Motivation, quite possibly the most easiest and difficult thing to have or maintain. Motivation could be just getting up from your bed or it could be working out or even starting a business. Nowadays, motivation is hard to find. You’re stuck in your room throughout the day until you get  to go “out” to the grocery store once a week. All you can think is the world around you is rotting because all you can do is sit in your room and slowly decay. A good New Years resolution I see throughout TikTok and just said by people in general, is to work on themselves. I know motivation is a key element on being successful in making yourself better all-around. This is a follow-up article to, For People Seeking Mental Health, in hopes that I can help someone out there improve themselves and let them know that they are not alone.  

In my experience with depression and feeling isolated, I struggled to have motivation for some of the simplest tasks. My hygiene was horrible, I had a massive potty mouth just being asked to take out the trash, and a lot more things that I just gave up on. One of the things that I was told in therapy was that I should make a routine. I thought that was the most horrible advice I could ever get from someone, but a week later and even today, I stick to my routines.

I started off by just having an open schedule, but fitting in tasks I needed to finish throughout the day. Needless to say by just spending more time to work better and discipline myself when I didn’t want to do things, my routine’s help me get through the day. I’d wake up 10 minutes before class and have my morning routine of brushing my teeth, drinking water, and turning on my computer. It kind of made me happy to have such a simple routine where I didn’t have to struggle to get up, but that I HAD to get up and start working on something to achieve my future dreams. It made my day and my first two class periods a lot easier to go through. Even between lunch breaks, I was able to fit in walking my dog and even get home early for class. Afterschool, I would take 1-2 hours of just going outside and absolutely enjoy the freedom and feeling of the wind hitting my face. 

Three things that can also help adjust your perspective of your motivation is exercise, food and going outside your comfort zone. Exercise is absolutely essential in becoming more positive. Recently all I’ve been doing is taking an hour a day to walk and doing a simple ab workout. We as humans are not built to sit at home all day and do nothing. Taking in a good nature filled hike or even at a lake or anywhere where there’s water is proven to have a positive effect on your mind state and put you in a positive, meditative state. Force yourself to go out and take a walk and if you have an open mind to walking out there, be positive and let yourself focus on the nature and world around you and I promise you will walk out surprised.

I also cannot stress enough how much eating vegetables and fruits or even just fresh ingredients for a single day can impact you and make you feel better. There’s no extra chemicals or cravings you’ll get, you will literally just eat your homemade steamed broccoli and be extremely content with it. 

I 1000% encourage going outside your comfort zone because it will truly help you have more motivation and add more happiness to your character. Being without motivation is rock bottom and there’s no question about it, but the only way out of rock bottom is up. There’s going to be a time where you’re tired of sitting in your hole and you want to get out. You HAVE TO have new ways and new things to help you get out.

This part get it’s own whole paragraph in this article because it’s so important!! Your mind will love you and open up even more to building itself and wanting to explore more things because you tried something new. You need ways to have more dopamine in your brain because then you will be wanting to try absolutely anything and you will be okay and knowing that you’re bad some things. 

My final words for motivation is that you just need to do. There’s no in between. If you just FINALLY try things out that you’re usually like “I mean I would do it, but I don’t have to,” then you will 

love yourself for it. It’s tough to say but you have to force yourself into things a lot of the time and it is a lot more easier and 

stupid to look back to when you finally do. Also, don’t forget to wake up, play a song, and hit a good shmorning, or just do something funny that’ll make you laugh. And for the love of God, no matter how tired you are, DO NOT GO TO SLEEP. Frequently napping and being tired is the worst thing that can possibly happen to you and just destroys everything about you.

Ps: I dedicate this article to my Tia Zelma and my cousin Q, I love you guys and I need you to get better lol.