Take Inspiration and Motivate Yourself

There are times when it can be difficult to motivate yourself to do pretty much anything. These times can spring from anything from tiredness to fear, and there are certainly cases where the reluctance to act can be caused by a medical condition, but what it boils down to is that a reluctance to act, which can be extensively damaging, is often the product of a combination of matters and can be hard to overcome. In these situations you need to look at the problem head-on and say “I’m not going to be broken down by this – I’m going to break it down”. Although this is generally easier said than done, managing it brings many rewards.

The ability to stick at things even when it seems difficult or pointless is something prized highly by bosses. It wouldn’t be fair to say that apathy is endemic in society, but it is troubling to see talented people laid low by a lack of confidence, especially when that lack is brought on by what amounts to an arbitrary failure. Say, for example, that a person has competed in a talent contest or an open training session for a sports team. In such cases, talent is very much in the eye of the beholder. Coaches and record execs have often made the decision to plump for one of two people based on a very subjective selection criteria. The people who have been passed over may have gone on to assume that they would never succeed, but that is not always the case.

Witness the NFL. Every year teams draft players to feature in the playing squads that will take them through a season, and they have their selection criteria set ahead of time. It is universally accepted that guys selected in the first round of seven are expected to succeed, those selected in the second and third rounds are hopefuls, and below that you may have a 50/50 chance of making it if you put everything into the game. In 2000, Tom Brady was selected in the sixth round by the New England Patriots. Nine years later he has won three Superbowls, being voted Most Valuable Player in two of them. 2000 was widely viewed pre-Draft as a thin year for quarterbacks, and five were selected before Brady. The truth is that sometimes people don’t realize what they have passed up.

There are stories like this in all categories, and every time it is the story of the individual who was passed over for an arguably less talented person because it’s just this simple – opinions differ. If you let one person’s evaluation of you be the one that sticks, and it’s a negative opinion, then you don’t give anyone else the encouragement that might be the difference between choosing you and passing you over. Keep in mind that sometimes people need to keep trying in order to succeed – take inspiration from one of the many who may not have got there first, but have stayed there longer than those who did.

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Charity Work

The topic of charity has become a surprisingly controversial issue over the years. Where once it was considered inherently good to give money to a cause, the concept of charity has now become loaded with caveats and provisos. Charitable donations now are something of a moral minefield, with people feeling that they have to do extensive research before writing the cheque or making the bank transfer. In some respects this is perfectly understandable. With just about any initiative formed on good intentions, there are loopholes through which those good intentions can be abused. Some people have taken this as a basis on which to decry all charity, which is perhaps the saddest thing of all.

It is easy to become cynical when you see the inherently decent concept of charity being abused. But it should be avoided – all too many people think now that by giving money to help a cause you are inevitably giving money to the lazy or the immoral. Some people have just been cursed with bad luck. Are we to consider that the homeless, the starving and even the long-term ill are malingerers whose only real problem is that they can’t pull themselves together, put on their best suit and go out and find a job? It would be a very regrettable situation if this mindset were to win out. Sure, it is worth putting a bit of thought into which charity you help out – but using the “bad” ones as a reason to doubt all charities is something to avoid.

There is another way that you can help out a charitable cause without needing to worry about handing money directly to a faceless corporation who will put it in the bank and “forget” to hand it over, or that it will end up being swallowed by administrative costs. You can refrain from donating money, or donate a smaller amount but add to it with your time.

Time and labour are often the areas where most charities find their biggest challenges. “No-one wants to give their time for free” is a common complaint. If however you are looking for a worthwhile way to use your time, charitable work can be a very rewarding way to achieve this. It may just be packaging up donations of clothes and food for delivery to needy causes. It may be taking boxes in your car to drive to a refuge for people who have been beset by the problems of a broken home, violence or any other difficulty. But by doing this you also get to see that your work and your time are not wasted.

Cynicism is natural, if not desirable. Skepticism is, to some extent, to be encouraged – it is what allows us to distinguish good causes from bad ones. But doing work for charity can allow you to see just what good work some charities are still doing – and at the same time learn a little bit about yourself as a person. It also allows you the chance to meet some very interesting, very driven people. It’s clear how charity helps the needy, but it can help anyone who gives it a chance.

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