Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Motivation Meter

So, this challenge has been going on for a few weeks now and the newness & flurry of fired-up inspiration has lost its shine somewhat. It's to be expected.

I do my best to remember for myself, and will share on here, is that every effort you give, every day, is worth it. Sure, it pays off for accomplishing staying true to your challenge of decluttering JUST ONE ITEM a day. What I also want to teach everyone about is what I call The Motivation Meter.

You may be a self-aware person and know of this, even if you call it something else. Human beings haven't evolved enough to have unlimited motivation. Some of us have strong internal motivation that will keep us moving in a forward & positive direction in our life. It does take us far. Some of us rely solely on external motivation to do anything and everything, and many fall somewhere in between.

One thing a day sounds deceivingly simple. But, seriously, life has ups & downs. There will be a hard day (or more than one) during this journey when just accomplishing our goal of decluttering one item will seem too hard to do that day.

Once someone does overcome all those external AND internal forces trying to derail them and is able to JUST DO IT on those hard days, I encourage them to take a short moment to let the feeling of Accomplishment, Pride in Yourself, Overcoming Adversity, etc. WASH from the mind down the body.

Besides the short-term accomplishment of doing your decluttering commitment for the day, you will begin collecting "motivation points" for later use. Every time we collect a motivation point in our day, they group together and inspire later efforts. I am living proof that refilling your motivation meter with motivation points will drastically change your approach to many things in your life. :-)

Vote for my post on Mom Blog Network

8 comments:

  1. I understand the concept. I suppose I've always done that, I just hadn't given it a name. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very inspirational. I'll let you know when I start my decluttering. I have enough to last 3 years.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Making the commitment to purge one thing a day pushed my motivation meter into high gear. Since starting the challenge, I've been able to clear out junk from many of the storage areas that were filling up with unwanted items. My house has a lot of built-in storage, so it was easy to put things away instead of making the decision to get rid of it. My home is starting to feel like it has breathing room again and it’s becoming more functional too. Thanks for starting the challenge and being an inspirational and motivating force.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've been a declutterer for a few years but committing to do it everyday has been quite motivating to me!

    I'm one of those people that has the internal drive to do things too...wasn't always that way though, I have evolved ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Since agreeing to remove one piece of clutter one day at a time, I feel I doing okay at it. I will say though that it's not just my current house that I'm doing this at. Today I threw away stuff from the house we're moving out of. This past week I worked on decluttering my office at work. It feels good making my "spaces" clean.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Janet: When you are fired up & motivated, the days are numbered for your clutter! ;-) You are very welcome! I'm very thankful that so many are joining me on this journey.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lulu: I'm glad that taking your challenge has proven useful to you in your life. You are an inspiration!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sharon: WTG on letting the challenge impact many areas of your life. The most important component of this challenge is YOU. You may be doing the decluttering in many locations but, most importantly, you are making the overall impact to you on the inside. You are doing terrific!

    ReplyDelete

If you encounter difficulty leaving a comment, please send me an email. My address is available on my profile.