My alarm went off this morning at 7am (very reasonable). Today I sprang out of bed excited about ideas generated last night before closing my eyes. I’ll back up… before turning the light out, I day dreamed (or before sleep dreamed), of clever food blog names, struggling to discover something original. This is no small feat in this overflowing, or one might say saturated, depending on how you look at it, blog age. I held my arm in the air, waited for smart phone to find service and patiently waited for the answer to load each time I checked availability on a domain name. We have our internet on auto shut off 9pm- 7.30am for our ahmmm… teenager. But last night I just couldn’t wait till 7.30am. I came up with sugar and sauerkraut, trying to reflect food and the fact I live in Germany. Please don’t tell me if you think it’s ridiculous because I still like it and it’s available. Well, ok tell me because I haven’t paid 12.99/yr for it yet…and there’s still time to keep me from wasting my $. So as I was saying…I was motivated to jump out of bed today because I was excited about an idea. [SUCCESS/EGO]

“Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It’s the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. It’s the crucial element in setting and attaining goals—and research shows you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control. So figure out what you want, power through the pain period, and start being who you want to be.”

The next thing I was motivated to do was take my pooch out despite constant wet rain and umbrella buckling wind. Why? 1) I want him to feel good/relieved 2) I didn’t and don’t ever want to clean up pee and poo. Who does? [NEED BASED]

I then was motivated to go to the gym. Out of sheer desire? Unfortunately not. Because I know it’s good for me? Sort of. Because I’ve gained 10 pounds since moving to Germany and barely fit in my bra or pants? Getting there. (I still love my body and am grateful for my health and mobility…[forced smile]). I could always buy new clothes- but I don’t love shopping for things i cannot eat and society leads me to believe I should be thin… and fit… for my health. [SOCIETY] The biggest reason? Because after trudging through horrible class taught by a woman whose neck would look stunning with my low resistance blue exercise band tightly wrapped around it, especially after she traded her easy resistance blue one for my medium resistance red one IN THE MIDDLE of class, feigning concern and handing me humiliation, “nur noch sechzhen” (only 16 more) she shrieked as I squatted next to my bench shamefully avoiding eye contact. Because after all that, I knew I would experience a sense of accomplishment. And because best of all, afterwards, I knew I would have coffee with a friend who would have shared aforementioned  hour of torture. [SOCIAL]    And let’s face it. Has anyone ever ever thought after working out. “God that was a stupid idea.” No. Period. (Note to self… blog post on german gym class:-)

And today I was motivated to write this post on motivation. [CREATIVITY] Actually, due more to the fact I’ve thought about it a lot lately. We are trying to figure out how to motivate Alice (fake name to protect identity- even though so far only friends and family actually read this and know my daughter’s real name – I’m planning for the future and you might not have known she loves the name Alice). Right… I’m trying to figure out how to motivate Alice to get out of bed in the morning. But frankly it’s damn hard. I can’t say I was particularly motivated in 8th grade to get out of my warm cocoon five mornings a week to knock elbows with other awkward 13yr olds. I decided money wasn’t a particularly healthy option and would get expensive for the next 4 and 1/2 years. Now I work with persuasion and pleading, not always met with success. [UNKNOWN] Feel free to give advice.

Now throw in the motivation to eat when hungry… [PHYSICAL NEED] eat when I want [NO PHYSICAL NEED] eat when I’m sad or bored [ NO PHYSICAL NEED]. And the other bodily functions I won’t go into detail about even though I do crave a good discussion on said matter now and again. I was after all a nutrition major and we love what and how it goes in and what and how it goes out. (yet another future post.)

We’ve covered in one day all but security in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. There could very well be a part II to this post. But I can’t commit to that….(will have to see if mood strikes)

Coming soon to your area…..