Motivation

Sunday night always seems to be the time I reflect on my goals and progress in life.

Tonight I've been thinking about one of my toughest struggles-- bedtime.

I've never been much of a morning person, but the last few years my bedtime has been creeping later and later.  The last few months I've especially struggled with going to bed.  I won't give any specific bedtimes (lest Dad start quoting Proverbs at me again!), but Spencer jokes that I'm not a night person-- I'm a really really really early morning person! 

My erratic bedtime schedule has been bothering me for a while now, but it's a tough thing to change.  Especially when I don't have to be anywhere early in the morning.  Why force myself up at the crack of dawn unnecessarily?

I've tried setting rigid schedules, promising myself rewards, forcing myself to get up early anyway, etc., but nothing has really stuck.

So, tonight as I reflected, I had a stroke of inspiration on how to motivate myself to get to bed earlier.

I decided to come up with a list of all the things I've been wanting to do, but haven't been getting to because I sleep in too late, procrastinate, and then run out of time to do anything.

I'm going to post my list up in my apartment, where I can see it and be reminded why I should go to bed early.  I'm also posting it here for extra support.  :)  Hopefully this will be enough motivation to help me work on an earlier bedtime schedule.  Wish me luck!

Things I want to do:

•          Sewing
•          Do Family History at FHL
•          Update Family History Website/Blog
•          Crocheting
•          Swimming
•          Work (stay caught up)
•          Piano
•          Cleaning
•          Organize bathroom shelves
•          Organize boxes under bed
•          Bring boxes from Mom and Dad’s house
•          Scan Spencer’s old documents and photos
•          Go for a walk every day
•          Watch movies from Lloyd
•          Write poetry
•          Memorize poetry
•          Memorize scriptures
•          Hiking
•          Take classes at BYU (computers, gymnastics, etc.)
•          Do something nice for someone else every day
•          Finish birthday board
•          Hang out with Becca
•          Finish quiet book stuff
•          Go to SLC and digitize George Deliverance Wilson’s diary
•          Blog regularly
•          Visit James and Mary Riste’s graves in Santaquin
•          Visit Danielle
•          Hang out with Janel
•          Invite a friend over to do something
•          Finish quiet book stuff
•          Can peaches
•          Mend Spencer’s clothes
•          Explore a building on campus
•          Try the game the Hornes gave me
•          Rent board games
•          Try new recipes (nutella PB cookies?)
•          Have the Williams girls over for a sleep-over
•          Write in journal regularly
•          Ellipticise with Mom
•          Send pictures to Spencer’s family
•          Post reunion pictures on the Wilson Watch blog
•          Look up William Fort Jr.’s obituary for Dad
•          Volunteer (at the library, temple, etc.)

Triumph of the Year(s)

(I discovered this post from 2007 that I forgot to ever publish and I decided it was worth publishing now!)

Sunday night was a momentous occasion for me. I did miss my bedtime goal, but I figured it was justified because I finally finished the Old Testament! It probably should have topped my list of goals that stay on every list I have. This acheivement reflects over 2 years worth of work, including suffering through Songs of Solomon (which the elders in my MTC district quickly proclaimed to be scriptural pornography. If you find that surprising, just try a few chapters and see what you think.) and slogging (or snoring?) through chapter upon chapter of "Joseph begat Solomon. Solomon begat Hezekiah. Hezekiah begat Joel. Joel begat . . ." -- but at long last it's done. It was an intense challenge, but it was definitely worth the effort. Now, I'm left with a new question to ponder on: what do I read next?

Goals

I used to hate the word goals. I think my antipathy for goals began at the tender age of twelve, when I was introduced to the Young Women's Personal Progress Program. Personal progress always seemed so tedious to me. I would put off my goals until the last week or two before New Beginnings (the recognition night for the acheivement of said goals). Mom would always discover that I hadn't started on the goals and would force me to sit down and immediately make plans to finish them in time. This always seemed like such a tedious process to me. Did I really care what the definition of integrity was? Did I really need to write in my journal examples of times I had shown faith in my life? Without exception, I would end up picking the shortest and easiest goals to complete--ones like telling your mom you love her or doing an anonymous good deed for someone (I could always find someone's bed to make and have that completed in five seconds.) As far as I was concerned, goals were just another checklist to mark off as fast as possible so Mom would stop nagging me. I remember thinking with great relish "I can't wait until I'm out of Young Women and I never have to set another goal again!"

Obviously I realized the fallacies of this logic fairly quickly. Even after Young Women I found that there were times I still needed to set goals. When I started college, Mom helped me set goals to be more social and talk to people in my classes and at church. Dad "encouraged" me to set goals to earn enough money to pay for my year at the dorms myself, and later to pay for my mission myself (an encouragement I admittedly didn't appreciate at the time, but afterward was grateful for it). Begrudgingly, I had to admit that goal-setting didn't end with the presentation of my Young Women Medallion.

In spite of my continued efforts to set goals, my true conversion to goal-setting didn't happen until I became a missionary. As part of the missionary rules, missionary companionships were required to set goals we wanted to acheive for the transfer, the week, and the day. In addition, we were encouraged to work on personal goals individually. At first I found this annoying, tedious, and time-consuming, but as I began setting and acheiving personal goals, I was surprised to find that I actually liked it.

In the missionary guide, Preach My Gospel, in the section under goal-setting, it says:
"Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our vision of what we can accomplish. . ."
"The ultimate measure of success is not in acheiving goals alone, but in the service you render and the progress of others." Reading this gave me a fresh perspective on the purpose of goals. Contrary to my twelve-year-old impressions, goals are not a torture-device created by parents to make their teenage daughters miserable. Goals actually make me happier. I love the satisfaction of knowing that I have set a goal and actually made it. It gives me hope and makes me want to try better. As Preach My Gospel says, "through goals, our hopes are transformed into action."

Lately I have been feeling a little bit down-- just not as happy as I'd like to be. It seems like life has become a boring trudge down the same barren paths-- school, work, school, work, etc. So, after some reflection I decided that maybe what I need is some new goals to brighten my perspective and give me fresh hope. With that in mind I came up with 3 new goals for myself:

1. Go to bed by 11pm every night. (This one will be the hardest, but I really want to do it. As motivation, I've promised to reward myself with a new haircut if I can stick with it for a week.)
2. Read scriptures before nighttime. (I always read them right before bed, and I'm always too sleepy to get much out of them. Time for a change.)
3. Write in my journal every day.

Already I'm more excited just thinking about these goals (and not just because of the prospect of a cute new haircut). It will be fun to see how my live improves from these few simple steps. At any rate, I'm off to a good start-- I already acheived two of them (scripture study and journal writing) for today. Now if I can just make it into bed on time-- I can picture the new haircut already!