MAINTAINING MOTIVATION

Today I spent the afternoon talking to my husband about potential.The potential to be so much more than we currently are.Now, this is not to say we are not working hard. But as we looked around our office space and listed all of the resources we have available to us, we realized we have so much more than we had just a few years ago, and all of the tools we need to be successful are within reach.Besides time.And some supernatural motivation.So how do you go about staying motivated when you work a 9-5, are newly married and have a million other responsibilities?If I had the perfect answer, I'd be a billionaire...or even trillionaire. I do not have the perfect answer, but I do have an idea.Earlier this year, I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people as a part of the ASC Book Club I wanted to start. Yet, even though i read that book and started the book club, i wasn't fully able to finish another book completely until June, when it was mandatory as a part of a Transformational Leadership Program I'm a part of.What is wrong with that picture? In addition to having an absolutely unanticipated stressful year, I didn't employ one of the skills I'd learned in the book.The ability to prioritize my time.In chapter 4 of the book, Stephen Covey talks about putting first things first. He uses a quadrant method to help prioritize life into four categories:Urgent, not urgent, important and not important. Depending on how you live life, you will definitely spend time in some quadrants more than the other. The majority of working US citizens spend their time in quadrants III and IV.But where creative genius and magic happens is in quadrant II.So how do you get to this point if your life is crazy-all over the place?The only way, he suggests is by planning your week.Depending on what you're trying to improve on, you allocate time every day towards that task, scheduling even as little as 20 minutes. If you plan out your entire week, even if you miss one day there are 5-6 (depending on if you include a rest day) other days where you can be successful.I'm implementing this plan starting next week, and definitely into the new year. It won't be perfect, but it will be a great start!And, the book club is taking off again. If you haven't heard, I'm reading Michelle Obama's "Becoming" for the month of December.I'm going in in 2019, y'all? Who's coming with?Happy Thursday.-ASCOUTFIT DEETS:Turtleneck: ASOSGauchos: ZARABoots: Forever 21Dress: Pretty Little ThingsHandbag: Who What Wear