Motivation

There are loads of website and books about this topic. Social media is brimming with motivational messages and I am sure they might help some people. None of them worked for me. I tried. I stomped around chanting to myself that everything would be all right, that I was a wonderful person and that money was flowing my way.

Things got worse and worse. I could not sleep, my nails were bitten down, I barked with short temper and exhaustion at people and of course I was very, very, frightened. No one could get through to me however well-meaning.

Some tried to help with word of encouragement or by listening to my endless tales of bad luck. When I did get work, I was hard to work with. I could not tell anyone what was really going; I had no idea myself, it was all such a struggle. In retrospect, I found I was motivated by desperation. I had to get to a really horrible state before I could get motivated.

That state could be anger, at myself or others. I can get so cross that I start thinking "I will show them." At least that gets me to start: opening envelopes, start communicating and start getting clarification about where I am.

I can be institutionalised by boredom at being unemployed or just keep on taking on more debt. It starts to feel normal. So I needed a lot of misery to make a move.

No amount of chanting, affirmations or hanging out with friends in the same boat helped me.

I started to get so angry that no one understood or would help me. I started to write down everything I spent and read as much as I could about debt. This was to show and tell everyone that it was not my fault. I don’t know who I was going to tell or show but I needed a defence against what a mess I was in.

I thought of myself as a victim of circumstances; a person that unfortunate things happened to. It was in that state of mind that I started to take action. Someone had just said to me: "why don't you just get a job to get out of your financial hole?" This hit me hard. I had to show them.

Motivation can come from so many sources. Sadly, it can also come from very unhappy states. I have worked with people who have said that if my suggestions don't work, then they will kill themselves. Whether this is true or not I understand that desperation is what motivated me. Getting motivated can be tough but some of us need to get tough before we can do the simplest of things.