We are all searching for the ever illusive, never ending source of motivation. To always wake up with a can do attitude, to be able to jump up raring to go, excited to check off all the items on our to do lists.
Since leaving corporate, I realised how much I relied on the formal structures in my life; my prescribed school and university hours, my work bosses and office deadlines to actually get things done. It becomes a whole different ball-game when you have self-imposed goals and no one chasing you to get them done. I really struggled with this in the months leaving my corporate job.
Up until very recently, I felt like a person who hardly had any motivation. Every time I had a task to do, it was like pulling teeth to be able to even start. I woke up each morning, with a sinking feeling of, “oh my gosh, I have to do this, and that today” and when you no longer have someone watching over you, it’s so easy to push goals aside for another day.
In the last few weeks, I have seen myself go from struggling to get anything done and relying on last minute deadlines, to steadily ticking off my goals. Just this past month alone, I rebuilt this whole blog, learnt how to edit and launch a YouTube channel, booked a long term work project, finally achieved a steady daily mindfulness practice of meditation and journaling, I am moving my body way more than before, reading as much as my heart desires and getting a steady 8-9 hours of sleep per night.
These are all things I’ve been trying to incorporate into my life for the better part of few years and while I understand I am now in the most fortunate position (by self design) to be able to craft my days as I see fit, I am amazed by how a few simple shifts in my life has enabled me to find the motivation (but most importantly the discipline) to start ticking off so many of my goals.
This is still a learning process, and I do have plenty off days or days when I don’t completely get it right, but these are the 7 steps that I continually implement that have helped me immensely towards being a person that shows up for herself.
The biggest shift in my journey for motivation and discipline was the work and breakthroughs guided by my Life Coach, Ryan Tack of Potential is Human. Through consciousness coaching, Ryan helped me to break through a few limiting beliefs that have been hindering my process as a creative person. We were able to get through to the core resistance residing in my mind and I’ve gradually begun to break through to levels that I can only describe as “beginning to understand my potential”.
Life is not something that happens to us, we are in full power to understand and steer our lives to any which way we choose. I have always believed in this sentiment and always believed in our power as humans. However it wasn’t until recently that I really took OWNERSHIP of what that means. Once I realised that the only thing stopping me from achieving my goals, was me and as soon as I fully committed to no longer accepting that as my truth, incredible things started to happen.
It’s so easy to sit down and wack a whole load of items on your ‘goals’ and ‘To Do’ lists. Sometimes making them pages and pages long. We get caught up in what we “should” do and what society deems to be a “successful person.“ We should be fit, we should eat a certain way, we should be busy working from 5am to midnight all the time, the list goes on.
I spent some time slowing down and listening to the self, listening to what my life wanted and needed. In order to do so, I had to forgo who I thought I should be and how I think I “should act. ” There are no rules as to what the “perfect” daily schedule looks like. You get to decide.
Once I had the beginning steps to who I wanted to be, I started to look at what that life looked like, what are the key elements of it and SLOWLY began to plot out how I could make that happen.
For example: I’ve known for a while that I would like to have a blog, write and launch a YouTube channel where we can document and share our travel life. Those two goals take a lot of structure, work, research and time. I found myself getting so caught up in all the pieces that had to be done in order to make this a reality, that it got extremely overwhelming. I decided that instead of looking at the big picture all the time, I would focus on the small steps and only one element at a time. So instead of starting my day with unrealistic expectations, “I will write 6 blog pieces, work on the blog redesign and figure out how to edit YouTube videos”, I started my weeks by rather picking one or two key things to focus on, and began to fit that into my regular schedule instead.
I have always been a big “Planner” believing that by blocking out my life, scheduling deadlines and having endless to do lists would make me the person who achieves it all, who is go-go-go and never loses sight of the life she wants to have. In truth, looking back, I believe this may have made everything worse.
I know some people thrive from this level of organisation, but all it did for me, was make me feel like I had achieved something, without actually achieving anything. The big picture is important, and don’t get me wrong, I still weekly plan, reframe my goals and write a lot of things down, but now the schedule is much more flexible.
I don’t know what it is, but something in the act of writing down every little thing I wanted to do (it got to the point where I was calendar blocking the time I was getting dressed and when I was going to have some down time) that just made it so much harder to actually do things. Almost as if formalising my schedule turned my mind into a rebel saying, “oh no, that looks too official, now I won’t do it.”
Now I make a general plan, with goals and deadlines, with no more than 5 items on my Daily “I want to achieve list” and leave it at that. I find that I now show up for myself more than ever because most (if not all) of what’s on my daily list are things that I want to do, they are aligned with my goals and it’s less scary because there is much less of it on it.
I am a first thing in the morning kind of person. If I don’t get going with my day as soon as my eyes open then I will spend hours procrastination on my phone, reading and lounging about. When you freelance and have no boss to show up for, this becomes so incredibly easy. As a result, I now aim to get out of bed within 30 minutes of opening my eyes (doesn’t always happen- it’s a work in progress) and get going with my big goal first thing for an hour. Then its on to meditation and journaling practice which is super important in order for me to show up for the rest of the day and lastly, exercise.
I started off my freelance life by saying, “oh I’ll sleep in and chill and just work later tonight, ” and the reality is, for me that never happened. Now I aim to be intentional about starting my day and I find that I am able to find more flexibility in how my traditionally “less productive” hours go.
It doesn’t help to have grand plans and dreams, only to neglect my soul and spirit. I sat back and figured out what was important to me outside of these “big life dreams” and made them apart of the dream, a piece of the puzzle without which the other pieces don’t fit. For me, these are things like; my daily mindfulness practice of meditation, journaling, reading, exercise, plenty sleep (which became as important as the rest of the day spent “working”). Lastly I made time for being slow ie: time spent exploring, doing nothing but playing, chatting, laughing, finding joy. It was in these moments that the most incredible energies flowed and so many of the ‘big ideas’ came to me.
It’s an incredible thing to drop expectations of how you think life should go. In the end, I set goals, I tell the universe what I would like to achieve, the person I would like to be, I work towards it, show up each and every day for the self and then sit back and watch what happens.
This life has the most incredible way of showing you what you actually want and need if you listen. Its’s so important to remember that the present is all we truly have, that by being aware in the present and by being open we become conduits for the most incredible ideas and actions. Life is most certainly about the journey, about the processes on the way and not the destinations.
My main aim around these 7 steps is to find motivation to achieve my goals and dreams, to plot out a life for me that brings me joy and purpose in all aspects. After so many years of allowing my schedule to be laid out for me, of being told where I should be at what points in my life, I am loving the rediscovery of what work-purpose, life-joy and balance means for me.
I truly believe that I can have it all….You can too.
Let us know below of any break-throughs you have had in your life when it come to motivation and “getting the things done.” We would love to here your tips and tricks.
Stay Intentional, Keep Exploring & Play more,
Until Next time, Sarah and JP.
Today I turned 30… I’ve never really been one who has been overly focused on age. I love my birthday, always have but it’s never really been about the number of candles on my cake. This year however feels a whole load different. Leading up to this day I’ve felt full of anticipation and I’m not exactly sure why.
Yes, we had contracted COVID and our bodies needed rest. However both JP and I were extremely lucky that within 7 days of first symptoms, we both felt back to normal and had no lingering issues. So within a few days of arriving at Tarisa, we both were no longer focusing on the physical but were now facing the mental challenge of how to cope in Government Quarantine in a foreign country with no clear outline of conditions of release.
Without hesitation we booked ourselves seats, reserved our two week mandatory quarantine and were all raring and set to go. What Could Go Wrong?
Welcome to our life, we are just “a couple of architects.”
Almost two years ago, we left our corporate careers to set off on a journey to find ourselves, to find our place. During that time we took our passion for design, architecture and life and merged them to create our own creative studio, ACOARCH Studio. We now live on the beautiful island of Mauritius, offering a multitude of design and architectural resource packages to both individuals and companies all over the world.
Here we share our personal life experiences, stories of travel and island living.