What Motivates You To Action ?

Personal motivation takes many forms.  Finding motivation can be difficult, whether it is for yourself or to support others.  Lasting motivation comes from deep-rooted values, but even these beliefs are not enough to motivate us to action in some situations.  What gets you moving and accomplishing things you want or need to do often depends less on your long-term goals and more on the here and now.

For me, I have found motivation from a variety of sources.  Music motivates me ... sometimes.  Exercise motivates me ... sometimes.  My wife and kids motivate me ... sometimes when I don't want to be motivated.  To Do lists and thinking about the end of a project motivates me much of the time.  But one thing motivates me every single time it happens!  I have yet to experience a situation where I do not take action when this one thing occurs.

I am always motivated by ... ANGER.

To be clear right from the start, my reaction to anger is almost always positive and not destructive.  The feeling of anger or disappointment just lights a fire for me that gives me energy to make changes or take action that will allow me to avoid that feeling in the future.  Dirty dishes piled up in the sink?  I can channel that frustration long enough to load the dishwasher.  Tree roots tangled with sprinkler lines?  I will take out my frustration on untangling that mess.  Opponent keeps scoring at will on the basketball court?  I will redirect my energy to tighter defense, if only to stop him once.

Even blogging has come in waves, often motivated by things that begin to rile me up.  I don't expect anyone to go back and track it, but I think you will find frustration, disappointment, discontent, or otherwise some form of anger, as the genesis for many of my posts.  But look closely and I think you'll see that the anger quickly gives way to more positive reactions and ideas on how to improve that situation going forward.  At least that is my hope.


Song Of The Day:
Not necessarily one of my favorite Bobby McFerrin songs, ** "Angry" just fits this post too well not to use.  I like that the lyrics and his delivery of them suggest a more positive reaction to situations that frustrate us.  This is not a hurt others kind of anger, but a we could make this better kind of response.
**Apologies for the song link not being included here ... I will remedy that once I can get a video loaded to YouTube.
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Are You Happy ?

One of my responsibilities at work is to prepare an agenda for and facilitate over a monthly meeting for my team.  Most of the time I enjoy putting together these meetings even though the agenda is often dictated to me by outside influences (new systems or procedures to roll out, etc.)  On occasion, I find myself in the unique situation where I get to outline an agenda entirely of my own devices.  I relish these opportunities and try to use them to help my team members think more broadly and deeply on any given subject, often related to life and not just limited to something in the work environment.

Today, among other things, I shared portions of an article I came across from LinkedIn.  The article was posted/written by a Jeff Haden (giving credit where credit is due, despite no knowlegde of who this person actually is).  Upon first reading the ideas he outlined, I was taken back and willingly forced into a very introspective mode.  I found myself internally asking questions regarding my level of "happiness."  I was mostly pleased with my answers, as they reaffirmed my belief that I am genuinely happy the majority of the time.  The areas where I am not as happy, are things I can change by choosing the right "trade-offs" to give up.  This took away my feelings of helplessness and gave me a feeling of power over the direction in my life.

We are told to follow after the pursuit of happiness, but this isn't the same thing for all people.  I love this concept.  It removes the need for argument with anyone else over success.  The truth is, YOU determine how successful YOU are.  If that's more money, more time, enough flexibility in work hours to engage in your favorite hobby or activity, a bigger family, stronger relationship with your spouse, or even a clearer spiritual connection with your own 'supreme being' ... it doesn't matter if that makes someone else view you as successful or not.  They are not you.  They do not live with you 24/7.  So stop worrying if they approve.

If you're happy and you know it ... good!  :)

Song Of The Day:
I've already shared the music of Bobby McFerrin in this blog, but his greatest selling popular song will always be "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and that's the perfect message to go along with this post.  Enjoy!

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What's a Fok-a-guyal ?

My apologies for what is by far my most crude-sounding blog post title in history!  It is NOT what you think!!!  But it is spelled phonetically so you can appreciate the laugh I had yesterday.

Myra, our 2 1/2 year old, is at that great age where her speech is just too funny not to share.  She also loves it whenever I get home from work.  She will come tearing through the house from wherever she is screaming "Daddy home!  Daddy home!"  Then when she sees me and I pick her up in a big ol' hug, she always points at me and says "Daddy!  You home!"

Yesterday, right after I set her down from our obligatory (and often quite lengthy) hug, she pointed to the wall and said "Dat a fok-a-guyal."

About 95% of the time I can understand what she's saying ... this was part of that other 5%  It was especially difficult considering she was just pointing at ... a wall.  So I asked her to say it again.  She moved closer to the wall and said "See?!  Dat a fok-a-guyal!"  I looked at her, still bewildered, and so she pointed to another spot on the wall and said "Dat him tay-ull.  See?!"

Ohhhhhhhh!

A "crocodile" !!!

There was a shadow being cast on the wall from some books and Karen's purse on the ledge between the hall and the dining room ... and sure enough, it actually had the rough shape of a crocodile.

I took video (on my phone) of her saying this ... but I'm not sure how to load it to this blog so I may just do a separate post on Facebook to share it.

Song Of The Day
In honor of my no-longer-baby-since-Spencer-is-here-now daughter Myra.  Tonight's song is "Baby" by Bobby McFerrin.  I loved this song even before I had my own kids, but now I sing along to it as a parent of 7 ... the music is still just as awesome, but now the words mean even more to me.