What’s Your Motivation?

In one of my workshops, there was a woman who was drawing quite a bit of attention to herself with her complaints of being “overwhelmed.” When I addressed her, I asked her to give me a quick run-down of an average day in her life. It went something like this:

She wakes up when she hears her youngest child wake up. She then makes him some breakfast and gets the other kids up and dressed (while trying to get herself dressed as well). Ten minutes before going out the door means scrambling for homework, books, jackets, granola bars, and other necessary items, which makes her extremely frustrated. She drops the older kids off at school and stops to pick up the mail on the way home. This usually makes her upset because inevitably, there is a bill buried in the stack that she and her husband are unable to pay. By the time she gets home, she’s starving so she often grabs something quick and easy that’s not always healthy. After satisfying the munchies, she starts cleaning and picking up the house that was left in a wreck in all of the confusion of getting out the door. This activity is followed by lunchtime, which is followed by naptime for her one-year-old. During her child’s nap, she may do some laundry or ironing while she watches television and then it’s off to school to pick up the kids. On the way home she starts thinking about dinner, which often means a stop by the grocery store or take-out restaurant. Dinner flows into bedtime and then the day starts all over again in the morning.

The first thing I noticed when she started describing her day was how each activity was simply a response to an external event instead of a self-initiated action. She woke up as a response to her youngest child. Her negative mood was a response to the bills in the mail. Even her eating and her meal preparation was a response, almost an afterthought, to the hunger that crept up. Have you ever had one of those days when you felt as if you were simply running from one mess to another? The harder you work, the more behind you get? These are prime examples of response-filled days, and believe me, everyone’s had them!

Responses vs Results
I’ll be the first one to tell you that a huge part of your job as a home and family manager is to respond to life’s emergencies. You don’t even finish wiping up spilled apple juice before mud is tracked in through the living room. But there is a huge difference between response-based living and results-based living. Response-based living means allowing the events of life to dictate your course. Whereas, this thing I call “results-based living” is a method of designing your life to reach your goals. It’s having a target and putting massive amounts of action toward reaching it, all the while handling distractions while still staying on course. A big problem with many home managers is that they have no real goals to begin each day. And even if they do, they let the distractions of life pull them off course. If we are going to accomplish anything, it’s going to take positive incremental steps with a primary goal in mind.

If you are guided by your responses, you are probably spending the majority of your days running in circles. But if you have clearly-defined goals, put massive amounts of energy toward reaching them, stay on course, and adjust as needed, then you will soon be living with results. If you want to see results then you’ve got to have the vision to go for it!

Top Ten Steps To Get Results
If you’re tired of living out every day going nowhere fast, then try these top ten steps to begin seeing results in your life. Isn’t it time that you begin designing your life and living your dreams?
1. Write down your goals – daily, weekly, yearly, and on.
2. Plan out your days to fit your goals – little steps add up.
3. Prepare your day before you go to bed – clothes, errands, everything.
4. Set an alarm and get up early.
5. Share household responsibility with all members of the family.
6. Keep your focus on the big picture without getting lost in the details.
7. Develop habits of completion – don’t stop a task until you get to a finishing point.
8. Increase your energy levels through a healthy diet and regular exercise.
9. Affirm yourself daily.
10. Reward your efforts (and the efforts of others).