Motivated

Happy Thursday,

How is everyone doing the amazing and wonderful Thursday evening? It’s almost the weekend again. Any plans? Not sure what we will be doing. Saturday is Grant’s birthday and I know he has gaming plans with his buddies all Friday into Saturday morning, but I think we’ve come up with dinner and cake just the 4 of us on Saturday and then Sunday we are potentially getting together with John’s family to celebrate. Grant says he really is open to pretty much anything for his birthday this year and the only real request he has is to be able to game with friends and watch movies with them by way of shared screen time or something like that. All I know is, they’ll all be able to enjoy the same movie and feel like their all together, but they’ll be at their own homes. Pretty cool technology.

Today has been a really nice day. I am patting myself on the back for one small step forward. I added my dream house to my vision board. Spent a couple hours with John looking at waterfront homes and dreaming of the day we’ll be able to move. I know we have another year here and that makes me a little anxious. I just feel so out of my element here. When I sit outside here on the patio, I feel at peace. I love all my plants and bird feeders and I’m excited to be able to put my Coca Cola table out on the patio. I need to figure out a way to get it here, but I will figure that out this week. I want to decorate the patio in more of the red tones and Coca-Cola memorabilia. Something about the Coke bears makes me happy. I’ll be adding little bits here and there.

I started my new journal last night. I was listening to a motivational speaker yesterday afternoon and he suggests writing at least 15 minutes a day and write where you see yourself. Write the feeling you have in your dream home, what you will do with your cash flow. Will you use the money for you and your family, or will you use it to be able to afford vacations, entertaining your friends, cars, boats, or whatever you find joy in. Write it out. I got two full pages in my journal already written and I’m excited about it. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to publish my dreams some day. I’m implementing so many suggestions into my life. Doing so keeps me motivated to not only reach my goals, but to keep pursing them. I believe unless we stay motivated, we have less chance of staying on the path of reaching our full potential. You can’t just put it out there to the Universe what you want, you have to work in conjunction with your wants.

I can’t go back and lean to pursue things the way I taught my boys to do. Being raised in a cult that discourages higher education, especially of it’s female followers, you are almost taught the mindset that the system (world as we know it) is ending. There will be no need for higher education. Though at one time I followed this mindset, looking back, I must of never really have believed in the religion/cult, because I don’t recall ever thinking about my kids never seeing graduation from high school or college. I always looked to their future. I encouraged and really pushed them hard to not only pursue higher education, but to maintain a certain grade point average. I encouraged them to enjoy sports to the fullest. I guess if I really believed in the cult/religion in which I was raised, I wouldn’t of pushed them to do their best. I would of engrained in them the culture of the religion that the world is ending and their education really wouldn’t matter. I think in some ways, deep down, I resented never being encouraged to do my best in school.

I was talking to a neighbor this afternoon. He, his wife and I were talking about my disability and he has been wanting me to do something for him, however, I told him I’m a few weeks out on even being able to look into doing it. I told him I have some deadlines to meet. He asked what I had to do that was so pressing. I told him and he then went onto tell me about his career (he’s retired now). He said he would give himself three deadlines a day, minimum. He told me that by doing so, it made him feel a sense of accountability. He also said it kept him motivated. We talked a little more on the subject of motivation and we figured that it is a great thing to give ourselves deadlines, otherwise, if we don’t then it is so much harder to reach our goals. With that being said, I will be setting up a better schedule to make sure I am accomplishing my many tasks. I am setting up a goal of when I will be in my new home. I am setting up goals for where I see myself in the course of the coming year. No more just waiting to get things done.

Even though I’m in the situation of not being able to work now and possibly/most likely ever again, that doesn’t mean I need to or should give up living. I simply need to modify my path. I might not be able to work a secular job, however, on my good days, I can write and work on my book. I’m told now and again I’m a pretty good writer. I’m motivated to write my book. I’ve been working on it and am having the greatest time with it. I’m so excited to be writing my blog again on the daily. I am working on a cross-stitch sampler, the first cross-stitch I’ve worked on in a very long time. I’m also trying to complete a baby quilt and then I can begin the memory quilt I promised to make for my beautiful daughter in law. I’m enjoying my new mind set of staying on task and getting things done. I’m motivated for my future, no matter where my path might lead me.

Listening to the various motivational speakers lately has really lit the fire under my butt to get moving. You aren’t growing if you are standing still. You can’t reach your goals if you’re just waiting for them to happen. Life takes work. Most of us aren’t born with a silver spoon in our mouths. I’ve had so many dreams in my life and I no longer want to dream about the things I want, I want to make them a reality. Life is short, our time on this earth could end tonight, tomorrow or in an hour from now, we simply don’t know. What a sad reality to be on our death bed wishing we would of lived life more fully. “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”-Norman Cousins.

I think with so many people I have known and loved pass away over these last couple of years, I’ve come to realize, when you take your final breath, there is no do overs. Life is what you made of it. I don’t want to be ready to take my last breath and have regrets. I don’t want to make excuses for the things I wish I would of done or wish to do now. I’m jumping in head first and going for my goals. Sure, my plans are altered, or maybe it would be better to say they are taking a different course, and that’s okay, life is a journey, life is an adventure and the bumps and hills I’ve had to climb only adjusting my steps. Instead of doubts, instead of regrets, instead of should of’s, I’ll be more focused on getting where I need to be in a timely manner. I know some will be along for the long haul, some will be along for the short haul, and I will appreciate all who have been in my life, all who will stay in my life and all who will come into my life. I’m motivated to keep going and I’m more motivated to keep growing.

I hope to see you all along the journey. I’m thankful to those of you who have stood by me and continue to stand by me. I’m thankful for the support I’ve received and for all those pushes to keep me going and growing. Without the support I’ve had, I know for absolute, I would of kept my visions as only dreams. Thank you. I hope to be able to encourage you to follow your dreams and make those visions come true. Believe in yourself as you’ve taught me to do. There is an amazing, wonderful and fulling life out there for us all, we just have to want it and we have to work for it. Supporting each other, building each other up will help us all get where we need to be.

Life is a wonderful gift, and while we all experience growing pains from time to time, I do hope we can all look back on those pains as learning curves. I hope we learn the lessons we were meant to learn and I hope we come out being better, stronger and more amazing, loving, compassionate and humble people. The neighbor I told you about, the one I was chatting with earlier, well, I had misplaced feelings about who I thought he was. I’m so thankful for the chat we had today. I learned a lot about him and his wife, but I learned more about myself. I learned that we all have a story, we all have a background and we all can encourage each other, help each other and rely on each other to succeed and fulfill our dreams.

Thank you everyone who continues to read and comment on my blog. I hope you are enjoying the journey with me. I am so blessed to have so many people on this little blog train I’m on. Cheers to you all and don’t forget, Love Life++