Motivational Story
Friends, our favorite guest writer “T” brings us yet another great story today! I hope you like it!
I have listened to the self help recordings and watched the videos and received training at work that all has to do with self help/motivation. Unfortunately, like many of us, I always doubted the methods that were given to me from these training/listening sessions. Ergo, I never really tried any of the methods, due to an inner doubt that they would not work for me. Well, not too long ago, I was in a situation that caused me some emotional distress and depression; I got divorced after 30 years of marriage. I tried to do my usual methods of dealing; i.e. ignoring, hoping it would pass quickly, willing myself not to think about it, stubbornly trying to act as if it never happened; in a word, denial. Some suggested that I get some professional help, but again, denial that I needed help. I could handle this, I am strong! However, I was mourning the breakup with tears and the usual, you know, drinking until I forgot, but it didn’t go away as fast as I had hoped. In fact, each dip in my emotional state seemed to be equally as bad as the last one. The only thing that seemed to be getting better was the frequency of the dips. Now, here I am 5 years later and I am better. My emotional dips are very far apart and not as hideously bad as in the beginning of the breakup. The thing that happens though, even if you are a super trouper like myself (yeah right), is that you lose motivation for life’s goals. Suddenly, you realize that those lifelong goals aren’t important anymore and you find yourself struggling to find REAL motivation for anything (even the simple things like cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, going to the grocery store to get food, even preparing food).
A few months ago I finally started getting glimmers of motivational thoughts, or at least what I would call “daily wishes”, such as “I need to get a better schedule for doing laundry…” and “I should start preparing my own food at home instead of skipping meals or ordering take-out…” and the classic “This place smells kinda bad, maybe I ought to clean up around here…”. You know, real-life revelation stuff. But, the big issues, such as lifelong goals, still had not manifested themselves in my daily routine, until recently. I suddenly started getting more organized thoughts about long term goals of things that I hadn’t thought of for years. Of course, I didn’t realize this immediately, but part of the reason that I was improving was because I started reading this blog. Kudos to the blogmaster for coming up with these many great thought lines that hit the target’s bull’s eye. As I said before, much of the ideas and methods accredited here are training and methods that I have seen before, in some form or fashion, but, now have begun to finally burn into my thought process as a practical application. I know what you’re thinking, “What a pig-headed dude! He has a head harder than an anvil!” and, of course, you would be right.
One of the greatest methods that have been handed down from most of the self help gurus has been the old mirror trick. This is the one where, in the morning, when you are preparing yourself for the day, brushing your teeth, shaving, hair, etc., you look into your eyes in the mirror and you tell yourself something like “You are happy and you are going to have a great day, no matter what!” and also something like “You will be MORE than capable of handling ANY issues that you encounter today!” (notice the exclamation mark!). I found myself doing this in the mirror recently (oh, 2 or 3 weeks ago) and MUCH to my surprise, it worked tremendously well. Here it is, only 3 weeks later and I am smiling much more than before, and my thoughts of my previous life has not caused me but a few moments of grieving since I started using this stuff. Now, each time I read this blog, with each of the tidbits of advice, I am trying to actually utilize some of the points made. I am making goals, writing them down, getting a plan of action and going forward with that plan. It is REALLY helping me to get started with the rest of my life. You know what the old saying is: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”. Well, now, I am trying to live that way, partially thanks to your blog reminding me that, sometimes, life is not accidental, but does require some planning to actually be successful.
PEACE–T
June 4, 2009
Posted in: Self-Improvement
3 Comments
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Jan from BetterSpines
9 months ago
Well written. It’s pretty rough to get divorced after 30 years of marriage. That would give you a great deal of self doubt and insecurity. And guys never ask for help or directions! Glad to see you have moved on. It’s like any other grieving – it takes time.
Viogareedar
9 months ago
Hi, Congratulations to the site owner for this marvelous work you’ve done. It has lots of useful and interesting data.
KattyBlackyard
8 months ago
The article is usefull for me. I’ll be coming back to your blog.