Hello there, my dear reader! Welcome back for another reading practice! I’m so happy to see you here again ready to practice your English and learn some new vocabulary ALONG THE WAY.
It’s been a long time since I last posted something here, right?
Firstly, I MUST APOLOGIZE for thay. THE THING IS, when I started this blog I was super motivated, so I started some other things at the same time: two Youtube channels, a podcast, and a blog in Portuguese. Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? Hahaha
You see, when I’m excited about some new project, I can get very motivated and that can lead me to spending many hours a day and many days a week working on it. That’s what I did for a few weeks and then, as everyone had expected, I RAN OUT OF energy quite fast and couldn’t KEEP UP WITH the work I had to do on all of those platforms.
As a result, I stopped posting on Youtube and on my podcast, and stopped working on my blogs. I needed to change things. My decision was to just do what was essential while I recovered my energy and CAME UP WITH a plan to better HANDLE the work on all of those platforms or REASSESS my decision to work on all of them.
As expected, that break time was very enjoyable because I SUDDENLY had much more free time to do whatever I wanted, but the thought IN THE BACK OF MY MIND that I was not doing what I had SET OUT TO DO was NAGGING me. I was feeling like a failure.
In addition, it seemed that the longer I took to RESUME my activities on the internet the harder they seemed to be. I’ve read somewhere that that usually happens. The longer you POSTPONE doing something that you are SUPPOSED TO do, the more challenging it seems to be. Do you feel the same?
During that break, I decided to read a book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, by T Harv Eker. I read it in Portuguese because I was already reading another book in English and I’m trying to read more in Portuguese as well to improve my vocabulary and fluency in Portuguese.
I finished reading that book yesterday and here I am today, writing this post. That book helped me to recover the motivation to come back and resume my work here.
What I learned from reading that book
The main TAKEAWAY I got from this book is that people who succeed in whatever they set out to do only succeed because they don’t GIVE IN TO their mind’s URGE to stop. The author says that our mind is trained to protect us and it does it by trying to keep us in a comfortable place doing what is familiar to us. If we try to do anything that takes us out of our COMFORT ZONE, our mind will work hard on producing thoughts that “hopefully” will convince us that it’s better to give up.
When that happens, we start to feel tired and to doubt our abilities. If we see other people succeeding in doing what we want to do, that’s even worse. We start to compare ourselves to them, and that causes our WILLPOWER to GO DOWN THE DRAIN completely.
Furthermore, Eker says that whenever he have those intrusive thoughts we should acknowledge them and thank our mind for trying to protect us as a very worried mom; but we should also say to our mind that we will continue doing what we want to do, no matter how uncomfortable that feels.
Another thing that he says is that it’s natural to feel uncomfortable when we are starting something new because we are still not used to doing that new activity. With time, we’ll grow MORE AND MORE used to it and our comfort zone will expand and embrace that new activity. In other words, it won’t always feel so hard; we just need to keep moving forward.
But what will keep us going, Eliana? Motivation. That’s the answer. We need strong motivation to push through our mind’s negative thoughts. These thoughts are natural and aim to protect us by keeping us comfortable. However, they can hold us back when we’re trying to grow. Remember, motivation fuels our energy, and it’s essential to keep reminding ourselves why our goals matter.
Also, we need to learn how to control our mind and our thoughts. We need to learn to FEED the thoughts that will give us energy and STARVE the ones that will HOLD US BACK.
What about discipline? Discipline without strong motivation will not last long. It takes too much energy. Therefore, we need to focus on keeping our motivation high INSTEAD OF relying solely on discipline. Motivation will keep our energy high.
In my situation, for example, I need to always REMIND MYSELF that when I am creating content online I am helping fellow Brazilians to improve their English skills, which will help them to grow as people and as professionals, and they will, IN TURN, help others, and in this virtuous cycle, we will make our country better and better.
What’s more, I need to remember that by creating content online, I am SHOWCASING my English skills and personality, which will help me build a community of people who trust my work and might choose to hire my services someday. MOREOVER, this blog might become another SOURCE OF INCOME in the future, which would be fantastic.
And LAST BUT NOT LEAST, by producing content online, I am practicing my English skills and that will help me to continue HONING THOSE SKILLS.
Our motivation needs to be strong and I believe that my reasons for doing this work are STRONG ENOUGH. Now, I just need to FOCUS ON my motivation and try to ignore the self-depreciative thoughts that my mind creates.
Now, I am back and happy for being back. 🙂
By now, YOU MUST BE WONDERING what decision I made during that break. Well, I’ve decided to keep working on all of those platforms. I believe it’s doable. I just need more organization in my schedule so that I can prioritize those projects, which are my main focus now.
Strategies for keeping our motivation high
If you are also struggling to silence your negative thoughts and keep your motivation up, I’ll share with you a list of things that I believe will help me and you in that journey:
- Stop checking the content of other people who are successful in doing exactly the same thing you’re doing – This will help you to stop comparing yourself to them and feel bad for being so far behind. INSTEAD, compare your present self with your old self. Today, you are certainly WAY BETTER at doing what you set out to do than you were when you started.
- Break down what you need to do into small steps – When we see a mountain of dishes to wash in the sink, our first thought is “This will be too difficult”. But if we start by piling up the plates, GATHERING the SILVERWARE together, putting the glasses together on one side and the large dishes on the other side, and wash one group of dishes per time, it’ll seem MUCH EASIER; and when we’re 5 minutes into it and we start to see our progress, it will feel nice and we’ll feel more motivated to keep going. Motivation also comes from the realization that we’re MAKING PROGRESS.
- Congratulate and REWARD yourself for every small task done – I will congratulate myself on finishing the writing of this post before thinking about my next step. As a reward, I will probably stand up, STRETCH, tell my husband that I’ve done it, get a hug from him, and make myself a warm mug of coffee and milk.
- Have someone to share your goals and successes with – Today, I told my husband that I wanted to write a blog post. I can’t wait to go and tell him that I’ve done that and get a congratulatory hug from him. That person can be your partner, a SIBLING, a parent, or a friend.
- Keep track of your small successes – It’s a good idea to keep a journal of your successes. Each time you complete a planned task, write it down in your journal. Over time, you’ll see the pages FILLING UP, which will BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE in yourself (I borrowed that idea from the book). You can also keep a habit-tracking journal (with checkboxes to check) and mark off completed tasks.
- Create a weekly plan and decide when you are going to do what you want to do – If the activity is not scheduled, it will never be done. Treat it as something of extreme importance, just like going to work or brushing your teeth at night. You must do it when the time comes.
- Make the activity as enjoyable as possible to reduce friction – For example, right now, I am writing while I’m listening to Celine Dion singing songs in French and I am taking some sun that is coming through the window in this cold wintry day. I’m feeling great here.
- Consume content that will help you to keep yourself motivated – That can be podcasts, books, blog posts, anything. As I shared with you, that book I’ve read was what helped me this time.
- Remind yourself that you are learning as you go – If you are a perfectionist as I am, seeing that our work is not as perfect as we wish might make us lose motivation. When that happens, remember that every person who is successful in doing whatever they set out to do had to start from zero too and must have felt bad about the quality of their work at the beginning.
- Don’t ADD TOO MUCH TO YOUR PLATE – As I told you, I felt I had too much to do, and that made me exhausted and led me down the spiral of “I can’t do it”. I’ve REARRANGED MY SCHEDULE and only kept the things I can handle FOR NOW.
It’s time to WRAP UP this post
I’m getting to the end of this post. You have no idea (actually, I think you do) how happy I am for having finally taken action again.
I hope that this post helped you more than just PROVIDING YOU WITH AN OPPORTUNITY TO practice your English. I hope you found some value in this content.
If you FEEL LIKE sharing your thoughts on this post, please do it in the comments section below. It will help you to reflect on everything you’ve read and it will also be an opportunity to practice your writing in English. Oh, and I would love to learn about your thoughts on this topic.
Bye for now! Have a lovely weekend ahead!
GLOSSARY
- ALONG THE WAY: Ao longo do caminho
- ADD TOO MUCH TO YOUR PLATE: Colocar demais no seu prato
- BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE: Aumentar sua confiança
- CAME UP WITH: Criar
- COMFORT ZONE: Zona de conforto
- FEED: Alimentar
- FEEL LIKE: Ter vontade
- FILLING UP: Enchendo
- FOCUS ON: Focar em
- GATHERING: Reunindo
- GIVE IN TO: Ceder a
- GO DOWN THE DRAIN: Descer pelo ralo
- HANDLE: Lidar com
- HOLD US BACK: Nos impedir
- HONING THOSE SKILLS: Aperfeiçoando essas habilidades
- IN THE BACK OF MY MIND: No fundo da minha mente
- IN TURN: Por sua vez
- INSTEAD: Ao invés de
- INSTEAD OF
- KEEP UP WITH: Manter
- LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Por último, mas não menos importante
- MAKING PROGRESS: Progredindo
- MORE AND MORE: Cada vez mais
- MOREOVER: Além disso
- MUCH EASIER: Muito mais fácil
- MUST APOLOGIZE: Devo pedir desculpas
- NAGGING: Encher o saco
- POSTPONE: Adiar
- PROVIDING YOU WITH AN OPPORTUNITY TO: Proporcionar a você uma oportunidade de
- RAN OUT OF: Ficar sem
- REARRANGED MY SCHEDULE: Reorganizei minha agenda
- REASSESS: Reavaliar
- REMIND MYSELF: Lembrar a mim mesma
- RESUME: Retomar
- REWARD: Recompensar
- SET OUT TO DO: Se propôs a fazer
- SHOWCASING: Exibindo
- SILVERWARE: Talheres
- SOURCE OF INCOME: Fonte de renda
- STARVE: Privar de alimento
- STRETCH: Alongar
- STRONG ENOUGH: Forte o suficiente
- SUDDENLY: De repente
- SUPPOSED TO: Deveria
- TAKEAWAY: Lição
- THE THING IS: A questão é
- URGE: Desejo
- WAY BETTER: Muito melhor
- WILLPOWER: Força de vontade
- WRAP UP: Encerrar
- YOU MUST BE WONDERING: Você deve estar se perguntando
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