Showing posts with label Motivation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motivation. Show all posts

29 Jun 2014

Let's make "like a girl" mean amazing things!

Long time, no see. I was very busy lately and I still am and won't be able to catch up with my blog. Many apologies, my dear readers. I just wanted to quickly pop in the advertisement video below. I want to share it with you because it moved me very much when I saw it the first time and it still does. This is a really empowering advertisement video of "Always". They nailed it and it is wonderful that the advertisement business that usually draws on a very negative image of womankind does something to build up the self esteem of girls & women. Well done, Always. I love that video. 


31 Dec 2013

Self-guided education manifesto

Recently I stumbled upon the self-guided education manifesto by Scott Dinsmore. It is available on his web page. Basically, it consists of the elements shown in the picture below:

found @liveyourlegend


My favourite piece of advice of above:
  1. it never ends: no it doesn't There is no aim or destination that once is reached allows you to stop and relax and enjoy your earned fruits. It is a lifestyle and as such it never ends.
  2. learn who you are: know your patterns, know your weaknesses, know what you motivates you, know what you love and what you hate (both specifically mentioned in the manifesto above as well :-))
  3. everything is a lesson: even if something does not work out as intended and expected, it was not a waste of time. On the contrary. Try to perceive it as a lesson and be sure that next time you will do better because of this experience. If you focus too much on the bad features of an experience, it will drag you down and you will miss the opportunity to grow and improve. 
  4. build things: theory is important but it is more important to put this theory in practice and build things. Things that exist and are useful are the best advertisement and the business card in the world. The is nothing more gratifying than theory that has been shown to work.
Self-guided education is neither a diet nor a torture. It also never ends as it is a lifestyle and should be embraced.

And don't forget that although it surely is important to also find people who think that you are crazy, it also is very important to have like-minded people around you that support and inspire you in both who you are at the moment and who you want to be in the future. The people you are surrounding yourself with can make you or break your future. So try to find the proper environment that supports you and does not hinder you.

Our life is a gift. Let's make it count!

14 Apr 2013

It's time for a reboot

I am not fit anymore, dear readers. While I did lots of sports last year and, hence, was healthy and fit end of 2012, now all these great achievements are gone again. Since December last year, I had to downgrade my sports routine more and more until I didn't do any sports at all anymore since end of January, first due to an operation and then because I moved to the UK.

Recently, I observed that I started to feel quite weak and physically incapable. I don't like this kind of feeling. I suffered of it for many years, but last year I have experienced that this kind of feeling can be overcome with steady and regular physical exercise. It is very empowering to feel strong and physically capable for doing anything. So, I really want to start doing more exercise this month again. Also, summer is coming and it would be nice to be able to wear shorts and short skirts again.

Another thing I don't like that much at the moment is that I also don't eat that healthy anymore. When I am spending time abroad in other countries, I love to experiment with different kinds of foods from that country and at the moment - as I have moved to the UK - I am indulging myself in all kinds of unhealthy foods with far too many calories. Furthermore, I was living in a shared house until recently where I didn't feel comfortable to cook. So, I ate a lot of ready and instant meals. Fortunately, I still fit into the trousers I brought with me but I'm sure that I gained a bit of weight as they started to feel a bit tight lately. Unfortunately, I have not found any scales to check my weight.

All in all I urgently need and want to push life's reset button at the moment! 

found @millenialleader

10 Dec 2012

Motivation for the week: Find your greatness!

The beginning is the hardest and the difficult small steps in the beginning count too - maybe they even count the most. :-)


I love these Nike ads. They really push my buttons. How do you like them?

26 Nov 2012

Some great advice for the week

Found @tumblr

Love that advice. It's a piece of advice that sometimes can be very hard to follow. Last month, however, I left something that no longer served me as it was not helping me to grow anymore (on the contrary) and, hence, didn't make me happy anymore. I love to grow and get new insights and walking away from that specific thing was the best I did for quite some time now. 

Was there anything you walked away from recently in order to serve your happiness and your natural need for growth?

20 Nov 2012

The Power of Less



I love the video above. It has been made by Leo Babauta from zenhabits as an advertisement for his book The power of less (haven't read it yet but it's on my to read list ;-)). The video is expressing exactly how I feel right now too. Actually, I felt attracted to minimalism for a couple of years now. But I didn't want to get rid of stuff, interestingly, I rather wanted to digitize it and store it on tiny hard disks. This is why I struggled with minimalism a lot and I realized recently that I wasn't a minimalist at all as I focused on space solely and this is just a tiny fragment of what minimalism really is. There are many things that cannot be digitized and that we have to keep in their physical form. E.g. clothes, beauty items, our furniture and many more. I also have to admit - although I love digital books, the software for reading them sometimes spoils the party for me, too. It does not allow to add a dog-ear to book pages, underline words and sentences in different colours, write thoughts at the border of the page and such kinds of things that I love to do with my books. So, of course although I own a lot of digital books, I still do purchase, keep and read many books the old style as well.

My wardrobe and my beauty collection (and other collections) were and still are quite huge because I love to experiment and also love to have a choice. These collections were even bigger last year. Last year I started to force myself to use up my beauty items and while doing so, I discovered that I didn't like many of these items or that the shades didn't match and this is why I started to experiment more and this lead to many additional purchases. Although these purchase were expensive, they also very valuable because I got to know more about colours, makeup and what suits me and what I like and how I like myself to look like in different occasions. While evaluating and experimenting with beauty, I ended up purchasing a lot of new stuff and there were times when my collection also grew more than it shrunk. (I just made an inventory of my body lotions here and I was pretty shocked when I realized how huge the amount is. ;-)) But by means of my monthly empties, I established a routine of experimenting and decluttering and using up and this is something that I am very proud of today. My beauty stuff is used and although it seems like I'm hoarding, it is not real hoarding because I try, experiment and use stuff up and also declutter on a regular basis. In the future, however, I want to shrink the amount of beauty items that I possess much more. 

11 Nov 2012

Life consists of ups and downs (and that's great!)

It's time for some further motivational input! :-)

Found @imgur

20 Aug 2012

Seize every advantage



I'm a bit obsessed with women's soccer at the moment - well, actually since last year when the women's soccer world championship took place in Germany. The games were shown on german TV like men's soccer usually does and the men I know that usually watch men's soccer watched them too. I got hooked as well and in the end I had to watch every game. I especially fell in love with the american team as the members of the american team performed much better and some also looked much better than the members of the german team. ;-) (Isn't Hope Solo a really good looking woman? See her e.g. here, here, here, here and here (there she is the third person from the left))

6 Aug 2012

Pressure Makes Us


I like this ad! :-)

Of course it depends on our individual state of mind and state of evolution how much pressure we can take. The amount of pressure should neither be too high nor too low. As usual, balance is the key.  

But being a member of one of the world's best women's soccer team, I guess that you have to embrace the huge amount of pressure that is put on you. After all they wanted to win the world championship - and the american team indeed also scored the 2nd place.

13 Jul 2012

Towards setting goals properly

Setting goals is important in life in order to gain control, feel empowered and be more in charge of ourselves. By setting goals and taking actions to achieve them, we are giving our lives the directions we desire which makes our life fulfilling and meaningful. Recently, I shared with you the goal to bike for 5 hours a week and started to track my progress with the bar shown on the right column of this blog. This goal has worked out very well for me and sharing it with you guys has motivated me a lot to pursue my goal with all my energy.

Nevertheless, it is highly controversial whether sharing goals with others is motivating or not. See the TED talk below where Derek Sivers advises us to not share our goals:


I think that the research Derek is mentioning is right concerning how and with whom you share your goals. Being admired for just having your goals and being acknowledged as if the goals have been achieved already is indeed counterproductive. In case you decide to announce your goals you should be sure to announce them to the right persons in the right way in order to avoid any kind of gratification that might hamper reaching your goals. You might also have to take care that you are not talked out of your goal either - sometimes this happens as well and it depends on your personality whether this is something that motivates you (to prove people wrong and pursue your goals nevertheless) or whether it is rather demotivating you.

However, in my experience it is important to hold yourself accountable and to tell your goals to others who will ask you regularly about how it goes and kick your ass when necessary. This can help a lot with achieving your goals as you have the pressure to render an account. So, discussing your aims with a positive and helpful audience can help reach your goals. You have to take care, however, that if you give account for not reaching your goals, it is very important to not talk yourself down too much such that you start feeling empty, powerless and as if you were incapable of achieving a goal. This is so not true - everyone can achieve their goals. Instead of talking you down and punish yourself, you should notice that you have not achieved a goal and analyse why you have not achieved it. There is always a cause and it is not your personal insufficiency. It is very important to keep being positive but still realistic (and admit the truth to yourself), in order to be able to improve, change or achieve a goal. One mistake often made is that a goal is not set properly, i.e. it is not S.M.A.R.T. as explained below.

What this all amounts to is that talking about your goals to the right persons can yield a kind of social support system as discussed by the author of "The happiness project", Gretchen Rubin, in the video below. The video discusses also a couple of additional interesting ideas on how to hold yourself accountable for your resolutions:


As mentioned above, setting goals in itself is also not that easy. A goal has to be S.M.A.R.T.ly set, i.e. specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time sensitive. It also is important to not have too many goals at the same time since that might distract you. Focus on the most important goals (ideally just one for each life pillar) and keep them challenging but not impossible to reach. Note that there are also other words that can be used as substitute for S.M.A.R.T. or even S.M.A.R.T.E.R. as can be seen here - unfortunately, there is a specific very nice substitute for the A missing in these sources, namely attractive. Goals have to be attractive, i.e. they have to be formulated positively and not negatively (e.g. don't say "I don't want to be overweight anymore" but rather "I want to get slimmer and healthier and happier" in order to create a positive goal towards which you can target your life). Getting away from something negative is not as motivating as getting closer to something great. Keep in mind that in the moment you reach your goal, you'll feel great and your self confidence improves - this is what you should remind yourself of when targeting your goal. A nice german translation of the S.M.A.R.T. principle of formulating a goal hence is in my opinion: spezifisch (what exactly do you want to achieve?), messbar (when will you know that you achieved it and how do you measure progress?), attraktiv (make it beautiful and appaling and wonderful - note that you can only do so when it's your own goal and not a goal you have been talked into ;-)), ressourcenorientiert (do you have everything you need for reaching the goal? What is missing and what might have to be gathered by you before starting to pursue your goal? Can you gather it on the go while pursuing your goal?) und terminiert (when is your deadline and what exactly are the actions you want to take in order to get closer to your goal and when exactly will you do them?). 

Another very important thing is to check whether your goals match your values and whether your beliefs do not hamper you reaching your goals. It can be very difficult to make our values and our beliefs more transparent since naturally they tend to be hidden. They are a kind of bias we adopted very early in our lives e.g. due to our experiences in our childhood. Since they are deeply interweaved with our personality we usually are unaware of them. Some counseling by an expert with appropriate experience and a fresh mind can be tremendously helpful since we tend to be caught in our own traps. Nevertheless, since good counseling can be very expensive and we all are more or less on a budget and have to prioritize our expenses, here are two techniques to help you adjust your goals to your values and make you beliefs and values more transparent. More transparency can be achieved e.g. by using the 5 whys technique. "Why?" is one kind of question, you might also consider working additionally with questions like "how?", "when?", "to what end?", "what instead?", ... There are plenty of possibilities for leading a fruitful and illuminating conversation with yourself. ;-)
The video below provides some helpful advice by Jeff Doubek on adjusting your goals to your values:

However, as said above, with values and beliefs it's tricky because we tend to stew in our own juice and don't observe our unconcious biases. We don't remember how we gained our bias and often act unconciously. Hence, we should also be careful and try to adjust ourselves to life by means of the feedback we get from others. This requires openness and many fruitful discussions with others. In case we have tremendous difficulties to reach specific goals we really want to achieve, however, it might be worthwile to seek for advice and counselling with an expert with some kind of psychological background (it does not necessarily have to be therapy - I even think that this might be counterproductive in some settings). With the help of the expert you might discover specific unconscious beliefs or values that hamper you and that you have to deal with properly in order to get closer to your goal. Note that the state of your mind is also a resource and hence part of the "R" (here with the much better substitute resource oriented/ressourcenorientiert than realistic, because if you have all resources available, your goal is indeed realistic).

A hands-on first solution how-to for dealing with difficulties concerning your goals: In case you constantly do not reach your goals, you should gradually shrink the amount of goals you are aiming for until you focus on the one goal that is most important to you. In this way, you also prioritize your goals on the go which is very important in time and task management in general. In case this goal is connected with a habit, you should give it 30 days for manifesting it within your daily routine. If it is not a habit but a long-term goal, you should analyze it, break it down into subgoals and define the dependencies and finally realistically assess how much time you'll need until you reach each of the subgoals. You should also investigate what kinds of resources are necessary for reaching your goal and whether they are already available to you or whether you have to gather them before starting to pursue your goal.

And as soon as you have everything analyzed and defined, you can boost your motivation for reaching your goal by means of a vision board. This also belongs to the "A" (attractive) part of S.M.A.R.T.ly defined goals. ;-)

I might share some goals with you soon again, in order to motivate me to reach them. :) Which goals are you currently trying to achieve?

29 Jun 2012

Horse Love

Have a look at the struggle of this cute horse. It is frightened and a glutton at the same time: It is very much interested in eating that carrot but it also is very much frightened of me (we didn't know each other yet, ya know ;-)). It took ages for the horse to work up the courage to get closer to me and grab the carrot. When it had the carrot, it jumped away immediately to chew it in safety. :-)


And afterwards it wanted more:

28 Jun 2012

Horseback Riding

One year ago, I started to do horseback riding mainly because of my back. Good orthopedic specialists often recommend horseback riding as a good way to improve back and posture problems. For my back it has paid off indeed. Especially my lower back is now both stronger and more mobile at the same time. Additionally, I get the best pelvic floor training available and have a lot of fun. Horses are so fascinating. It's impossible to resist their beauty and cuteness. What I love most about them is that they are so predictable. They are easily frightened scaredy-pants and food is their weakness - with apples and carrots you can charm the pants off any horse. ;-) 

Later today, I'll go horseback riding and this is how I want to charm my horse's pants off ;-)

In theory, you can also feed sugar and sweets to horses and a lot of people do so. Horses eat everything that you give them and sweets are highly addictive, unfortunately - not only for us humans. But would you like to be seduced by sweets and sugar yourself? I personally wouldn't and this is why I prefer to feed them healthy stuff like fruits and vegetables. Since I started to do horseback riding I always have some apples around for horses. This is why I snack on apples myself more often now too. Apples and carrots are also great ingrediences for my favourite breakfast cake.

Here is some eye candy for all other horse lovers out there:

          (found @Reddit)

(found @Reddit)

(found @Reddit)

(found at @Reddit)

(found @Reddit)

23 Jun 2012

Yoda theme

I've been a bit obsessed with the Yoda theme lately (I love, love, love Star Wars and especially of course Yoda). The Star Wars films have even been scheduled on my to rewatch soon list by me now. :-) Here are some quotes (love them, they are truly sapient):

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
 
Remember, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Luke... Luke... do not... do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor or suffer your father's fate you will. Luke, when gone am I... the last of the Jedi will you be. Luke, the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned, Luke. There is... another... Sky... walker.
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.

"The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side."  

"If into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find."

"No! No different. Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned."

"Do or do not ... There is no try"

May the Force be with you.  

"When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not ehh."

 


18 Jun 2012

Keep Calm with Star Wars


found @Pinterest

found @Tumblr
found @deviantart

found @Wall321

I totally need this mug:
sold @ebay

17 Jun 2012

Watch your thoughts / Achte auf Deine Gedanken

This is one of my favourite reminders to get myself back on track and use my time properly (because I don't want stupid actions to become habits and finally my destiny ;-)). I especially like it in German since it was in German when I read it for the first time. Hence, here is the english and the german version of "Watch your thoughts"/"Achte auf Deine Gedanken":


Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

found @Tumblr

Achte stets auf Deine Gedanken, denn sie werden zu Worten.
Achte auf Deine Worte, denn sie werden zu Handlungen.
Achte auf Deine Handlungen, denn sie werden zu Gewohnheiten.
Achte auf Deine Gewohnheiten, denn sie werden Dein Charakter.
Achte auf Deinen Charakter, denn er wird Dein Schicksal.


found @flickr

7 Jun 2012

Dear hard work ... (fitness motivational Video)

I need motivation ... and the video below is really cool. :-) It doesn't only work for sports.



How do you like the video? Does it motivate you to do sports or anything else that has to be done? :-)