Motivating with honesty, not with excuses

I am a Pinterest junkie. Seriously. I have boards for food (yes, boards as in I have several for different meal categories). I have boards for knitting and crocheting projects, full of cute little animals and cool blanket patterns that I would love to fill my home with one of these days. I have boards for fitness, full of at home body weight workouts, kettlebell workouts, and yoga flow routines. I have a running board, full of running products, interval workout plans, and races that I've done and want to do. Then of course there are secret boards, which are secret so I won't discuss them any more here ;)

I have another board called "Inspiration". This board is probably my favorite to revisit from time to time. Some of the pins on this board have pictures of individuals who inspire me, including scientists like Rosalind Franklin and Rita Levi Montalcini. Some fictional characters are even on the inspiration board, like Atticus Finch and Jane Eyre.

Rita Levi Montalcini. Look her up, she's pretty cool.

One of my favorite parts of this board though, can be classified as "motivational quotes." Some of these include scripture about God being for us and with us. One of them is a favorite Quaker quote of mine - "Don't speak unless you can improve the silence." I have a wonderful Corrie Ten Boom quote also, which is "If God sends us a stony path, he provides us with strong shoes". Collectively, this board is one that I call upon to remind myself of my focus. I have it to remind me that challenges are not insurmountable, yet they require a huge amount of work. With hard work and a healthy attitude I can begin to approach the challenges before me.

Pinterest, has recently taken to suggesting pins for my Inspiration board. They include pins with quotes like "If  you can't love me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best", and "Have you ever just sat down and been like 'Damn I've been through a lot of shit' " (seriously, I'm not sure why that one came up but it did.) Without quoting ALL of them, the central message of these pins often has to do with identifying yourself as the victim, and dismissing the behavior of those around you.

I will never understand this mentality. Ever. If you actually want to change things for the better, you need to have ownership over what you can control and what you can change. Having that realization gives you direction. It allows you to either change the circumstances that you are in, or make the best of them. Granted, the actions of others may have directly or indirectly influenced where you are. But allowing that to be the blanket excuse for your attitude, your happiness, and your success is giving those people complete power over you. If you still dwell on the skinny girls who made fun of you in high school, it's as if they still taunt you and define you as the fat girl in the class. If your excuse for having zero confidence in your place of work is that your dad told you that he was disappointed in you that one time, you have blown his teaching moment completely out of proportion.

Own where you are, do what you can do, make the best of what you have.

Like this guy...