Tag: best motivational blogs to read

Motivation

Temporary conditions

bhillay

In the medical world, temporary conditions are injuries or conditions that do not last long and are not chronic. Like a sprained ankle, broken finger, concussions, pregnancy, a common cold, etc.

I’ve sprained my ankle more times than I can count. Whenever it happens, I don’t panic. I just do what’s needed to get back to normal after a few days. I once tore my achilles. I knew that I would need surgery and about a year to recover, but I knew that was a temporary condition also.

It doesn’t always have to be injuries. You might be temporarily broke, or temporarily homeless, or temporarily unmotivated. It’s about having optimism and an understanding that these unfortunate conditions are not permanent.

Temporary conditions do not change on their own though. When I sprained my ankle, I had to rest and put it on ice. When I tore achilles, I had to have surgery as well as months of rehab. I needed to do things to make sure those conditions were temporary.

There’s always something to do to make your conditions temporary, rather it’s an injury or your financial status. It takes faith and effort. Don’t do things that are counterproductive. If you do that, you will be in that condition longer than you have to be. And like the quote says; “don’t make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion/condition”.

Motivation, Random Thoughts

Do not cast your pearls

bhillay

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime… but if that man isn’t open to learn how to fish, don’t bother trying to teach him.

In the Bible Jesus says “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” – Matthew 7:6. We shouldn’t offer something valuable to someone who doesn’t understand its value.

You might want to offer help or guidance to someone, but they might not be receptive to what you have to offer. That’s ok. Find someone who is . If someone doesn’t want change or grow or learn, you can’t make them. Find an audience who wants to.

You might have a good creation or idea, but do not receive the support that you’d like from your family and friends. That’s ok. It might not be for them. If you put the work out into the world, the right people will find it. You shouldn’t keep trying to force it on the same people, and you shouldn’t take it personal when people that you know aren’t as supportive as you’d like.

It’s also good to self-reflect at times and make sure that you are receptive to valuable advice or guidance and support from others. Sometimes our own non-receptiveness is what hinders us from growth, and even success. No matter who the person is, they can have something valuable that they can teach you.

Don’t waste good advice on someone who doesn’t want to listen. Find the man who wants to learn how to fish.

Motivation

Just finish

bhillay

“You can’t finish what you don’t start, and you should never start what you’re not committed to finish.” — Gary Ryan Blair

Always finish what you start. There will be times when you want to quit, but there’s nothing better than the satisfaction of finishing something and knowing that you did not give up. This will help you become resilient. This will make other challenges in life easier to get through.

You can’t place in a race unless you finish. One of the things I loved most about running track was when it was that person who was in last place in a long distance race, and the entire crowd would clap and cheer for them as they crossed the finish line. They may have taken last place, but they finished. That’s what everyone was proud of. They won the mental and physical battle.

I never quit a sport or a team in my life. As a kid, my mom wouldn’t let me. I’m glad she instilled that mentality in me. There will be times when you don’t like your team, or your job, or whatever endeavor you choose to pursue. Things will get hard or mundane and quitting will be the easiest thing to do. Not quitting and getting through those times is what helps build character. You’ll learn a lot of life lessons along the way.

There’s no better feeling to me than finishing a book. Even if I don’t like the book, I’m still satisfied that I finished what I started. This is a mentality that has been very beneficial in my life.

My senior year in college I decided to drop out of classes to pursue playing in the NFL. I only had about a semester and a half until graduating. I was on a full ride scholarship and chose to give that up to follow my dreams. I knew I would be able to eventually come back and finish my degree (even if I had to pay out of pocket) because I’ve developed the habit of finishing whatever I start. It wasn’t a “if” but a “when” for me when it came to graduating.

You can separate yourself from competition just by finishing. A lot of people will begin to write a book, or make an album, or take courses in college, etc, but not everyone will finish. If you can finish whatever it is that you start, you already beat out half of the competition.

The only way to find out what will come from certain situations is to finish. If you are a creator, you have to finish whatever you’re creating and get it out into the universe to really see what will come from it. There might be someone out there who needs whatever you’re creating. They just need you to finish it.

Just like that person who comes in last place in the distance race, you will be rewarded no matter what, if you finish.

Motivation, Random Thoughts

Study The Greats

bhillay

The good thing about the internet is that you can use a search engine and learn about any person that you want. This can make your journey to success much easier. There are blueprints to success. You just have to follow them.

For every running back who I liked growing up, I can tell you where they are from, what college they went to, their height, weight, their 40 yard dash time, college stats, and what round they were drafted in the NFL. This gave me a good paradigm of what I needed to do to make it to the NFL. I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, I just had to do things that were simular to the guys that have already reached the goals that I wanted to reach.

These players were like mentors to me, and I never met them a day in my life. I just had to study their actions, good and bad. I learned what to do to get to the NFL and I also learned what not to do.

It goes beyond sports though. I know the story of my favorite actors, writers, entrepreneurs, etc. This is good for me to know because if I ever want to get to where they are, I know I have to do something similar to what they did to get there. There are no shortcuts to success.

I’ve had peers who never played college football tell me that they plan to play football professionally. I never crush their dreams, but I also know it’s not that simple . You have to respect the craft and put in the appropriate work. If they studied any player who made it to the NFL, they’d know that their plan to skip a lot of steps and still make it to the NFL is illogical.

It gets deeper than just studying the moves someone made in their life. You have to also learn their mentality. How did Kobe get that “mamba mentality”? Where did he even come up with calling hisself the “Black Mamba”? The answers are out there, you just have to find them.

I like to read books that successful people recommend. Maybe I’ll get the same things out of that book that they did. If not, at least I know I am on the right path.

You can study your friends, relatives, coworkers, anybody. If someone has something that you want, or are in a profession that you’d like to be in, or are at a place in life where you’d like to be, study how they got there and make similar choices. You’re half way there if you can do that.

Faith

Count your blessings

bhillay

If you are reading this blog post, that’s a blessing. If you can comprehend this blog post, that’s a blessing. We have so many blessings that we often take for granted. We can really find blessings in everything in life.

I always could run very fast. It is just a God given gift. I always appreciated it and used it to my advantage whenever I could. Then I ruptured my achilles.

Not only could I not run anymore. I also could not walk. I had to learn how to walk again. I’ll never forget the first time I walked again about 8 weeks after my surgery to repair my achilles. I was at Target and I was in a walking boot. I could only walk very slow, and it was still kind of painful to walk. This brought me so much joy. I had taken walking for granted my entire life. It made me think of all of the other things that I do daily without thought that I take for granted.

We have so many blessings that we should be thankful for. Even when times are hard and you might not be optimistic about things in life, you still have a lot of things to be thankful for.

When you are thankful for all of your blessing, large and small, you will have a more positive outlook on life, and really just be happier overall.

It’s when we only think about the bad things in life when we begin to not be happy. When I tore my achilles, I could have focused on all of the bad things. Instead, I was just happy that I could walk again. I was happy that I had insurance to have surgery, and that my surgery went well. Those were all blessings.

Thank God for all of your blessings right now, because the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Also, whenever you’re in a crisis, there are still blessings in that situation that you can be thankful for.

Motivation

Do it right the first time

bhillay

It’s difficult starting over, (but) that’s better than going backwards.

I learned that from the rapper Starlito.

Back in 2020, I bought a handwriting workbook. I didn’t really like my handwriting at the time, so I figured it was time to finally go back to the basics and start over. That workbook helped my handwriting tremendously. I went from writing in chicken scratch to… just a regular person’s handwriting. It’s still nothing special LOL.

I began to ask myself why my handwriting was so bad in the first place, and all I could think about was being in elementary school and not caring too much about those handwriting workbooks. I wanted to do other things in school, like disrupt the class or flirt with girls. I didn’t know at the time that my handwriting would look like a 2nd grader’s for the next 20 years.

Last year I wrote a book. It’s a memoir about my life. The book is over 64,000 words long. Would you believe that I typed that entire book with only like three fingers?! I never mastered typing on the keyboard. I remember practicing as a kid, but somewhere along the way I stopped using the home row of the keyboard and all the mechanics they teach you when learning to type went out the door.

The past couple weeks I have been reteaching myself how to type the proper way. I can now use the home row and type without looking at the keyboard. I can’t believe I made it all those years just using three fingers. Although I can type decently with three fingers, I know I will be more efficient typing the correct way.

So here I am, a grown man, relearning how to write and type the correct way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the feeling of self-improvement. I love the feeling of not being able to do something, then seeing myself gradually improve with practice. The thing is, you can practice bad habits and get good at that also. Like I did with my handwriting and typing.

I could have used my free time learning new things, instead of relearning things I was taught as a kid. All I had to do was: do it right the first time.

That goes for anything in our lives. You gotta do it right the first time so you wont have to redo it later in life. Sometimes you might not even get a second chance if you do not do it right the first time. You know how many people are in prison who wish they could go back and do things right the first time? Or that dude who lost his wife cause he wasn’t doing right, who wishes he could go back in time and treat his wife better? Or that athlete who wishes they could go back in time and not smoke weed so that they didn’t fail their drug test?

Doing things correctly the first time saves you a lot of time and stress in the future. One of my favorite quotes is from Marshall McLuhan. He says “The future of the future is the present”. So think about how you want to be in the future, and do it right now. Want to be that healthy, fit person with a nice body in the future? Eat healthy and workout right now. Want to gain 50 lbs of fat in the future and be out of shape? Start eating bad right now and don’t exercise. You’ll get there LOL.

Whatever it is in your life that you may not be doing right, fix it now. Like Starlito says; “Not a quitter at all, but I’m giving up bad habits”. Just start over. Don’t go backwards. Sometimes doing things the wrong way is the same as going backwards. And for all my Christians out there, this might be the only life we get, so if you want to go to heaven, you gotta live right the first time. I don’t know if God will send us back to earth to redo things correctly. Well, there might be purgatory (for my Catholic readers), but even that’s the result of not doing things right the first time.

There are no shortcuts in life, so just do things right the first time. The future you will thank you.