Monday Motivation: Attack Your 2014 Goals With a Plan

Happy 2014! I hope everyone’s holiday season was amazing and filled with lots of love, joy, and laughter. Didn’t it seem to pass by really fast? Like, there was so much commotion before the holidays with all the crazy sales, white elephant and ugly sweater parties, and Christmas dinners? And then boom, it’s the December 26th and everything is done? Yeah, that’s how I felt.

Anyway, now with the new year in full speed, it’s new years resolution time, right? Really, we can make resolutions any time we please, but the new year makes it much more exciting and motivating. So, I’ve started drafting my ‘official’ list of goals I will accomplish (notice my word choice there), and I noticed one major thing: I needed a plan. This is why most new years resolutions, or goals for that matter, don’t get accomplished– because there’s no plan of attack! How are we going to set a goal, but not have a way to get there? We must make a plan.

For instance, one of my goals is to read one book per month. My main excuse is that I ‘didn’t have enough time’, which is complete BS because I definitely had enough time to watch Scandal, Real Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Boardwalk Empire, Homeland, etc. Ultimately, I found productive free time while I’m commuting to SF every day– duh! I found while I’m on BART or casual carpool, I have 15 minutes each way to dedicate to reading. That’s at least 30 minutes of reading each day for 5 days a week. Surely I can finish one book per month.

So when you look at your list of things you will do this year, ask yourself how you’re going to get there because that is your ticket for accomplishing your goals. For a plan of attack for goal setting and accomplishing, I really enjoyed Refinery29’s post by Gretchen Rubin. Click here to kick 2014’s ass.

Monday Motivation: Get Excited!

I used to dread Mondays. I would even get sad on Sundays because Monday was right around the corner. What a terrible way to start the week, right? Right. So how did I turn this around? I started to get excited about what was approaching in my near future: girls night out, my favorite gym class, date night, Scandal, etc. The more I focused on what got me excited and happy, the less I thought about the long commute to work and the job in general. It even taught me how to get excited about the things I really liked about my job so I wouldn’t even focus or dread about the tiny things that really urked me at work. Heck, the more excited I got about my favorite things and upcoming events, the week flew by even faster. By the time I actually looked up at the calendar, it was already Friday!

Adjust your focus. Stay excited!

Happy Monday!

Mid-week Motivation: Stop Comparing Yourself

Yes, I hate it when I do it that to myself. It’s so annoying, utterly counter productive and just really makes me feel poorly about myself. As I change gears and position my focus elsewhere from my sad and pitiful feelings, I came across an awesome blog post on one of my favorite sites, Pick The Brain. I’m really digging this particular point it makes:

“1) Your own situation at hand

Are you constantly wondering, “Dang, I wish I was at the bar now” or “I sure wish I was watching the game now”?

Wish all you like, but what you’re actually doing is comparing your situation at hand with an unreachable state.

Continue with this comparison, and you’re just going to increase your boredom or even make you dread what you’re doing.

It simply cannot be helped if you stuck at work or well, just doing something else!

Think about it: If you’re washing the dishes, you’d definitely, without a doubt want to be somewhere else (unless you really love washing dishes).

Is there a point thinking about it? Not really.

Be present at your moment instead. Quiet your mind. Eliminate distractions. Get the work done and be on your way!”

For the full read, click here. Enjoy!

Mid-Week Motivation

Start your day off thinking happy thoughts right when you get out of bed. The slightest shift in your morning mood can have an amazing impact on the rest of your day and it all begins on what’s goin’ on upstairs in your head. Try it— you’ll probably have an amazing day (if you allow yourself to).

Monday Motivation: Love List

This little mama has a long ‘like’ list in her daily affirmation. It goes on and on and on. Yours should be too. Notice how happy she is when she’s going through her list in the mirror? When we think of the people, things, and places we love, we tend to crack a smile because they make us feel good. Get a good feeling on and go through your ‘Love List’, ‘Gratitude List’ or whatever-you-call-it list. Do it right now! Maybe you won’t physically smile immediately, but you will in your heart.

Happy Monday!

Mid-week Motivation: The Last Push

Oh, man! If I’m not feeling the pressure of the last two weeks of this quarter in my grad program! So much so that I can feel the pressure press upon my chest, the anxiety run through my mind as I try to grab at least 5 hours of sleep and scribble down items to-do on my never-ending list that has a tight deadline of September 19th (or else I’m screwed!). 

As I’m wishing for more hours in the day and kicking myself for procrastinating until the last hour, I must remind myself to keep pushing. I have to set it in my mind that I cannot fail and look for daily, hourly moments of motivation to keep swimming upstream. Whether I’m counting down the days dreaming of my upcoming 10-day trip to Puerto Rico on the 20th, finding moments of celebration by grabbing a drink for happy hour with classmates after finishing a project, I find moments of relief and even a boost of energy to get my shit done! 

So whatever it is that you need to finish, find motivation (it’s around somewhere!) and quick moments of celebration to keep yourself going— and then get back to work til it’s done! You know what to do after 😉

Have a great week!

Monday Motivation: Motivation From Strangers

For those of us that ride public transportation, we’re used to hopping on and sticking to ourselves, immersed in our own worlds by playing Candy Crush on our phones, blaring Justin Timberlake’s new album via earbuds, reading Elle magazine, and the like. Rarely do we ever engage in conversation with the strangers we sit or stand next to.

Ever been inspired or touched by the actions of a stranger? If you did, did you get that feel-good, tingly, happy sensation that lit up your face? Well, I sure did when I read a post on The Bold Italic last week. Check out the video below of a BART (Bay Area Regional Transit) rider who greets the train every morning– it’s really touching! For the full read, check out the post here.

Happy Monday!

Monday Motivation: Keeping Calm and Carrying On

As much as I believe this lil’ saying is way over saturated in all corners of the world, it’s completely true. “Keep Calm and Carry On” sounds simple, but it can be quite a brutal tennis match in your head telling yourself to calm down and restrain yourself having a nervous breakdown.

This weekend was a real test of keeping my cool. My boyfriend and I headed up to Rollins Lake for a camping trip with his family. On our way up there, our ‘trusty’ GPS took us up a crazy back road to the campsite, where we shouldn’t have been four-wheeling in a Ford Focus. The next day we realized that we had a flat tire. Womp, womp, woooommmpp! Instead of having a hissy fit and bitching about it, I took a deep breath and realized how grateful I was that I had a whole family to help and a spare tire to swap out. After the trip was over, I could only drive a maximum of 50 mph on the freeway to the nearest auto place open for business on a Sunday– 50 miles away! I knew I couldn’t make the situation any faster or easier so I just sucked it up, turned on the cruise control and hazard lights and slowly cruised in the right hand lane. Finally, we arrived at Big-O Tires and walked in, we were greeted unenthusiastically by the manager. I could tell it was busy in the store and that he may be taking a little bit of his frustration out on me, but I wasn’t going to react to it because I needed my damn tire fixed so I could head on home. I kept my calm and suddenly the manager softened up, threw in a couple jokes and even gave me a free tire rotation. It pays to be nice sometimes, I guess.

The moral of the story is, that I could have made this the worst weekend ever had I chosen to make a big stink out of every bad bump in the road. Heck, things actually turned out for the better.

Happy Monday!

Monday Motivation: Getting Back On Track

I love my friends. They know how to keep me on track. So, when I get texts and emails saying, “Where the hell are my Pumps and Lipstick posts?”, I get the picture– crystal clear. I can blame not having enough time during grueling and demanding, yet eye-opening grad school sessions at FIDM or training for a half-marathon or traveling here and there to be my reasons for not blogging as frequently, but I’m not. It’s clearly poor time management on my part. And this can relate to many other practices and goals as well such as working out, spending more time with friends and family, reading more books, studying for the GRE, GMAT, EMT or any other lengthy tests out there in the world with long-ass acronyms. Instead of procrastinating and lying to myself by saying, “I’ll do it later”, I say, “No, bitch. Get it done now and figure out a plan to get it done more efficiently in the future.” Be firm with yourself because you’re the only person who can control your life and what you want to do with it. If you aren’t, who will? Once you start doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you’ll be done and feel great about yourself for accomplishing it and crossing it off your ‘To-Do’ list– just like how I feel right now 🙂

Happy Monday!

I thought this was so appropriate for this post and all my blogger friends.

Images via heartifb.com, vintagelawrence.com and justjule.blogspot.com

Monday Motivation: Friends Promote Friends

Whenever a friend of mine has accomplished something small or great, I feel like that one super loud person in the crowd with a handmade sign, wildly jumping up and down, screaming, “That’s my girl! Way to goooo!” I get so excited and happy to see them on their way to success and surpassing milestones. 

One of them is my friend of eight years, Jessica Linehan, founder and artist of Bobbi J jewelry. If you’ve been reading through my many blog posts, you’ve probably seen her name, face, and jewels about a dozen times. Less than 24 hrs ago, she just dropped an uh-maaazzzinnnggg video directed and created by our friend, Alisia Perez, who also directed my ‘About Me’ video as well. I can’t stress enough, how proud I am to be their friend and to be able to surround myself with such awesome, original creativity that is nothing less than DOPE.

To view the vid, click here. Enjoy!