Demotivators and what to do about them
Posted on May 15, 2007
As regular readers of ThoughtSparks may have noticed, I’ve had a gap in postings this past week. I don’t think I’m alone as I’ve noticed a number of folks in the blogosphere tapped-out as of late. Maybe it’s the month of May being so busy, but I’ve ran into a series of demotivating forces that have occupied my attention, zapped my zest for communication and generally added a measure of fatigue to my days. Now, I’m not complaining or taking this lying down. When faced with these obstacles, playing the victim will do no good. No, I am identifying these gremlins, facing them and taking steps to overcome these challenges. Here are some things that have come up and how I’m handling them:
- Telemarketers. I don’t answer the landline in the early evening, so friends either call my cell or leave a message. One telemarketer called as late as 9 p.m. this evening. I may just cancel my land line altogether.
- Spammers. They rate below telemarketers, those low-life individuals send spam via email and try to submit junk on both personal and public sites. I’ve gotten aggressive and wrote a custom app to stop ‘em on the work sites. That did the job. It was actually quite fun to stick it to them.
- Online Services Not Working. Twitter has been hosed a lot lately. IMified has been fried. Inconsistent functionality for a service is a real motivation killer for its use. I’ve not totally given-up just yet on Twitter, but I’m not as enthralled with something that is down with as many interruptions.
- Fatigue. To much work, not enough play. Life too easily can boil down to a list of todo’s. I am a human being not a human doing. Spent a little more time lately being instead of just doing and getting some rest.
- Obstinate people. When someone takes a strong stance about something that matters little, I have learned to step away, focus on things where I can make a difference and truly let stuff go.
- Negative attitudes. Life is just too short to absorb and take on the poor attitude of others. Situations are usually not as bad as they appear and a positive bent on life is often one of the key ingredients to making your way through a potentially difficult time.
- Feeling Trapped. Peace comes from within, not from outward circumstances. God is the source of this peace and He is faithful to give the peace "that passes all understanding." This is not a trite statement when it makes contact in my life where rubber meets the road.
This is just a brief list of things that can so easily demotivate me, if I let them. When I look at obstacles and irritants for what they are, I can develop an action plan or a simple shift in thinking. This empowers me to do something about my circumstances.
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6 Responses to “Demotivators and what to do about them”
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I hear you and have resisted writing about spammers and junk emailers for a couple of days now. We have caller id on our land phone and just don’t answer it. Or even more fun, answer it, wait a second, and then hang up. It’s been cloudy here for a few days, and that always drags me down a bit. I like your “human being” and not “human doing.” I think that’s why I quit my job and am looking around for other things to do. Hang in there.
Thanks Kelly, yeah one relatively easy trick w/ telemarketers is to pick-up the phone and when you hear a pause and then a delay, hang-up. That’s if you forget to just let the machine get it. Today has been a more upswing day in a while. Thanks for checking in with me.
There are some really nice features with AT& T called privacy manager. It blocks people that call you anonymously and unknown callers.
Hang in there - it is always darkest right before the lights go completely out.
Enjoyed your site…
Catherine, the redhead
http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com
Cherann, yeah we should look at some feature like that. For now we are doing the kludgy listen to the answering machine method. It works but there are better ways for sure.
Catherine, thanks for the thought. Good to keep a sense of humor for sure. Glad you liked the site. Not every post is as melancholy as that one. I guess some of my posts are somewhat reflective of how my life is going.
interesting post…thank you!