Monster Monday & Three Tricks for Maintaining the Awesome

I won’t stand long on my soapbox today, friends. You and I both know that we want our lives to be awesome. That we want to be awesome. Because, duh, who doesn’t?

But sometimes, being awesome is hard.

It takes motivation. It takes ambition. 

It takes a helluva lot more energy than I have 80% of the time. And the 20% of the time that I do have the energy, it’s usually caffeine-induced (we all have our faults, right?)

And because being awesome takes so much energy, it’s annoyingly easy to lose steam and fall back into stagnancy. Hey, being a mossy old rock takes zero effort! Cool!

I’m currently in the middle of my own totally awesome project, which is taking months to prepare for. And with the span of several months looming ahead of me before any of the action happens, I have to keep myself motivated little by little. I have to trick myself into excitement, to feign The Awesome in the interim, and by doing so, create it every day.

Here are the Awesome Maintenance steps that work best for me:

1. Lock yourself into The Awesome right from the start.
I'm not beginning my journey for another four-ish months, but to keep myself motivated, I dropped a big money bomb early on. Now I feel invested. I've gotta keep working, because the plane ticket is real. It's in my name. I've purchased the airline meal and checked the "vegetarian" option. There's no turning back.

2. Get the lowdown from other people who are being awesome.
To remind myself that this leap isn't completely insane, I'm getting some feedback from people who've done it before. I exchange emails with students who have volunteered with the same organization in the past. I'm reading Sideways on a Scooter. I'm trying to visualize their experiences someday matching up with a few of my own.

3. Plan out tiny little tasks that help build up The Awesome over time.
After booking the ticket (and doing a lot of heavy breathing), I sat down and made myself a big ol' list. The "Here's Everything You Need to Do to Prepare" list. And then I took all those listed tasks and stuck one into each week of my planner. The trip may be far away, but it still feels very much like a part of daily life.

These are the tricks that keep me moving. These are how I’m getting by, day by day, until that crazy January 18th flight. They keep the project alive, rather than letting it nap in the shadow of my laziness.

How do you maintain The Awesome?

Oh, and PS -- the brooms made a new friend this week.

Got a Monster in my closet.