A couple of months ago, I ran my first 12k race. At around mile 6 (the race is 7.46 miles long), I started to question why I’d started the race. I wanted to know what made me think I could do such a thing – I was tired and ready to be done!
I kept moving, though. Both because I was highly motivated to finish and because my great coach was using a mantra to help motivate us to get to the end.
Likewise, in life, we sometimes hit the wall, and we don’t always have the option to take time off right then and there in order to recouperate and rejuvinate yourself.
Big goals may mean big walls
When you have big goals, it’s inevitable that at some point you’re going to hit a wall. What’s important is that you keep going. After all, when you have big goals, they’re not going to accomplish themselves. While sometimes the goal itself will motivate you to keep going, sometimes you need something more.
Come up with a mantra
Come up with a mantra that you can say to help coach yourself along. (Here are some from Success Magazine). You should choose your mantra based on your situation. Running mantras are easier for me to come up with “just keep running” is one and “almost there is another.”
When working on professional goals, it’s important to come up with meaningful phrases. I like to use phrases like “just keep going” there, but I also find it important to focus on the big picture. “Success is just around the corner” is a good mantra to use or “I’m always moving closer to my goals” is another one.
See things through to the end
I know that it’s easy to get caught up on the latest greatest new thing, but when you start slacking on different goals, it can be hard to get going on all of your goals. Self-esteem starts to suffer when you don’t complete what you started. That’s one of the biggest reasons it’s so important to come up with phrases to help you get through to the end. “Almsot there!”
What mantra do you use when you’re trying to push yourself through/motivate yourself? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Published by Ronda Bowen
Hello there, and welcome to my page! I have been working as a full-time freelance writer and editor since 2008 when I decided that while I rather enjoyed philosophy, the Ph.D. program I was in was not a good fit for my life goals. Since then, I have published many papers and articles, started two blogs, worked as a senior editor for a magazine, served on the board of a start-up non-profit organization, and walked across fire.
I strongly believe that it is important to work to make the world a better place – one project at a time. I’ve worked with Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program to construct living quarters for those in need, written content for Stonewall Alliance, and edited the newsletter for my local natural foods cooperative. One of the blogs I founded, Activism My Way is dedicated to helping people get involved with causes they feel passionate about.
Although my academic background is in philosophy and social and political theory, my heart has always been in writing fiction and poetry. I have a novel in progress, and I am working on putting together a collection of short stories to share with readers. I also worked as part of a creative team on a project with a hip hop artist that involved world-building and creating an amazing back story to a concept album. I have worked with several authors to edit their novels (as well as dissertations, children’s books, journal articles, and non-fiction projects).
Non-fiction topics I have written about include pop culture and philosophy, project management, business startups and management, insurance, technology, and much more. I also have created web content for a wide variety of clients (ranging from gas station owners to hotels to lawyers), and I’ve had an opportunity to interview some amazing people (Michele May, Kevin Sorbo, Barbara Taylor Bradford, and Mark Victor Hansen to name only a few). Needless to say, I love what I do.
I enjoy photography, and my subjects these days are usually my children as well as food, beverages, craft projects, and other such things for my blog, Wining Wife™. My favorite subjects are landscapes, nature (particularly clouds, flowers, and trees), and architecture.
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Ronda Bowen 