what motivates you?

What motivates you? What drives you to wake up every day and go out there and do something with yourself, make something of yourself? For each of us I am sure it is different and it can be more than one factor. Is it for you? For someone else? Is it worth it? Does it allow balance in your life? These are all questions we have to ask our self when deciding what to do for our jobs/careers/life goals. Do you get comfortable with what you are doing and don't keep pushing yourself to do the things you want and lose time? I know that I do. Giving up is easy, being comfortable feels nice, yet for me sometimes some things are missing. When I work harder and get the results I want, I am happy, I am satisfied, I feel great and accomplished. I am not sure why it is so hard to get motivated to start with sometimes.
I think the biggest struggle example that I have is my intention to work out. I ALWAYS feel great after a good work out, but I seldom am really motivated to actually work out, even though I know the results will boost my self confidence and energy. Same goes for my work, my book, etc. Sometimes I put first the things I think I should be doing and save some of this stuff as selfish things that can be pushed back.
I know that with the Thanksgiving holiday I slacked off a little more than I probably should and now I am racing to catch up and try to keep up with my leads and not lose anyone because I am busy and may not be available at the exact time they are looking for me to help them. I had in the back of my mind that everything would be okay and then one of my closings fell through that I was banking on to take that extra "week" off, even though I was working I wasn't working like I should have been. Do we need to give ourselves a break every once in a while? Sure but we still have to be cautious of how it will affect the outcomes in the future. That is when balance and calmness, patience and flexibility have to be my constant daily reminder, as well as my motivating factor, my family.

My family is the most important tangible thing that I have, and keeping up with my goals and aspirations gives me the flexibility I need to make the time with my family happen. I need to just keep remembering to keep my eye on my goals, go over my motivations every day (even though I know what they are) and keep the faith and belief that God is there for me to see me through any obstacle I have and that I believe in myself enough to know that I can do anything which I set my mind to and really really want.

100% Control

I have talked about reactive situations and re-creating myself to be the best me that I can on several previous blogs. I was recently reminded of how my defensive nature can sometimes ruin an immediate situation because I don't have the time to stop and let something sink in, I just immediately lash out with sometimes negative comments that don't usually make the situation any better, and most of the time worse- even though that may not be my intention. I would never intentionally hurt some one's feelings, but sometimes that is just what happens. I am again glad that I can take constructive criticism (once I truly think about the situation- I wish it was more immediate so I didn't lash out).
What we say and what comes out of our mouth can easily be apologized for and often if not most of the times forgiven and maybe forgot about, but never taken back, as if it didn't happen.
I don't know if any of you are like me in the fact that you have really high expectations of yourself and how you should be to others, how the things that you touch and are a part of your life so easily get absorbed into something that you feel responsible for, even if you cannot control the person or thing, you somehow feel that you "the internal perfectionist" that you are should not allow it to happen, but honestly no matter how many times that I have felt like I should be able to control a person or situation simply because it affects me or would make me somehow look bad, I honestly can't take responsibility for anything that I don't have 100% control over- on the other hand; MY REACTION- 100% control.
So in other words, I don't have 100% control over my family members, what they do or say, how they feel or react, a real estate transaction that another person causes to not go as smoothly as "I" had planned, or some one's positive or negative reaction to something I say or do. So why is it that I feel responsible to justify or defend something that I cannot fully control.  Sometimes I feel like the elephant trying to balance on the beach ball trying to juggle it all when I need to just stand on both feet and take in only what I know that I can handle- all the other things that I "think" I can handle often tend to be the "reactions" that I really could have avoided.
I can control my reactions, my weight, what I put into my mouth, how much I exercise, the words that come out of my mouth, my intentions, my effort, my talent God has given me, my attitude, how I treat others, the time I spend with those I love,  my spending, etc. So therefore, today I will concentrate on the things that I know that I can control allowing my peace of mind, balance and stability to ensure that even though I cannot guarantee that I will not have the reactive/defensive moments in the future, I will have the ability to control having them less because I am focused on the things I can control and making myself better in the categories that I KNOW that I can.