Staying Motivated, Staying Positive

Sometimes, people will get you down. I like to think the best of people so most the time, when people get you down, I don't believe it is intentional. Case in point, I recently had a conversation with someone I respect very much. They have "made it" in life and are now comfortably enjoying their retirement. It took long hard work to get where they are today and is well deserved, but this is a very different perspective from the one I currently have. I am half their age so I have 35 years to get where they are. They did not say anything directly negative about my ideas or results to date, but they questioned what it was I was doing and indicated I needed to focus on paying off debts.

Ok, all sounds good and clearly not intended to be negative, but in the moment it crushed my spirit. I have been working very hard to turn around my financial situation and focus on moving in the right direction and this one conversation made me feel like all of those efforts were for nothing and that I was not doing the right things. However, when I stepped back and took a harder look at it, they were not saying anything that I had not already said to myself. I of course do need to focus on paying off debts and creating more positive cash flow. The difference is that they did not know any of the efforts I had recently made in this regard. They are only looking at the results of what I have done in the past. So, I should have just responded with a simple yes, you are right, thanks for the advice. Hopefully, I will have much better results from my recent efforts and I will be able to go back to this same person let them know how it is going; they meant well by the comments and truly want me to succeed.

So, when you find yourself in a situation where something someone has said or done is getting you down, take a step back and think about it from their perspective. People usually mean well and even if they don't, they don't know what you know about what it is you are going. They don't know all the struggles you may have had or the efforts you have made in the positive direction. Just take their advice at face value and see if it works into or improves upon your current goals and use it as positive motivation. As long as you know you are moving in the right direction and staying positive it is going to get better; some things just take time.

What will later be my About page

As the title implies, this first post will at some point be revised to the point where it can be a permanent fixture on the website. Let me start off with some background. First, this is not my first "blog" and/or website, but I can definitely say I am still a beginner in the world of web publishing (I mean I am writing this on google blogger). I had a movie review blog back in 2007 through 2013 or so; although I think I lost my passion for it after a couple years. I loved movies and although I still do, I don't much care for writing about movies. I always wanted to make movies, but never took the steps necessary to really push into that profession. I instead took my general business degree and landed in a general business job. I always figured I would be in my first "real" job for a couple years and move on and up in life, but somehow, I am still in the same job 12 years later. I have already worked here for a third of my life. I should be happy to have had a steady job that has supported my family and I am, but something is still missing. The passion about the work I am doing is not what I had hoped and the promise of a comfortable retirement (even a possible retirement really) has seemed less and less likely. So, what does that have to do with this site, The Lifer, you ask? Well, this site is a place for me to find my passion in my work and find ways to make more money and have more time with my family and friends. I am on the search for ideas about how to accomplish this and will use this site as a place to document the successes and failures hopefully along the way to a worry free (I would mind early) retirement. For now, this is mostly just a place for me to keep track of this journey, but I truly hope that it will prove useful or encouraging to others as well.