Motivating Yourself

Hello everyone,

I have not posted in a while. Life has been crazy.

I am trying to find a way to achieve everything I want to achieve at the moment, but it is difficult. Sometimes I find it hard to motivate myself and I wanted to make a few suggestions for people who have the same problem as me, So, here are some tips on how to motivate yourself to get on and do something!!


Plan Ahead:

If you are going to be doing something, even if it is something you enjoy, a plan of action is always a good place to start. Even if I am going up to London for a day, which is something fun, I still have to push myself to get up and prepare. So my first tip is to write a list. The simple act of writing down everything I need to do, or pack etc, is enough to make me get excited about the activity, or feel focused enough to get on with the task at hand. The best part is scribbling out or ticking each item when you have done it!



Break Things Down:

This ties in well with the first tip. If you have a piece of work to do, or an entire day of sorting to do, using the list to break things down into sections can not only help you organise your mind, but it can make the task you have to carry out seem less daunting and perhaps add an element of fun to it. If you have to tidy your room and you have no idea where to start, you can put everything into its own category, allowing you to tidy things as you go and finish one thing before you go onto the next. Basically, you will not be in a jumble. For example, your categories could be: clothes, make up, stationery, carrier bags, electronics and rubbish.



Include Something You Enjoy:

If I have to carry out a mundane task like tidying, or vacuuming, washing up or hanging up laundry, I will almost always put on loud music through my speakers or headphones. I find that singing along to my favourite songs will distract me enough from what I have to do that it will make it feel like the time is moving more quickly, but not distract me so much that I can't actually finish the task. Or if I had to do a piece of homework, or organise papers or a desk area, use your favourite stationery (if you are a stationery lover like me, this will help), or purchase a few bits and bobs to use if you know that you are not going to enjoy that particular piece of work, and that in itself might make you feel a little bit better about doing it.



Rewards:

As silly as it sound, if you reward yourself for doing something, you might not feel so horrible about having to do it again, or about having done it in the first place. If you know you are going to be doing something that you don't like, organise something nice to do as a treat after you have finished it. Whether it is watching a film, having a bath, going out with your partner or friends, or even eating a bar of chocolate, setting yourself a target, reaching it, and celebrating afterwards (no matter how small the task is), is definitely a way to motivate yourself to get on with things.




And there we have it. A selection of tips that help me and hopefully will help some of you to get up off your bottom and do something!! If anyone would like some more helpful pieces of motivational advice, please let me know in the comments :)

Anteater

I saw an anteater for the first time that I can remember today. It was spectacular.

Not just one, many! And I decided to call one Marco, not that it knows it!

It is always such a strange feeling when you see something, that is perfectly normal to see in wildlife reservations, or in your county, or even something that you see on television all time, with your own eyes. I was looking into the distance where some capybaras were running, and I felt extremely unsettled because they look like giant guinea pigs and that is not something I want to imagine. I then adjusted my line of focus and a loud 'HOOOH' came out of my mouth as I saw an anteater. My boyfriend laughed at me because of the face I made and, coupled with my vocal reaction, I can understand why.

It is not the kind of thing that you expect to be excited to see, but the idea of seeing something like that, or lions, tigers, even elephants, it is a surreal experience. It makes me extremely happy to see animals like that, and I think that wildlife reservations are wonderful things, and I wish it was easier to interact with that kind of wildlife.

If you pay tax and you ever go to a wildlife reservation, a zoo, or any kind of place that is a charity, always gift aid your payment if you can. It takes two minutes to fill out a form, and it means that the charity can claim 20
% of the tax back from the government, which is a much nicer place for your money to go.

Here are a couple of links to websites if you are interested in finding out more:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/individuals/giving/gift-aid.htm
https://www.gov.uk/donating-to-charity/gift-aid

Ideas

A few weeks ago, I had an idea that I wanted to start making something that I could sell to make some money. I have had a lot of difficulties with jobs in the past few months, the main one being actually trying to find a job in the first place. So I thought and I thought about what I could do, and I could not think of anything.

Then, last night, I thought harder and came up with a couple of ideas. I bought supplies, which I am awaiting in the post, and started up an Etsy shop. I am going to try, and see how it goes, and to even see if I can achieve anything similar to what I want to. The lesson to be learnt here is that if you think hard enough you can always come up with an idea, and that if something doesn't work, persevere, and if it STILL doesn't work, at least you know you have tried :)

Hello

Hello Internet.

Here I am, once again, sitting up in bed, not able to fall asleep. Probably because I am always trying to watch something or read something. Pretty much do anything other than sleep.

I don't know why that is, I try to put off sleeping because I want to be partaking in some other activity, yet when I finally do go to bed and fall asleep, I don't want to get up! Why do people do that, it is nonsensical. I am a night owl anyway, but I think staying up until six in the morning watching season two of Game Of Thrones because I need to catch up so I can watch seasons three and four is taking it a little too far.

Alas, once again I am doing exactly the same thing, and even though I recognise that, I am doing it anyway, and you can't stop me.

I wanted to start a blog again so I could talk about random things, share my thoughts, feelings and experiences, and just have a place to be a chatterbox.

I look forward to talking a lot!

Kate.