This is Day 9 of the 21-Day Journaling Challenge held in Nov 2011. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.
Hi everyone – Welcome to Day 9 of 21DJC! :)
Yesterday’s question was: “On a Scale of 1-10, How Much Do You Love Yourself?“. (Read the responses.)
Self-love is such a tricky topic. Do you love yourself? How much do you love yourself?
The modern society has taught us to be unhappy with ourselves. That we’re not thin enough, not toned enough, not muscular enough, not attractive enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not skilled enough, not successful enough, not accomplished enough, not well-known enough – and what have you.
Because of that, feelings of self loathe become embedded in us, subconsciously. Our journey through life then becomes a process where we reverse what we were conditioned with since young; where we discover who we are on the inside; where we evolve into our ideal selves.
I’ve come quite a long way where self-love is concerned. In the past, I really hated myself. I was emotionally stingy, I was judgmental, I was critical – I was basically difficult to be around. I didn’t even like me – there were often times when I felt that I could never stand it if I ever had to be around someone who had the exact personality as mine. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, my self-love was probably in the negative range.
It’s been a few years, but I’ve worked on becoming a better person since then, and I’m a lot more at peace with who I am today. I think I’m still far from being my ideal self, and there’s a lot I need to work on, but I appreciate myself a lot more than I used to.
I believe being a better person is a journey and not an end point. By constantly growing, it helps me to become a better person day after day, which in turn makes me appreciate myself more. If there’s ever anything I don’t like about myself, I’ll reflect on it, develop my desired traits, and shed off the undesirable ones. I believe I’m on the right path, and in time to come I’ll achieve the same level of unconditional, self-love which my higher self has for me.
With that said, let’s now move to today’s question!
21DJC Day 9
On Day 6, you answered the question: What Frustrates You?. Today, I’d like to invite you to think about something different:
What Drives You?
What drives you in life? What do you live for? What are the times when you feel charged up and ready to take on the world? And why?
(Today’s question can be found in #77 of 101 Important Questions To Ask Yourself In Life.)
Your Task Today:
- Reflect and answer today’s question. There’s no word limit – whether minimum or maximum. Write as few or as many words as you want. It’s all up to what you want to express!
- Share your answer. After you are done writing, copy and paste your answer in the comments area and post it there.
- Check out other participants’ answers. Other participants will be sharing their answers too, so feel free to read and reply to their answers. This is a group course, so let’s support each other in these 21 days.
((Images: Empty book for journaling, Determined woman))
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getting an oscar for best actress (love and attention from everyone). I admit I am selfish
What drives me is God and my passion to achieve the purpose that he has for my life. I get the strength by knowing that God can take me through my chores and make me happy.
When I was a child, my goal in life above all else was wisdom. I love to learn. I pursue knowledge. No end career was ever in sight. I just wanted to learn, and learn and learn. World: Throw your worst at me!… Ha! Is that all you got?… Oh wait, wait, that was a little too harsh, hold up a little bit… ahh! don’t bombard me!… ok you are right, I did ask for it… more please!
Another thing: When people get old, they seem cranky, close-minded, brittle.
By the time I am an old lady, I hope to be: AMAZING!
with a great sense of humor, charismatic, well-educated, can do 25 pull-ups in a row, and have my shit together.
Actually, I hope I never get old, and can live forever by figuring out how to tell my body not to degenerate. But that’s a bit off-topic.
I am driven by the desire to have a better life. I strive to create a better life (mentally, financially and physically) for myself and my loved ones.
i don’t know exactly, but i guess the desire to start anew, to put an end to a period and cause something new in my life to happen
I take the word “drives” to mean something that motivates me not just intellectually but emotionally and physically as well. I’m a bit ashamed to say this, but I think money is the one thing that does it for me on those levels. I always used to think I had my relationship with money under control but it turns out that inside there is this part of me that wants to get more, almost in a greedy way. Maybe it’s a phase I need to go through, before I get to a point where I am financially abundant but not in a greedy way.
Another thing is excellence: being or doing the best I can. And during the spring and summer months, I also have a drive to explore, discover and experiment. I am only ever the sum of my experiences, so best to get some new experiences under my belt when I can.
In the future I believe that an awareness of my own mortality will be a driving factor. Having recently gone through a suicidal crisis, I feel more aware of my own mortality than ever. I don’t know how that will play out in terms of my future life decisions, but it will involve me knowing that I’m not going to be around forever. I guess I’ll be living in terms of leaving a legacy.
PS- Sorry that I haven’t been keeping up: I have just had to deal with some major depression issues so doing this wasn’t the right thing for a few days. Still, I’m back now :)
This is not easy to answer. I am not sure what it is. I like to organize structures, I like to help people, I like to learn things and to grow. I like to pull the strings of an organization, I don´t like to be in the first row or in the spotlight. I like to make things work. I like to improve things. I like to try out new things and methods. I like people around, I like family and children, I don´t like being alone.
I did not find my “drive” in life so far. I looked for it as a civil servant, in business economy and in applied ethics. But I cannot find it until now. Now I started my training to become a traditional mental healer. This is less a school and more like a amazing new world to me. I think, it´s the right way :)
Love for my family, my desire to give them a better life….
I’m driven by my self satisfaction to be the best in whatever I do…
My love for work and and friends…
And not forgetting to be aligned with what I believe God wants me to become…
– Early morning silence (I should strive for more of it)
– Visualization of the goal achieved
– The feeling that something good will happen if I do something
– The feeling that something bad will happen if I don’t do something
– Sense of achievement
– Opportunities
– Appraisal, appreciation
– Moments of higher (than usual) consciousness drives me. Because then I know exactly what to do with my life. I feel like I can do anything, even those things that usually are very hard (seems impossible) to achieve – like personality changes. The mind is so clear, seems like I see everything from outside, I am able to be “unengaged” to my emotions. Anything is possible, because then I have no doubt what is important and what is unimportant.
So sad that these extreme moments happen so rarely, usually when something really painful is happening. All the other times I’m sort of in a fog, I cannot get past my feelings, or at least not enough.
I don’t have much of a drive. I wish that I did. What drives me is the possibility of a better future. Of going somewhere and making something of myself. My father’s hate drives me to succeed in life. My mother’s strength and heart drives me to do the best I can for her. Everything else drives me but myself. I can’t find it with in me.
An optimistic, energetic & motivated environment. To me, a day can be very different with the aforementioned items. The 90/10 rule also plays a huge part in this.
I’m usually fully charged up after reading motivational/self help articles or articles about people’s success. At that point i feel like i can reach the highest point of the world and no one can stop me. It’s an awesome feeling but it usually declines daily when i get caught up with work. The next time i go through the same article i feel charged up but then again, something gets in the way and it’s back to square one.
I know my major issue currently would be work because it’s squeezing all my energy and time with calls coming at weird hours. I’m giving myself less than a year to sort my passion out and leave the current job. With that, i will redefine my life and starts doing the things that i want. I know there are times when i am clouded by material wealth but somewhere in my mind, i do want to help the world with the poverty, illiteracy, food and health issues.
What drives me is the fact that I have a desire in myself to succeed. Whenever I get the opportunity to run the ball and when I have the opportunity, I would drive myself all the way to the finish line. I am an ambitious person, perhaps too ambitious to the point that I would take successes and failures very seriously.
It takes time for me to perfect certain skills. Once I have possessed the necessary skills and the opportunity is there, I would seize the moment and try to prove to the whole world that I am on top of my game.
Challenging myself in different ways makes me feel alive. A couple of examples would be to successfully cook something and try or come up with new recipes (something I basically just recently started doing), or plan projects ahead and succeed with the set goal (as a former master of procrastination I’m trying to disappoint myself less).
Another thing that I live for is music. I love both listening to others and performing myself. To be on stage and have the possibility to entertain and/or touch people in various ways through music is very gratifying.
Spending time with or reading/watching/listen to work by people that have a notably positive energy also makes me feel inspired and excited.
The fear of looking back on my life and feeling that I wasted the minutes, hours, weeks, years, the precious gift of life, so much opportunity out there.
I drive myself like a madwoman to do more-more-more and yet it never feels like enough.
What drives me? Fear. And perfectionism. But also, love. And hope. And faith. I’m thinking maybe they balance each other out.
I am still searching for what drives me.
I have mentioned in a previous post that I am afflicted with the curse of procrastination and I find motivation in all areas of my life lacking. At times, my mother will give a nudge of encouragement but she is not often present to do so. I am single; I live alone and admittedly a recluse with few friends and acquaintances. As a result, I have become complacent in my current station and have begun to languish in mediocrity. As of late, I decided to reclaim my lost spirituality and to make an effort to reprogram my thinking. Did I mention that I am a bit of a pessimist? I have begun praying, I’ve started going to church, reading positive self-help books, I have attempted to meditate daily but I am still learning how to do it properly and of course I follow the personal excellence blog.
I suppose now I can say my desire to be a balanced, more positive person is what is currently driving me.
Having fun, living life because it’s too short, happiness, learning
1) The first thing that I can say drives me, 100%, is the excited feeling I get when something fun is coming up: a concert, a fun trip that I’ve been planning, a night out with my friends and/or family, a party coming up, etc. All the hard work I do feels like it’s all for nothing if I don’t have something fun that I’m looking forward to. I try to always have a fun event coming up at some point in the near future. What’s the point of working and making money if you aren’t having fun in your life?
2) The second thing that drives me is anything charitable. People all over the world have their own individual stories, and when I see that someone or something (an animal) is facing a hardship, I just want to jump in and save them. Right now I am focusing pretty strongly on adoptable shelter dogs who face euthanasia in the shelter because they ran out of time. They have already had a pretty crappy life, only to face time “behind bars” in a teeny tiny little rectangle of space where they don’t even get to see the sunlight. And if they aren’t adopted within a few weeks’ time frame, then they are killed just because their perfect owner didn’t happen to stop in and see them in time. I obviously feel pretty strongly about this, but it’s generally anyone who’s facing tough times that drives me. I feel for children who aren’t given the resources they need to succeed, adults who are fighting a tough battle physically, emotionally, or financially, animals who are trapped in a horrible environment. Basically I have a “save the world” mentality, and when I see a cause I can really get behind I am happy to step in and contribute what I can. Knowing I am making a difference in someone’s life really drives me.
3) Happy stories drive me. I am a total inspirational-story junkie. I love to read them and smile when I hit the happy ending. Knowing that there are many instances when the story didn’t end badly, the person succeeded in the face of failure, an “underdog” rose up to win the “fight”, someone’s life was saved or someone survived something they almost surely shouldn’t have….these are all things that make me want to just get up and seize the day. I feel so energized and happy after I read, hear, or watch them.
4) The ability to grow and change drives me. The final thing that I want to talk about is the amazing fact that we are not stuck right where we are, as slaves to our emotions and environment. Whatever we want we can have, and whatever we want to become, we can. We have a vast amazing ability to chase our dreams and be whoever or whatever we want to be. Everyone is different, with their own passions, dreams, hopes, and desires. This is what makes the world go round. Knowing that I can be whoever I want to be and work on my negative attributes to become a better person throughout my lifetime really drives me.
I’m driving by being better and getting people be better.
I used to have an enormous amount of drive. There was no stopping me. Now some of that has gone, I think partially because many of my dreams and desires are not as straight forward as they used to be (instead of improving a grade, I want to become a better person etc.) These types of goals are also not ever completed.
But I digress. I am really energized by ideas and planning. I love to plan and to research information on my next purchase or trip or party. But like I said, most of my drive is gone, and I hope that this is just a really bad case of senioritis because I want it back.
Few things that drive me are:
1. Achievement
2. Challenges
3. Difficult and complex problems
4. Desire to make an impact on number of lives
5. Passion
6. Creativity – any creation where I can feel the passion behind it. Where it is evident that all forces of nature, body, soul and heart have joined hands to create that particular thing. It can be music, dance, art, companies, startups, etc. Where the creation speaks more than what is visible.
7. Success – though I have started to believe that success can’t be pursued, it ensues while working on your life’s true calling.
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