'Adulting' Rightly - Finding Peace, Gaining Motivation and Other Musings
Wow! It's so exciting to write again. My fingers are literally jumping up for joy at the prospect of striking the keyboard. It's been over 4 weeks I wrote a blog post save for SteemMag and it's nice to be back again. Hopefully, for good.
I find it difficult to write about personal issues, so you will find nearly all of my posts talking about tech themes I find interesting to explore. I remember those early days of Steemit where @stellabelle would drop by and encourage me to write more deeply. Ah! Those Golden Days.
Finding Inner Peace - Going Back Home
The past 2-3 months has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Sadness, Excitement et al. Above all, it's the search for peace that has been my most important task and in a way, I've been able to achieve that.
Introverts are constantly searching for solitary silence in a noisy world. Finding this is so important to performing functionally well in the society. And in my own case, it prevents me from getting unnecessarily irritated.
Looking Up At The Stars
When I was at the university, finding inner peace was as simple as connecting to nature more. I merely needed to take a walk down the main university street and stare endlessly at the lagoon that separates the university with the Atlantic Ocean. If that didn't work, I simply wait until nightfall where I can lay at my place of worship and stare into the skies.
It was a surreal experience. One I never got tired of. Lying on a mat staring at the sky makes you feel so small you can literally feel the crushing of your worries and flow of peace into your mind.
The Return
After college, I returned home in preparation for the compulsory national service for university graduates. And being an introvert, I stayed indoors for months recycling the little connection I had with nature from my time in School. When I exhausted that, I started getting irritated easily and all it took for me to flare up was a snarky comment from others.
So a couple of weeks back I decided to visit the popular natural park a few miles from where I served. It was so surreal and I've never felt at peace like that in months. It was such an amazing experience.
Gaining Motivation
It's so easy to get motivated in school when you've got deadlines and tons of assignment to catch up with. Despite hating the traditional organized educational system (I did graduate with great results, though), I respect the motivation to get things done plus the competition I had all around me.
Since I have a goal of building my own business and perhaps launching my own startup soon, I've been trying to coax myself to get things done as at when needed.
In addition to building my own freelance writing business, I've been learning how to become a front-end developer.
So far, what has helped me is what a mentor told me when I complained to him:
Do it anyway. Sadly, if we wait for motivation - we could be waiting a long time. It's what running a business is all about.
In addition, I've been reading a couple of books by some top authors (I don’t believe in many productivity mumbo-jumbo books, though), honing my self-discipline and forming new habits.
By the way, I would like to hear from you how you get things done and what motivates you and all.
Producing More
Being an infovore means I consume lots of information every day - I sometimes go through hundreds of articles and a couple of books every week. I, however, take pride in churning out good stuff too on the web.
Recently, that has been hard due to my lack of motivation. SteemMag has always been a constant reminder to write at least 2ce a week but I want to get more done.
It inspires me when I see writers like @kevinwong, @kaylinart and @knozaki2015 consistently pushing out amazing contents every day …
Going forward, I want to cultivate the habit of writing every day. This will help me massively if I'm able to pull it off. Not only will it boost my freelance writing business, it will greatly help improve my writing skills.
I also plan on having a workable knowledge of JS before the end of the month. Got a side project I wanna build :)
Hopefully, I can make this as fun as possible for everyone by adding new features to my daily goals.
Thanks for reading this far. Here's a lil gift for you:
Things Worth Reading Today:
Your Dog Might Look Guilty, But It's Feeling Afraid
The All-in-One Content Marketing Playbook for Startups
What is the scariest experience you have ever had online?
How to find 20+ blog ideas your audience can’t wait to read
HSAM Is The Incredibly Rare Condition Of Superhuman Memory
Over to you…..
How do you motivate yourself to get things done? And what’s a piece of advice you will give to a younger you?
I would love to hear from you….
Great post!
What motivates me is having long term directions I want to head. I won't even say goals, because those are supposed to be measurable, time-boxed, and broken down into actions. I'm more talking about a vision. When I started FoxyCart 10 years ago, my vision was for my wife to stay home to raise our kids once we started a family. By the time my son was born, FoxyCart made enough money for her to quit her job. I was working crazy hours with my full time job and staying up late on FoxyCart, but it was worth it. I did it for four years before I went full time also. Next was to pay off my house. We did that this year. Now it's to travel the world with my family. With three kids, that's really expensive! We're having to save a lot to pay for those plane tickets, food, place to stay, etc. But that's my current vision. Motivation comes, for me, in having a vision. It's got be intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic. You have to know yourself and what you want out of life. For me, it also really helps to be on this journey with people that matter to me. My wife. My business partner. They are part of me because we share our visions together and that sharing stirs up our own desires to accomplish more each day.
Good luck! My advice, for what it's worth, is to know yourself and know what you want out of life. Everything else will follow that vision.
Wow. Thanks so much Luke. Really nice of you sharing your experience with me. I'm so grateful. Its really cool of you putting your family's happiness in the front burner..
One of my goals is to be financially stable enough to not depend on any employer. I've achieved that goal to an extent and it begs the next question of what next? That has been hard finding and hopefully when I find the next goal, I can have the burning passion to get things done like you do currently.
Thanks so much for dropping by. Wish you the best in your quest to travel round the world bud
I thought that might be the case. You'll get it. Keep searching. The journey is part of the process.
Amazing post bro, thanks for sharing the resources with us, i would surely check them out. Also check out Simon Sinek and Gary Vaynerchuk on Youtube, they have amazing resources and advice.
P.S Thanks for the Steem you sent to me, I am very Grateful.
I Would like to have your facebook username so that we can talk more, i have some things to discuss with you.
Thanks so much for dropping by @ogochukwu. Yeah. I know simon sinek and Garyvee(his swear words are unnecessary most times IMO though). You are welcome. Hit me on steemit.chat @infovore . Looking forward to hearing from you.
I would tell my younger self to listen more to my heart and less to my head, take the risks!
Very nice Ophelia.
I wish it was that easy to do! That was easy to do during my teenage years. Buh over the years the consequence of my previous risks slows me down to take another up the chin..
Thansk for dropping by @opheliafu. Really appreciate..
Amazing post @infovore. I've learned more about you by reading it and I hope you write about your own thoughts more often. In response to your question, I would say that exercise and travel help me the most in providing some perspective and a chance to think things through. Nature definitely helps people reconnect with themselves.
Thanks for dropping by @donkeypong. I hope I can get myself to write more about me in tge future.
And you are right! Nature is a great reconnection tool. I will have to work on getting exercises done. I loved running while in high school but for the past few years, the thought of running in public makes me feel shy. Im lucky Im still in a good shape despite staying indoors all day.
+1 on the stars on a mat... I can stare at the night sky for hours
Agree. It has such a calming effect on the mind and its so easy to meditate along with it.
and not falling asleep? maybe I should try some time. :)
First of all, great links that you shared towards the end :)
And to answer - only way I motivate myself is when deadline is near lol. I think these days it can be much easier to run an online business. Plenty of awesome, affordable services these days.
I'd definitely advice my younger self to be smarter about money. But what do I know!
Thanks Kev. I plan on sharing more of those links.. I come across so many stuff everyday so its only proper I share some ;)
You're right. There is no greater kick in the butt than a looming deadline.lol.
Hitting you up asap. Wanna learn about more online business ideas..
Once again, thanks for dropping by man
Great post man...... related to this, my vote made your post jump several pennies.... however....
I wrote a community encouragement post today, got 5 or more flags, with massive 10% flags/DV, by the TOP whales, - when 1% would have been fair..... it killed the rep score and payout, and I had a lot of time and thought into it but who cares, about encouraging content right that is then worth $1?
It was a failed experiment and these flags, with no start or end date, or announcement, are driving good people off here daily. Poorly thought out, at best.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@barrydutton/steemit-people-i-m-thankful-for-mindful-community-engagement-encouragement-e-1-march-12-2017
Same thing with me, I'm an introvert and it's not cool. I have been home for like 10 months waiting for service, which is very frustrating, but thanks to Steemit that is keeping me a bit busy.
Wow!! I didn't know that was the meaning of name. I just looked it up and that's the meaning, the name is cool.
This is another great article.
Motivation is sometimes very difficult to have, I think been self-discipline and determined can help you overshadow motivation. Because when you are self-disciplined and determined, you are like a machine that achieves things, hereby motivation won't be needed that much. It's acquiring self-discipline and determination that is the main thing. Just my honest opinion.
You have a big heart and brain, from what I'm gathering from you so far. You love exploring information, I wanna know how you think, for real.
I guess you are on a physical project presently.
I would really love to chat with you, I want to have the zeal like you. I have chatted you up on Discord(I prefer that, smiles) and on steemit.chat. I really hope you reply me.