Tag Archives: motivation

Let It Burn!

01 Friday May 2015

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“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works…exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
~Hebrews 10:24-25

The year’s almost half gone. Of all my goals for 2015, the one I’ve shirked the most is my resolution to exercise regularly. I could try to justify my busy nature as a form of physical fitness. I’m always on the go. Moving things. Hefting others, little people included.

But in all honesty, what I’d initially intended came with recognizable titles in the world of fitness: lunges, jumping jacks, and–God help us all–burpees.

Then one day (quite early in the year), somebody moved the Xbox Kinect system I normally use for workouts. The change in location wrought a change in my goals.

  • exercise 3 to 4 days a week 

The death of that resolution finally cried up from the ground where I buried it, enough so that I resolved, again, to make exercise a priority.

I also resolved to start slow. Too rusty for Zumba, and too irritable for Jillian, I popped in a workout DVD my sister sent. I made up my mind before the opening credits to do fifteen minutes. No more, maybe less, depending on how things were going.

At about twelve minutes, panting like a dog and grunting in a most unattractive fashion, I zeroed in on the clock. Three more minutes. I can quit in three more minutes. So focused on escape, I repeated the thought aloud.

“No, Mom. Push through the burn. Go to the end. You can do it.” This from my son, who sat at the table behind me doing homework.

Push through the burn? “Where’d you hear that? Your P.E. teacher?” I could barely find air to voice the question. Two minutes to go.

“No. That movie. The one where the guy is on the football field wearing a blindfold, carrying another player on his back, and the coach is next to him screaming for him to keep going even though it burned. Remember?”

Facing the Giants. I did remember. We had used that scene to encourage our kids not to limit themselves. So much for bailing out early.

My son took a lesson he’d learned and used it to encourage me in turn. Without that motivation, I most certainly would have called it at 14:59.

The desire to give up when things get hard is something we all face. Sadly, the act of following through with that desire has become more common, since many of us are too hesitant to risk offending one another to encourage otherwise.

Marriage. Education. Parenting. Dreams. Work. Faith. Fill in the blank. It all burns at one time or another.

Not only should we give it everything we’ve got, but we should also be brave enough to encourage one another to persevere, keep going, stick with it.

Save your marriage. Pray your kids through. Keep the faith. Finish what you started. Don’t quit. And don’t let those around you quit either.

Let it burn.

God will be with you. And the refined product He reveals on that Day will be worth every singe.

When the Odd Bird Flies

09 Sunday Nov 2014

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oddbird

Odd bird.

It’s an expression my family uses for something or someone who strikes us as unusual. The context can be positive, such as a quirky or endearing oddity; or it can be of the don’t-make-eye-contact variety.

A bird of the former type attends my daughter’s gymnastics school. She’s tall and pale, all angles and elbows. A haunting beauty if I ever saw one. Glance at her slumped shoulders and ducked head, and it’s obvious she doesn’t think so.

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:14

Each week I watch her practice, this swan in the making. I have never seen a cartwheel so awkward. When her legs are in the air, she pulls them in almost like a frog’s, as if she’s not quite sure how to manage their full length, and maybe doesn’t want to bring attention to how long they are. Her tumbles and rolls are just as unbalanced.

Despite her weaknesses, before every maneuver her eyes light with a fierce sort of determination, as if in her head she’s saying, “I know I’m not good at this, but I will be.”

And for just a moment, that few seconds before she has to run down the mat, or hop up on the beam, or climb the rope, she folds out of her ball of insecurity and self-consciousness. She squares her shoulders, clenches her fists, takes a deep, shaky breath, and that little beauty puts her all into it.

Her finish is clumsy. She looks down, probably not wanting to see the response to what she presumes is failure. Still she gets back in line and gives it another go. And each week she gets a little better.

Watching her moves me. I can’t help thinking that maybe when the Father watches many of us, including me, He sees what I see in her: fear of failure, fear of being seen failing, insecurity over what we must look like to others when we put ourselves out there and finish clumsy, doubt that we’ll ever succeed despite how much effort we put into it.

And yet we don’t give up, because something inside won’t let us. Maybe it’s the fire burning within that speaks to the purpose of our creation, or maybe our Creator Himself, who knows the plans He has for our lives and spurs us gently onward.

“He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6

Writing is hard. Parenting is hard. Marriage, friendship, art, work. Life.

Everything we endeavor to do well can be laden with periods of ungainly tumbles and uncoordinated leaps. We fall, trip, bruise–and look as odd as a six-legged horse in the process. But like the little gymnast, we shake it off and do it again.

Because birds don’t fly on the ground.

Odd birds are only odd for a time, enduring momentary setbacks and temporary failures as we flap about. One day we’ll take flight, soaring high to all that God has called us to for His glory alone.

Right now we’re just strengthening our wings.

What We All Need and Almost Never Get

18 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by in Faith, Relationships, and Other Topics, Writing and Pursuing Publication

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sleeping woman

For many of us it seems the more rest we need, the less we get. Between taking care of my family, actively seeking the Lord, and trying to launch a writing career, (plus all my other projects and obligations) getting sufficient rest can be as far-fetched as finding out that book I’ve never pitched has been miraculously contracted for a movie deal. (Who says you can’t dream wide awake?)

But I know I need to rest well if I’m to accomplish my goals and take care of my responsibilities with excellence. Resting well is not just sleeping, but a series of decisions that affect sleep and the quality of our days while we’re awake. Fortunately, the word for what we all need and almost never get, serves as an acronym for how to get it:

Resist the urge to take on more than you can accomplish. I’ve been known to say yes to things I didn’t have the time, the resources–and sometimes the desire–to do. Even when I did say no, my hesitation would be pounced upon and a yes wrestled out of me. I’ve learned (and am still learning) to be firm in declining requests that I just don’t have the capacity to meet. It frees me to focus on the more important tasks, and saves me the embarrassment of having my husband follow right behind me to scratch my name off a volunteer list I just signed. (That has happened.)

Expect setbacks. Ever heard of a backup plan, plan B, or the alternate route? Those phrases exist because plans–no matter how meticulous we are in making them–get interrupted. When I went to the ACFW conference last month I had hoped to return home with a couple of proposal requests to work on. Instead I came home with a request for a proposal and a request for a full manuscript. Great deviation from the plan, right? Amazing. Only I came home to a son with pneumonia. I couldn’t take care of him the way I needed to without setting some healthy expectations for how soon I could submit my materials. It’s tempting to forego rest when there’s a hitch in the agenda. And if it’s for a night or two, I don’t think there’s any harm in that. But when we find ourselves getting just three to four hours of sleep on average, it’s time to make some schedule changes. Exhaustion breeds sloppiness. Consistent exhaustion is a health hazard.

Set aside quiet time. Again, rest is not all about sleep. It’s also about peace of mind and a restoring of the soul. For me this means prayer, or just stealing away to the place where I pray most often. I know when I go there, I’ll get some uninterrupted time to myself (except for the time when my youngest came in, misread my humble posture and hopped on my back with the command to “Giddyup!”)

Trust in the Lord. God doesn’t call us to sleep our days away, but He does call us to rest in Him, and to leave room for Him to show up in our endeavors. When we cram our days with activity, obligation, and busyness–and never give our bodies and minds the time to recoup energy spent, or our spirits the means to refuel in God’s presence or through His word–we are in a sense putting trust in our own efforts.

And God, who alone never sleeps, commands us to take time to be still.

Your turn: How do you manage getting the rest you need in the midst of all your obligations?

 

A Writer’s Labyrinth

11 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by in Writing and Pursuing Publication

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Not too long ago my father-in-law presented me with a challenge. I placed all of my fingers together at the tips except the middle fingers, which touched at the knuckles:IMG_8516.JPG

Easy enough, right? Then I had to tap each pair of fingers together on command, all without moving the middle fingers. First the pinkies, then thumbs, next the pointer fingers.

Child’s play…until he called out the ring fingers.

I couldn’t move them. At all. I strained just about every muscle in my body. Nothing.

I resorted to glaring at my fingers in an attempt at telepathy. Nada.

No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t budge, though I always seemed to be just on the edge of success.

Worse, long after figuring out that those fingers were staying put, I spent a lot more time and energy trying to prove otherwise. I earned for my efforts a stabbing three-day headache. It reinforced the idea that if you think too long or hard on something, the effects can be crippling.

Likewise, in writing–or any worthy goal–it’s easy to overthink a project or try to force an ill-placed scene.

One can puzzle for months how to approach a story, but at some point the words to that story must be introduced to their pages. Some scenes or characters need cutting, others filling out.

Thoughts must become decisions that turn into action.

Otherwise, precious time gets lost in the Labyrinth of Perpetual Thought and Distraction, where corridors are lined with finger statues, and progress hides behind a foggy horizon always just out of reach.

“Think it through too long, and it may stay a thought forever.”

Your Turn: What are your biggest obstacles to progress? Try the exercise (though don’t spend too much time on it). Were you able to tap the ring fingers together?

Falling Off the Writing Wagon

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Writing and Pursuing Publication

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wagon wheel

“Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” ~ Confucious

Quite an inspiring declaration. Too bad “inspiring” is not synonymous with “truth.”

I love to write. The process of weeding out an idea, then turning that idea into hundreds of pages, is beyond rewarding.

But make no mistake about it. It’s work. And writing is never harder than when there’s a break in the process.

Circumstances in the past couple of weeks have pulled me away from a consistent writing schedule. And while much of it was beyond my control, I still fretted daily in the back of my mind: “You need to write. You need to write.”

Now that I’m free to get back to my current work in progress, the chasm between what needs to be done and what I think I can do seems to have widened a mile per day spent not writing. I agonize over closing the gap.

Getting back into a rhythm will be a grueling process; a mental strain akin to standing up, dusting off, and limping to catch a wagon that I fell from, before it picks up speed and barrels down the trail without me. The prospect of giving up becomes as tempting as a cold drink in a dry desert.

All the more reason to push through.

Writing is a part of me. I do it because I love it, but it’ll always be work. Whoever coined the phrase “labor of love,” knew what they were talking about.

Now I’ve got a wagon to catch.

Your turn: Do you love what you do? Has it ever been hard for you, despite how much you enjoy it?

With Eyes Set Ahead

26 Thursday Jun 2014

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Writing is…well…hard.

The temptation to quit lurks at the crosswalk of every failure, around the corner of any rejection, and along the alleys of each hard-to-write story.

It’s not when the temptation confronts me, but when I actually entertain it, that I’m given a way out of the temptation with a message that speaks exactly to what I’m wrestling with.

God gives me just enough to take my eyes off the corners and alleys of life, and to set them ahead on the path I’ve been called to walk.

Maybe you’re tempted to quit too. And maybe, like me, knowing that it’s meant to be hard is the motivation you need to keep at it.

Walk it Out

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

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feet walking

El interés tiene pies.

It’s a Spanish phrase that often comes back to haunt me when I find myself making excuses not to do something. The literal translation? Interest has feet.

“Who has What?!?” you ask. Stay with me, the meaning is a bit more profound.

Many of us have approached a prospect or task at one time or another with the following attitude:

I’d like to be able to, BUT…

I wish I could help you, BUT…

I need to finish writing that today, BUT…

We express an intention, then chase it with a determination not to do the thing. El interés tiene pies says if you really wanted to do it, you’d drop the excuses and get it done.

We might argue that it’s not always that simple. But most times, it really is. We excuse ourselves time and again out of opportunities and obligations, sometimes for fear of failure or lack of passion, other times out of sheer convenience. Yet the less we make excuses and the more we act, the more impact we have on the world and those around us.

If one is to live up to one’s purpose, one must be purposeful.

El interés tiene pies.

Put some feet on that torso of a task, and get to stepping.