To continue a thought from yesterday, it occurred to me that I continuously make promises for my future self to keep. Reminds me of when I was a kid (and perhaps an adult) when I would ask my Mom, “Do you need help cleaning up? Because Julie would love to help you…” It’s much easier to commit other people’s resources rather than my own (even if the other person is my future self).
Sometimes I think that I’m just wildly optimistic that my future self will be so much different than my current self, which is quite content to sit on the couch and eat candy corn. As if I’m going to undergo some sort of magical transformation that will make Monday Laura all enthusiastic about an hour of hard work and sweating that Sunday Laura can’t imagine doing.
In that way, I’m kicking the can of growth and motivation out just a little bit to give myself time to work myself up to whatever I’ve promised myself I’m going to do. Of course, part of the answer is to realize that instead of procrastinating, instead of counting on Future Laura, I need to get Today Laura and This Moment Laura doing the thing instead.
And motivation is such a slippery concept. I know I’m not the only one who thinks that to do something you need to FEEL like doing that thing. But if this were the case, no one would pay bills or clean their house (minus a few weird people I know who actually LIKE to clean … which I totally don’t understand) or do anything that’s unpleasant in the moment but rewards later.
Sometimes I know that action needs to come first — do the workout — and then the motivation kind of comes on the back end of it. That good feeling that I did it? The knowing that I just put money in the bank that my future self will be able to draw on? That’s where motivation is born. It’s a little weird, to be honest, but in doing the thing, I’m building up a store of something that’s not exactly motivation, but a memory of how awesome it feels to have done the thing which then can propel me to actually do the thing.
Doing something for Future Laura when it sucks for Right Now Laura is a challenge. But Future Laura is going to be so happy with me! How can I disappoint her?