Having experienced three weeks of classes, and now starting my fourth, I'm tired. Honestly, I really haven't done much. The work that's been assigned so far has been fairly easy and meant to be done with minimal effort. Still, for some reason, finishing these assignments were a battle on their own. I shouldn't be complaining; I know someone who has an exam or quiz every week. I guess I'm really having a hard time bouncing back into the routine of attending school. I mean, my drive to do anything productive in life has been really tanking. So, in order to have my head above water, I've been doing three things to keep me motivated: visualizing the reward, making a plan on achieving it, and then slowly working towards it. I know. It seems straight forward. It is. If you want to know my experience with these three things then read on! If not, then go away.

Visualizing the Reward

I once heard that top-notch athletes imagine themselves winning the tournament or race down to every last detail before it actually starts. Apparently, they can even smell the sweat spewing out of their pores. This is supposed to be the ultimate secret behind success. I thought this seemed pretty legit and tried to apply it to my life. The only problem was: I didn't have a goal. (You could have guessed this if you read my articles before 🙃 .) Being determined to live slightly like Michael Phelps, (I'm not sure if he did this; I'm assuming) I came up with some! Here are my aspirations:

1) To stay on top of school work (getting straight A's is too ambitious so I went for this instead)

2) Act more

Once I figured these out, visualizing the reward kind of came naturally. I lie and stare at my ceiling longer than I should at night. But this time, I imagined going home for the holidays and being served my Aunt's homemade Bim Bim Bap as a job well done from surviving yet another semester. I also placed myself on a stage looking out into the crowd and seeing my roommates screaming out my name like a bunch of Tarzans when I came out to take the final bow. I'm not going to lie, this got me a little riled up and excited to take on the world. Now, I didn't go write all the papers' that were due for the whole semester the next day. However, I did read a chapter ahead of class schedule and even finally got the backstage account (an account for acting jobs) I was putting off for about a year. I was extremely proud of myself for doing so and I felt a layer of anxiety peel away from me. I didn't know how much of a change I would feel once I had an aspiration and envisioned myself obtaining it.

Make a list of why you want to achieve it

The fire that lit my ass to jump up and run towards my goal, only lasted about a day or two. Once again, I found myself in a rut thinking about thousands of excuses as to why I was always just dreaming and never living the dream. The rope that was guiding me to success simply slipped out my hands. I forgot what I was working towards. I didn't want this to turn into a cycle. As a result, I sat down and listed out all the reasons I could think of for having my aspirations. With every word I wrote, I was taking a step towards motivation. Now, every time I feel like the universe is working against me, I read my list and continue working. Surprisingly, I haven't gotten tired of it yet, and it's gotten longer since the first day I wrote it.

SLOWLY work towards it.

Here's what I tell myself: "Whatever IT is, just remember: life is a marathon and not a race."

Now that I have something to work towards and know the reasons why it's my goal, i just have to do it. It's as simple as that. I have the tendency to think of all the things I need to get done, should be doing, and shouldn't be doing all at the same time. This is probably why I don't get much done. So, I decided to write down "mini goals", so that I can focus on achieving small battles in order to win the war. It's helped me be more productive and even shaved off a good thirty mins out of the staring contest I have with my ceiling.