The Colour of the Sky

Motivation. It's a funny thing. Sometimes we wake up and seem to have bags of it. Other times we have none. And sometimes it appears in the wrong order, at the wrong time and for the wrong things. Normally I hate hoovering. But when a piece of university work is due in the next day, suddenly my motivation to hoover the entire house has no limits.



The sky over Somero this evening

One of my new year's promises to myself was to finish various projects that I have started in the past, and this week has been all about finding the motivation to get started on them again.

I have found that one trick, when you really need to find motivation, is to say publicly that you are going to do something within a certain time. If you are like me, you will then want to avoid the embarassment of having to admit you were wrong.

This week I had a piece of work that I had wanted to finish for some time. It had sat there...and I had also sat there... and nothing had progressed. So on Sunday I announced to various friends that I intended to have it done within 24 hours. That was enough. It was still hard to get started, (tidying the house once again became immensely attractive)but the knowledge that I would be asked questions at the end of the next day was enough. I wanted to be able to tell my friends that I had stuck to my word - and it worked. I finally got it done.

Along the way I was also lucky enough to get several messages of encouragement, and for a moment I felt as though I was running the last leg of an Olympic relay race. I couldn't be the one to let the team down. Of course this wasn't the case at all- the truth is that no-one except me would have minded if it hadn't been done. But the little psychological trick was a very useful one, because it made me finish something I had been putting off for a long time.

It means that I can cross off the first thing on my to-do list for this year, and that feels good. Of course, there are still a multitude of other things on it, but I will get them done.

On another note, it is exactly two years today since the first post on this blog. Life has had many twists and turns in these last two years and in many respects things aren't the way I would have predicted back then. But life has a funny habit of throwing up surprises...and after all the sadness and heartache, I have a funny feeling that maybe the next two years have some nicer surprises in store. Hopefully my intuition on this one is right.

For now though, having spent the day with the three little ones, I have aching shoulders and am having an early night. I have posted a couple of pictures of the scenery in Somero at the moment. It's crisp and white and very pretty. Every evening, for about half an hour, the sky turns a beautiful mix of pink and blue and peach just as the sun is about to set. So if nothing else seems to be going right for you at the moment, don't forget to look upwards occasionally - you might just find some inspiration in the colour of the sky.