In our modern world the moment we put a foot out the door in the morning, staying engaged in our own goals and purposes gets hit by the constant pressure of advertising, frustration with traffic and public transport that doesn’t work efficiently, plus all our own mental considerations that take over our actions, all these items and more, often result in failed attempts towards our “to do list” that day.
And somewhere down that “to do list” is the health of your body and the actions you wish to take towards greater health.
Motivation is the catalyst (a person or thing that brings about change) that makes or breaks this drive inside all of us. So how can you maintain motivation throughout your daily life?
- Setting up the right conditions to stay engaged even when times are tough.
- Mindset: Realising that motivation is internal not external.
- Motivation is something that you create and recreate each day of your life.
- Remember that action comes first, and motivation is what follows.
- You need to know what you want and why it matters.
A good example of constant motivation comes from the life of a woman I know a little bit about. Her name was Bridget Murphy (her maiden name). She came from a tiny village in East Limerick. Born in November 1916 at the lowest social end of the community and finding herself somewhat disadvantaged around 1935 as a young woman with no prospects. But this 4foot 9inches lady was not going to be beaten. In a very nationalistic environment, she says to herself, “to hell with it” I am going to join the British army. And so, she did and trained in Berry, England and was lifted by her motivation to survive. But she wasn’t really interested in guns and killing and with a good heart she ended up in Berlin 1946 looking after German orphans. This is an example of a woman who would not agree with the social order or the prevailing environment she found herself in. She may not have consciously known points 1 to 5 above but from a survival point she lived them in very difficult circumstances.
Her passion, would you believe it, was photography, especially colour photography.
How do I know this. Well as her life unfolded in the mid-1950s, with 3 small children and becoming a widow, food was more the priority than photography.
However, on the day she died I somehow knew something was up and asked a friend to drive me from Dublin to that village in East limerick. We were what you would call soul mates and when I got to my sister’s house, she was already laid out.
Denial is a very strong trait, and it wasn’t until I realised after the evening church service that she wasn’t coming home too. I stayed back in the church for a half hour in my total grief. The next day we were busy with the burial. And then you see everyone leaves you, bit by bit you are on your own. Eventually I return to the family home, cold and very empty and totally silent. And when you’re in the family home the one place you are going to go to is your old room. And that’s where I end up and there on a small table is Bridget Murphys legacy, a hand-sized photo album entitled “Happy Days” packed full of black and white smiling German orphans with Bridget and other British female soldiers. There was another tiny photo album in my sister’s old room. She was always one step ahead of us, she knew we would have trouble with her going and so it was.
This lady was my mum.
Yours Sincerely,
John Keane