Like most of our society, I love social media and often find myself intrigued by social media trends. One that captivated my attention for a while was Motivation Monday. Mondays are tough, and sometimes we need just a little bit of an extra push to keep us going with our routines. Motivation Monday attempts to be that push. When you follow the hashtag you’re overwhelmed with almost identical quotes to try and convince you to stay motivated. While there is a lot of great quotes and power statements, unfortunately some are just not true and following them can hinder your progress. I’ve picked out a few of the most popular myths circulating the internet.
More like “step one: set goals, step two, step three, step eighteen: finally made”. If goal achievement was so easy we wouldn’t have to formally set a goal to get there, we would just do it. Goal achievement is hard and sometimes its messy and sometimes we even have to start over. To foolishly trick ourselves into believing that all we have to do is start is more harmful to achieving the goal then helpful. If you believe that you just have to get started you’re more likely to quit when it starts to get hard or you’re not getting results as fast as you want.
While comparing yourself to others can harm your progress, it can also help. One of the most important components to having a growth mindset is feeling inspired by others. If we are comparing ourselves AND using that to promote change and motivate us, we are allowing it work in our advantage. A helpful tip for improvement is asking others what they are doing to see success and then implementing that to your routine. Comparing is one of the reasons that teams watch their opponents film. Now if you are sitting around moping about how you will never be as successful as someone else or trying to become exactly like them, then that’s where this quote comes into play.
This quote gives the wrong impression that one must never take time off and we know that rest is important to progress. I’m not saying that just because you aren’t see the results you want you should stop or stop because you don’t want to do it. I am saying, however, that you need to listen to your body and if it needs time off, even if it’s more than you’d like, you need to take it so your body can recover. You also want to rest to avoid burnout. We don’t talk about burnout enough and part of the reason its experienced is because we aren’t taking time off. Listen to your body and know the difference between it actually being tired and you making excuses because you don’t want to do it.
These are just a few of the problematic posts making their way through our timelines and I’m hoping to tackle more on a more regular basis.
A. B. mentality 