staying motivated

How To Stay Motivated With Your Family

Motivation Can Include Your Family

keeping motivatedWhen you have a family, you generally want to provide for them. You provide a home, safety, clothing and food to your spouse and children  and probably do without thinking much about it. It is what is needed to keep things running smoothly. How to stay motivated can sometimes be a problem.

Here is one encouragement: Your children are learning these survival patterns from you as they grow up. They see that these things need to be provided and start to take on responsibility in life themselves as they get older. As well it is teaching them that they need to take care their family when they grow up.

Be An Example

Since you are becoming an example for how life goes for your children, You need to think of what happens when you make improvements or changes outside of the basic needs. Your changes you are motivated to make effect the whole family, both and how they think and how they feel about things.

Are they going to be supportive? It may make a difference in how motivated you are to go ahead with your changes, as they may affect the entire family. You have to decide whether it is important, whether they understand or support you or not.

Include The Family

All in the family has the ability to make changes, including lifestyle changes and setting goals, once they are old enough. And it is so much easier when you get support from each other.

By staying motivated and including the family, as you make changes, it sets the pattern that it is something they can do as well. So talk over and discuss things, especially when you are not feeling as motivated.

When Family Is Uncertain Or Opposed To Change

Some changes are not welcomed by every family member. For example a family move to a different town is being considered. Some members may not be happy with that.

I have a story about that…  My step dad moved us around a lot. I was between my Junior and Senior year in High School, when he decided to change jobs and be closer to his parents. We had lived in the target town more than once and Mom had relatives there too.

It would have been nice for Dad to set down and have discussed it with the family. But he did not. As the head of the house, in a Christian household, he had the right to make the final decision. Off he went, and the family had to get packed up and move before school started.

How did I handle it?  It was a surprise I was not happy with. In retrospect, no one likes those kind of surprises. Letting me know say 6 months ahead so I had time to get accustomed to it would have helped.  However, he probably did not know that far ahead himself.

If I could make one suggestion as myself today, to my family then, it would be to sit down and discuss the up coming changes and acknowledge that some members of the family are going to be upset. Talk over the necessities of the move. And make it a learning lesson for the teenage me. That nothing is fair in this world and we are all going to need to make adjustments in our life and learn to be flexible.

Continue To Discuss and Share Things

Even if your spouse or children are not going to be impacted your your decision or change, it is always nice to discuss things with them and share how it is going. this is going to help you in staying motivated.

family goalsLet’s say it was that you want to learn a new skill or new sport. By sharing as you go, this gives you family time and helps create a better bond.

And just because it is not impacting them does not mean that they will not support you. That can really come in handy, especially when you are having problems reaching your goals.

As they listen to your interests, make sure you listen to their interests. This fosters acceptance and respect on both sides.

In addition, remember that you are teaching your children future skills of decision making and goal setting. How to stay motivated is up to you, but including your family is a great way to build family bonds and get their encouragement.