Striving for and doing what we love each and every day of our lives Over the course of the last few years, my teenage son has been expressing to me that he is not sure about the profession or the line of work he wants to be in once he is at the point in his life when such decision would need to be made. So, he has been asking me to share my recommendation of what he should do when the time comes? Every time I receive such question, my response to my son is always the same – “Do what you truly enjoy doing, no matter the line of business, profession, salary, etc.” Why I believe this is important? Because, we as human beings have been conditioned to select our careers, our professions, and jobs based on several factors that other people, including our parents, believe are important, such as: prestige, salary potential, job security, opportunities for advancements and growth, physical location, and few other criteria’s. However, why is nobody recommending selecting our future career based on one simple factor – doing that what we truly find interesting and see ourselves doing for the rest of our life?
In my personal opinion, being in a profession or career that one loves and wakes up every morning looking forward to pursuing and learning more about, is the most important thing for a young adult to consider when thinking about his or her professional future. The career, profession, and job that we select, that we enjoy, may not be prestigious in the eyes of other people, or may not be the one that pays top salary, but just because we do that what we enjoy and passionate about every day, we would give our 100% each and every day, and not because someone is expecting us to do so, but because we choose to do so. When we are in a line of work or profession that we love, it is not a job that we are expected to do each day, but our commitment and personal investment into ourselves and our future. We hold ourselves accountable and proactively work on developing new and enhancing existing skills of ours, because, we want to get better, while enjoying the learning process in the meantime. When something does not go right or as expected, we are not pointing finger at someone else, we look into our own actions, reviewing and correcting any mistakes made, learning something new during the process, and happily try again until we see the results that we want to see. Why? Because we enjoy that what we do. We receive a sense of happiness and satisfaction from our work and our efforts each and every day. So, next time my son asks me the same question, as he makes his way through High School years, my response to him will remain the same as before: “Do that what you truly enjoy doing, no matter the line of business, profession, or the salary, because, doing what you love every day is what will bring you complete happiness and great success in life.”
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Choose the source of motivation and inspiration that works for you and your goals and objectives in life We all need and often require motivation in order to overcome challenges of daily life and procrastination. What we select as a source of our motivation, what fires us up and energizes us every morning, differ from person to person. In my personal opinion it is safe to assume that each individual is motivated differently, therefore, the source of our motivation should be carefully selected in order to receive the effect that we expect – to get motivated, inspired, energized, and laser focused on our individual goals and objectives each and every day.
Some of us require upbeat motivational music in the morning to get motivated for our morning workout, while others do not receive motivation from music and, instead, prefer a period of silence in order to focus and gather their thoughts and ideas for the day ahead. For example, in my case, I always thought that I need workout music, a mix of rock, techno, and R&B to get me motivated. So, I have created a carefully selected playlist with good mix of sons that sounded like a good motivational resource to get me going for my morning workout. For some time, listening to such playlist worked for me, and I was getting energized and pumped to push hard through difficult workout sessions each morning. However, after a period of time, and listening to the same playlist over and over, I was no longer receiving the drive and motivation I needed, and instead it became just a background noise in my ears that I heard while exercising. So, I decided to look for a different source of motivation and chose to try motivational speeches of some of the most successful motivational speakers, entrepreneurs, business leaders instead. Such change reignited the motivation and energy I needed to work extra hard and giving my 100% while exercising every day. I have noticed that it was easier for me to listen, focus, and receive information delivered via spoken word as part of a motivational speech vs. upbeat music with words I could barely hear and understand. I believe that it is especially important to look for and find the source of motivation that works for each person individually. Just because someone gets motivated by listening to upbeat music, does not mean that it works the same way for everyone. Find what works for you, what motivates and inspires you to keep working and give your 100% to whatever task you are working on. Also, when you realize that you are no longer receive the same level of energy and motivation from that one source that you used to receive your motivation from, then change it, find a different source of motivation and inspiration. Regardless of your chosen source of motivation, the main goal and objective is to keep on going, keep working hard each day, and never stop or give up on your goals and dreams that you hope to achieve one day. Creating positive experiences and welcoming changes into our lives We all go through life with a goal to create the lifestyle that we want for ourselves and our loved ones. However, such journey could be very and filled with many different experiments, trials, happy moments, as well as disappointments. How we look at each moment determines our path forward or results in no movement or progress at all, and it all boils down to our attitude to whatever is happening to us at any given point in time.
Let us just say that a new career opportunity requires us to make changes in our personal life, such as relocating to another city, another state, or even another country. Do we accept such opportunity, without knowing what all will happen next, or do we turn it down and stay put? That all depends if we are ready for a new challenge which could potentially help to get us closer to the life that we want to create for ourselves, or if we are not ready or unwilling to change anything in our present, and are unwilling to accept new challenges, because, we are afraid that we will not like what new change may bring. For example, upon relocating to another state, one individual who is open to and ready to accept changes, would embrace everything that they have and everything that is happening around them – new home, different environment, new neighbors, etc. And then, another individual who was presented with the same opportunity, would dislike everything and constantly be in the negative state of mind, just because they did not want the change, and now anything that differs from their past, will be rejected. Does the most recent scenario create favorable conditions to build the dream lifestyle that we want for ourselves and our loved ones? No, it does not. Because, no matter how good things may get, we would view them in the negative light, and would not accept potentially great opportunities into our life. For good and positive things to happen, one must be ready and willing to accept changes and new opportunities into his or her life. Also, it is equally important to have an open mindset, understanding that things do not always go as planned, and that occasional roadblock will present themselves to us from time to time. However, when we have an open and positively-focused mindset, when we have an optimistic outlook on life, and ready to embrace everything that life gives us, then with time and hard work, we will create the life that we always wanted and dreamed of. When we create positive energy around us, more positive energy we will attract to ourselves, and the other way around. So, if you are ready to welcome change into your life, keep an open mind, be ready and willing to accept changes and new opportunities, and simply be happy. Each new day is an opportunity to start something new, try again, or to start fresh If we do not like what happened yesterday, or were not particularly proud of our lack of progress and accomplishments, all we need to remember is that new day is our opportunity to try again, our opportunity to start over. That is the beautiful thing about us having 365 days in a year, each day is our opportunity to start over, to work smarter, work harder, to create something new in our life and the lives of others. New day is also our opportunity to change or to create change.
Some of us get discouraged just because something did not go right yesterday, but again that was yesterday, and today is a new day. So, we should be happy and grateful for the opportunity to move forward and create progress regardless how big or small it is every single day. Of course, this would only work if we recognize that new day is an opportunity to start fresh, leaving yesterday behind. If we choose to hold on to our disappointments, mistakes, failures, and negative moments from yesterday, we are limiting our thoughts and what we focus on to what happened in the past. We all have good and bad days, even when we plan and try really hard to focus on the positive in everything and think positively. Life happens, and we get thrown off our positive state, whether it is because we did something wrong, made a mistake, or because someone ese brought in negativity into our initially positive day. This happens all the time. So, how do we tune our negativity and disruptors from our initially positive and happy day, filled with goals and objectives that we were ready to pursue? In my opinion, there is no way to completely tune out negative situations or bad moments that create disruptions in our day. However, if we just remember that day goes on, life goes on, and everything and everyone has an opportunity to change things for a better by introducing optimism and positivity into a mix, we can move on knowing that everything is going to be alright, if not now, then later in the day or the next day. If we do that, then even hardest and the most challenging days would be met and managed much easier than before. Instead of talking about and dwelling on what went wrong on any given day, start talking and thinking about things that went well, any small wins, accomplishments, and/or progress made are certainly worth highlighting. Start each day genuinely believing that it will be a good day, and even when faced with challenges, keep positive focus whenever possible, and do not let any negative moment or situation consume your positively focused mindset. Even when things do not go according to plan, which happens often, do not get discouraged, remember that tomorrow is a new day and new fresh and positive start. There are plenty of days in one year to start over, start new, and create happy and memorable moments. Winning and succeeding with the great power of persistence and determination My wife often ask me a question – “Why do I always have to finish every project and challenge that I choose to start or engage in, and then working super hard each day even when I should take it easy and just relax?” And you know what, my answer is always the same – “I don’t know. I just can’t do it any other way.” If I signed up for something, whether it is a personal or professional challenge, I must not only finish it within set deadlines, but I also have to do the best job I can, no matter what.
Here is one example for you. Twelve weeks ago, I chose to do a 12-week fitness challenge program, where I was expected to exercise five days per week for twelve weeks straight. Each day would consist of a quick warm up, followed by 25-30 minutes of intense physical (with weights) or cardio workout, and finish with 8-10 minutes of stretching or yoga. When I stared the program, I didn’t really knew what I was signing up for, because, I would not know which exercises from the following fitness plan categories: Tabata, Plyometrics, Cardio-Strength Intervals, Interval Training, or HIIT, I would be expected to do until the day of the actual workout, so every day was a surprise. On top of highly physically-demanding exercises that I had to do each day, I also had to get in the habit of waking up every day at 6am to complete each workout, before it was time to take a shower and take kids to school. Setting different hard exercises aside, waking up early each i to perform intense physical workout was probably the most difficult part of the entire challenge. Now, with all this in mind, I was determined to stick to the program for 12 weeks, exercising 5 days each week, no matter how tired I was or how unwilling to do any physical activity I was on any given day. It was extremely difficult. Some days I would wake up at the sound of my alarm and just lay there staring in the darkness of the bedroom in a comfortable bed, contemplating if I should just take one day and skip. However, as tempting as it was to skip one day, my persistence and determination to complete the program uninterrupted kept me going. I am pleased to say that I have successfully completed 12-week fitness challenge program, completing a total of 180 workouts, over 23K calories burned, and spending over 1.9K minutes training in total. Once again, I had proven to myself that determination, persistence, and never-give-up attitude does pay off. Now, you would think that I would take a break from fitness challenges and workouts, and just relax for few days? But no, I immediately enrolled into yet another 12-week fitness program without even giving it a second thought. Sure, I know that this would be more difficult and more physically demanding then the previous 12-week program. I also know that I would have to continue to wake up five days per week at 6am to workout, no matter how hard it gets, and being tempted to quit and take it easy every day. However, no matter how hard it gets, I know that I can do it, I can and will win no matter what. I am sharing this story just to show you that everyone is capable of setting a goal and then work hard with extreme determination and persistence to accomplish a set goal. All we would need to remember is that it will be difficult at times, that we will be tempted by outside factors all around us, in our daily lives, to stop and quit. But, as long as we do not let those outside factors and our own mind convince us that we are uncapable of completing that what we’ve started, then we will accomplish whatever we’ve set out to do, and once again prove to ourselves that we can. Believe in yourself, and keep on going, keep on trying, no matter how hard it gets every day. |
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