driving when I was younger.

I’ll remind myself through time that choices are mine to make if they involve my participation and don’t stray from my path.

Whenever I do go out to a fast food restaurant, I usually order a large milkshake. For some reason I seem to think that I can drink a milkshake as fast as any other beverage, which almost every time leads to a Brainfreeze. At this moment in time I believe such a Brainfreeze should also be able to actually freeze my brain with the current storm that my thoughts produce in the gray matter… How did this storm originate? How am I going to tackle it?

Storm explained

” Storms are created when a center of low pressure develops, with a system of high pressure surrounding it. This combination of opposing forces can create winds and result in the formation of storm clouds.” – Source wikipedia

High pressure system
The past year I have dedicated my evening hours – besides my normal job – to studying and achieving my MCSA and MCSE certifications and with success I might add! Alongside all the learning, there were my other passions which also needed time in these same hours. I created quite the schedule to get all this done and still manage social life on a moderate level.

At the time I achieved both certifications, I felt stronlgy that a period of rest would really be the thing to cope with the dedication for certification of the past time. This is where the opposing forces are starting to work their way into creating a storm.

Low pressure
The past month I have been laying low when it comes to my evening hours. I still spend time to my passions and really find enjoyment in relaxing my mind for a period of time. Until recently the low pressure area was working out fine, but at my current point this area is creating quite a storm in my head. I believe this is due to the opposing forces are forming a storm.

Combination of opposing forces
My mind has been adopting to the high pressure way of learning and dividing my time over the evening hours. This state of elevated concentration of course can only last so long. But the complete removal of the learning element, surely created a drop in pressure and now in it’s turn is creating a storm of thoughts varying from innovative ideas to wanting to learn and spent time in sports more.

Tackling this storm
My way of dealing with situations like these, is to create a new schedule to up the pressure area, currently at it’s low point. I go about doing this by pin pointing each and every thing I want to do with my time and fix a “time spent” to it. Once I’ve marked all the stuff I want to do, ranging from daily grind to specific goals, I pour it into a weekly schedule.

This new schedule isn’t working for me when I’ m being strict to it for 100%, but it serves as a guideline through my week. I should refer to the 80/20-rule for this when saying:

I’m going to use 20% of my energy to get 80% of the schedule done, whereas the last 20% of the schedule will require 80% of my energy to get it done.

Concluding
The tackling measure is purely in place to bring the opposing forces in a balance and not to fully get rid of the storm. As my brainstorm generates ideas, questions the world, processes the daily impressions and fuels my creativity.

Achieving goals requires: focus, long-term diligence and effort. Success in any field requires forgoing excuses and justifications for poor performance or lack of adequate planning; in short, success requires emotional maturity. The measure of belief that people have in their ability to achieve a personal goal also affects that achievement. [wikipedia]

Missing a piece in the journey...

I know and also believe that it’s very important to set goals in life, sport, work and other areas, if you want to know where you want to go with it. It really comes down to emotional maturity as stated on the wikipedia article. But in many many cases the most important thing seems to be forgotten… How about enjoying the journey you take to reach the goal? I’d like to take it one step further by saying: It actually doesn’t even matter what the end goal is, but the journey that takes you there should be about enjoyment and getting satisfaction out of  it.

Of course I had my own learning moments, while I was discovering this for myself to be true. I would plainly set a goal and only focus on reaching it and in the end only feeling euforic for a few hours or maybe a even day. I would push through some boundaries, with only the end goal in my sights. The only thing I had been proving myself was that I could reach a goal if I really put myself to it,… but this is really exhausting and you can only do it this way for a certain ammount of time.

On the other hand, when you make the journey towards a goal more interesting by putting in some sub-goals and other useful stuff as you go on your journey, I find that it motivates me more. But even more important for me is that it makes the journey worhtwhile and more memorable than just having only goal-focus.

The big difference comes afterwards, when you’re recapping the moments you had in reaching your goals. When you’re more aware of the journey you’re planning to make, on your way to the end-goal it will be more memorable and long-lasting. This actually helps me out on setting new goals and finding motivation in less motivated times in journey’s towards new goals.

Making it more memorable, really puts in the additional ingredient needed to enjoy the goals you set throughout time.

It seems that only drill instructors posses this skill and have  a way with it on bringing their message across to the ones they command. But getting some discipline into your own life and way of living should not be more then setting out the things you want to do and doing them.

Once you set your mind to something, you should go for it and time will aid you in getting the new mindset activated. For instance you want to change the time you start working from 9 o’clock in the morning to 7:30 in the morning. How are you going to go about getting this in your daily schedule?

How it’s done…
In my case with starting early I’d reach my ultimate goal, which is: (during day-time) having more spare time at the end of the day to do things I like. To reach this goal I set out to start early at work and head for home early accordingly. Some of the things you might want to change is the time you head for your bed.

Setting limits or boundaries
I was this guy who would have no trouble going to bed late in the night, working on that last pixel of a picture that needed to be photoshopped. Sometimes ending up going to sleep when the first birds started whistling again… Who doesn’t love their years in college , but my working life asked for a different approach. Because you’ll have to be representative, fresh and fit at your job to perform your tasks accordingly.

I was willing to change that by setting some limits to the time I’d head for my bed. So I set my limit to a maximum of midnight, but better was 30 minutes before that. At first I had a hard time believing this would work and the stuff I’d be doing normally would suffer greatly due to this shift.

Persist
In reaching my ultimate goal, I had to be strict and disciplined to  myself, but amazingly all it took was two weeks and I had activated the new mindset. Waking up was getting easier, even to the point I’d wake up 5 minutes before the alarm clock. The urge to work late was passing and I found a good way of getting my things done during the day-time. When you look at the plan I’d made, it is simply shifting the period in which I spent my awake hours.

What if your bound to a start time
What if your start time is set for you, you still have options to re-schedule some of the things you do after work time to the morning part. In the past I had shifted my afternoon fitness session to the morning part before work. I had to start at 8:30, thus leaving me with a huge window of opprtunirty to do my fitness before work. I started my fitness schedule at 7:00 to 7:45, shower and head for work and still be in time. Additional bonus was that I was feeling very fit at work, opposed to what you’d expect. After work I’d have time for all the other stuff I’d used to do after midnight.

Concluding
All it took to get into both schedules, was two weeks of disciplining myself, after that it was mostly auto-pilot. Only having to put some extra effort after a well deserved holiday, which interrupted the schedule.

Everybody has a busy schedule these days and Todo-lists are very common in my personal approach into a busy schedule. But why is it that putting a thing off feels better then just doing it and get it over with. A term which this behavior also goes by is  procrastination.

On the other hand, when I finally finished that dreaded task that had been postponed for ages, I also feel great about it.

Here are some tips from Leo Babauta on how you can overcome tis behavior. Also check out the Simpleology Blog tips and insights on how to change your approach. Another well known term to fight it is the Getting Things Done a.k.a. GTD approach, which has some nifty tricks to organize your life.

For myself I already tried to keep my blog title as a guide, but reading these tips makes me prioritize those dreaded tasks & todo’s. So; Just do it!

Being motivated in a natural way or motivating yourself by “forcing” it, is a big difference. In this sense I’m writing “forcing” motivation to indicate the difference between the two ways of motivation, not to shed a negative light on “forced” motivation.

Natural motivation
Natural motivation is the outcome of doing something you really like to do and enjoying it. Because it all comes natural you stay motivated for a long period without requiring additional motivation (forced motivation). When your having fun at something you do, you’ll see time passing by like the saying; “Time flies when you’re having fun!”

In general one could say that you have to try and find the fun-factor on all areas you to take part in. So if it’s a job, a hobby, or whatever you do; When you have fun at it, natural motivation is almost certainly involved as well.

Forced motivation
Although forced motivation is not to be seen as a negative way of motivation, it should be used with a common sense of being complimentary to the goal you wish to achieve by “frocing” the motivation.

I think when you (yourself) want to reach certain goals, in anything you take part in, you should set goals and motivate yourself into reaching those goals. When you’ve set a goal for yourself in things you really like to do, motivating yourself will almost be natural. Of course the forced motivation will be necessary to breach certain established barriers.

But when you have to motivate yourself to goals someone else sets for you, in which you can’t seem to find any fun-factor nor support the goal, then a problem arises. At first it will not pose a real problem, as a strong mental side will help you reach the goals someone else wants reached. But when these disliked goals keep coming back, somewhere along the way the fuel will evaporate and reaching these goals is out the window.

In the end
…it’s best to find a job, a hobby, or anything else you do and see a fun-factor when you’re performing it. Otherwise the candle will get smothered and most problably drain energy from you instead of letting your natural motivation inject you with energy!