Motivation. It has not been happening in my life recently. This is rather annoying because my last devotion at STEP Advanced was on not getting distracting when they went home but getting busy with the things that they knew they needed to do. And yet here I am, I came home almost two weeks ago and I have not done much.
I could go through the excuses. My thumb has been in a brace and immovable, so that makes it hard to do a lot of things. That really set me into this relaxed lethargic state and I was really tired coming home from STEP. But those are excuses. I have known things I should be doing and could have done but have not done them.
Why? I am not sure. Probably because I am an incredibly selfish person. Selfishness is at the root of many problems we have in life. I am selfish and I am living to please the now me. The future me knows I should be doing a million other things but the now me says, “nah. We’re good. Let’s just relax. It is all good.” And that is the voice I have listened to.
Laziness stems from selfishness and not having a good visual on the future. We see the present and think that is what matters. We do not think about what the results will be in the long run. We need to living in the present but we need to envision what we want life to look like in the future.
One day, we all stand before the King of kings and give an account for how we spent our life here on earth. I want my account to look good. Yet the last two weeks do not look good. We are told to redeem the time because the days are evil. Diligence is praised in the Bible. I have not redeemed the time or been diligent. That is not going to elicit a “Well done thou good and faithful servant” from the King of kings. Hearing that is my goal. So how do I get that?
The obvious answer is by pursuing what God wants me to go after.
The down and dirty to getting going:
1. Put the job in front of you. It is easy to push stuff off when we do not see it. When the task is constantly in front of our face that is hard to ignore. What does that practically look like? It’s moving the textbook I need to study onto my desk instead of on the shelf. It is putting a reminder on my phone that will go off. It is writing it on my marker board, posting it on the wall with post-it notes, or doing what it takes to get it in front of your face.
2. Shut up the lazy now voice. We all have that voice that wants to take it easy, that says tomorrow will be enough time to do xyz. Tell that voice to be quiet and do it now. Do not buy into the you can do it later. Think about what you want in the long run and how doing it later is not going to be good. In other words, just do it.
3. Eliminate excuses. If there is something you should be doing but you have a thousand excuses for why you cannot do it, or just one, eliminate those. Figure out how you can work around them or overcome obstacles. And maybe somethings do genuinely do need delayed, there were somethings I could not do with one hand, but I could have found other things to do instead of allowing myself to get into bad habits.
4. That brings me to number four, break bad habits. The best way to break a bad habit is to build a good one in its place. So step four should really be build good habits. The previous three steps will help with that, but decide what the good habit you want in your life is (in my case diligence) and whenever you start sliding into the bad habit, (for me that would be picking up a book or opening a web browser to waste time) do something that builds the good habit, tackle the next item on the to-do list or something.
5. Do everything to God’s glory. Ultimately that is what we are created for. We are to bring glory to God. Paul says in 1 Cor 10:31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” All includes everything. Every moment of our lives should be spent bringing glory to God. So ask yourself am I bringing glory to God by what I am doing right now? Answer honestly and live accordingly.
Once you start going it is easier to keep going. The hardest part is the beginning. It is not going to be easier to get motivated and be diligent tomorrow, so begin right now. Close down this web browser and go do what you really should be doing to bring glory to God.