Seeking Coastal Utopia

We live in a world of instant gratification. We seek the fast, cheap and easy. We consume information, live the vicarious fitness plan via the web, and buy the things that we want without getting out of our chair — in mere seconds. “yes, you really do need to work harder” by Jordan Whitfield on  Unsplash Hard work? We go to the vending machine over in the corner and buy it the premade something.  Prepackaged stuff. Ready to eat. Immediately consumed. Is this what we want? Of course we do! We are consumers. We are always trying to find a hack, we try to find a shortcut. We want our hard work to be easy. 6 Minute Abs! Get rich quick! Whiter teeth in just a few days! This is your hack to hard work . Hard work is only hard the first time you do it. Seriously. That’s it. Nothing else. It is not magical. It is not complex. It is just hard. We recognize that doing it the first time is hard, and after that, it is no longer hard. Wait, what? ...

“brown dried leaves on sand” by sydney Rae on  Unsplash Keep showing up. Never stop. Keep pressing play. Take another step. Do one more rep. Work for one more minute. Do twenty more miles. Woody Allen once said 80% of life is just showing up. Showing up is that first step forward. It is that challenge that everyone struggles with. If you are consistent and have the discipline to keep showing up, success will follow. You are now one more step ahead of the mediocre masses. You are one more step further from ordinary. You are further ahead than over half of the people that surround you. Yet you need to recognize that just showing up once is not going to make you successful. Yes, it is a great achievement that you actually took that first leap and showed up the very first time, but it is the 2nd and the 3rd and the 10th and the 50th time that you show up, that you repeat that’s what makes you successful. Having the discipline and the urgency to keep showing up and doing t...

Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, what really gets you out of bed? Why do we do the things that we do? What are the things that really make us take that leap? Motivation. The influence or the stimulation of doing something — anything! Depending upon what flavor of motivation will elicit a similar response, but with different results. Every one of us is influenced by motivation. We each react to a particular motivation and if we have a better understanding of which type of motivation moves us, this helps us use that motivation to our advantage. What motivates you to wake up and go to work every day? To go through the same slog. Wake up, brush your teeth, wash your face, get dressed, drink your coffee, commute to work? You run around in the same ruts every day. Why do the things you need to do throughout the day so you can come back and do it all over again tomorrow? There are two primary behavioral motivations, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation . Just...