What Chronic Illness Taught Me About Motivation

Before I became ill, I knew of a few motivations to do something.
1. To learn and become an expert in that field, subject, sport, instrument, etc...
2. To make money
3. To run a company
4. To have a family and enjoy success

I believed that a person's value in life was determined by high grades, talent, being the best, or at the very least in the top 5. I figured that you had to find something, at which you could become an expert, in order to lead a successful life.
Further to that, I wanted to master a whole bunch of different things. I wanted to be a successful vocalist and musician, a professional volleyball player or track star (high jump), I wanted a Master's Degree in Music, English, AND Psychology, and a PhD in the last in order to secure a potential career. I had an initial plan and several back-up plans. 

None of my plans had even partially considered the idea that I may become so ill that I would have to change my plans. It would change the way in which I tackled any of my goals.

Suddenly, a 4 year Bachelor's Degree followed by being a career student was out. I opted for a double major instead and took 6 years for a 5 year Bachelor's Degree.
I knew what I wanted to accomplish, but I also knew that I could not do it at the same rate as I had hoped. I was still entirely determined to finish a Bachelor's Degree even if I could go no further. So I focused on two disciplines and worked my way through schooling.

Volleyball at the professional level was out.
So I opted to participate in the most competitive recreational leagues that I could find. I created my own schedule and acted as a substitute on various teams. I could play 15 hours a week if I was able to, and only 3 hours a week if I was too ill.

Professional singing, touring, auditioning for parts in operas, even working my way from the bottom at bars and open mics - this was all out. My energy levels and constant medical schedule prevented this plan.
So, I released two cds, I sang (and still sing) for fundraisers, I practice vocals and piano at home, I record requests from home, hold home concerts, and sing at senior's homes.

Chronic illness taught me that being an expert, being the best, or making loads of money with your craft - these are not the motivations that matter. None of this automatically results in success.
Having a craft, having a happy life, and doing things that you love, those are the motivations that matter.
There are many activities I have always been entirely determined to participate in. So I found ways! It may not have been my initial 'plan', but I can enjoy everything that I do.
The best motivation to do anything is for enjoyment.

Money, mastery, knowledge, improvement, influence: these are all motivators. These are all common motivators, and many are even noble motivators.

Chronic illness changed my perspective. Chronic illness changed the way my entire body functioned, so of course it was always going to change the way that I did, well, everything. It did not change my overall goals in life, it simply meant that I would have to get creative. It became apparent that if I were to continue with my original motivations, that it would drive my body into the ground.
I had to modify my goals. I modified my timeline. I modified the way that I went about achieving my new goals. I realized that the timeline was the most malleable in my situation, so it takes me longer to do everything. I maneuvered my way through life based on the timeline that my body gave me. I traveled early in case my eyes went blind earlier than expected. I took my time with my degree so that I could also work and find a way to keep health benefits. I switched my focus, analyzed my motivators, and quickly realized that happiness is the only real motivator that matters.

All of this, of course, took compromises. None of these compromises were easy. None of them.
There are times when I wonder how different things may have been if I had taken a different route. If I concentrated on one particular discipline or talent, maybe I would have become more conventionally successful. But chronic illness also taught me that having one plan only leaves no room for sudden changes. If I concentrated on ONE discipline, if my illnesses were to prevent me from continuing, what would I then have?
So I scattered my focus, purposefully, so that I still always have some kind of back-up plan.

My illnesses are unpredictable. My entire body is unpredictable. So I need to stay several steps ahead.

Chronic illness taught me that happiness, enjoyment, and HOPE are the most important motivators. These are what get you through the tough times. It also taught me that you can achieve your goals in any situation, as long as you can see past the conventional way of getting there.

Final Goal

In my latest 'Ask Me Anything' post, I had shared my most recent blog about deciding not to have children.
In that post it was clear that our family is complete and that our lives are full.
This question was then posed:

"What is your final goal in your life?"

This is a bit of a difficult question to answer.

Most importantly, I hope I have decades of life before I have only one, final goal.

It is not like I have this list of goals for my life that I am working towards. I have always had pages and pages-worth of small little goals in various areas of my life. You know, there are goals about the house, there are goals for places to see and things to do. I try to focus on the little to intermediate goals, because little progressions lead to bigger goals.

But if you want me to tell you about my BIG life goals, I will try to answer as best I can.

1. I want to always focus on the relationships that I have. Those are one of THE most vital parts of living a happy life (for me specifically). Family comes first. I want to be able to see my brother and his family more often, I want to be able to see my parents and my friends more often, and I plan to start writing old-school letters to friends I cannot see on a regular basis.

2. I would love to become a published author - to have a book deal. To have a book of some sort on the shelves of every major book retailer in Canada.

3. I would love to do something extraordinary with my singing. I know that there is only so much that I can physically do, so I have had to work on this in a very different way, but the goal is still there. I would love to release another cd at some point, perform background vocals for someone exceptional, and I want to sing on a stage again. Not just any stage, but a stage with a huge crowd. The anthem at CFL or NHL games. A background vocalist for a concert. Hell, the LEAD vocalist at a stadium with tens of thousands of fans. It may be far-fetched, but it continues to be a goal.

4. If I am ever able to travel, I would love to see the East Coast, to go to a Seahawks Game IN Seattle, I would LOVE to go back to Europe. I would love to go to Cedar Point and ride every single rollercoaster. I would love to go back to Disneyland, to spend a weekend in Jackpot, Nevada, to see the Galapagos Islands, to go on another cruise, to do a cross-country train trip in Canada, to learn how to surf in Hawaii, to have a romantic getaway in Tahiti, and to visit our ancestral castle in Scotland. These are more wishes than goals... but I am hoping that the East Coast and the Seahawks game are achievable in the future. I plan on experiencing some virtual reality activities to get a glimpse of some of these places and some activities I have always wanted to do but couldn't due to health reasons. (Like scuba diving, hang gliding, etc...)

5. I want to learn. I want to continually cultivate my curious mind and learn all the time.

6. I want to improve my art skills and continue improving them. I would love to be able to make a statement through art and literary works.

7. I am working on my cooking skills all the time. I would love to take little courses in the culinary arts - but if I cannot take classes then I am focusing on trying new recipes on a semi-regular basis. (I just learned how to make chicken roulade AND French macarons, which I need to continue working on). I also watch a lot of cooking shows and then try to make similar recipes.

8. I want to continue kayaking, camping, and practicing yoga. I want to go swimming more often (which is really difficult with a chlorine allergy and living where the lakes are too cold to swim in for 10 months of the year). My goal is to simply increase the amount of time I spend in these activities.

9. I want my husband to travel. This is a big goal. There are many places he has always wanted to travel, so I would really love for him to go even though I would not be able to join him.

10. I would love to be able to help out my family as much as they help me. My health is a burden. There is no getting around this fact. As stubborn as I am and as independent as I can be, suffering with health conditions is a burden on time, finances, goals, and oh so many aspects of life. I would love to be able to return the amount of time and energy my family has spent on me.

But my most important goal, the epitome of life, my purpose, my daily and lifelong goal:

I never want to take love for granted. I want to enjoy every moment, see the bright side of nearly every crummy situation, and remain grateful for everything in my life. Maintaining this grateful feeling and this love is the most important goal I will ever have.

I hope this answer has been satisfactory. :)
Thank you so much for participating in the 'ask me anything' posts. These questions have all been illuminating.
Bring on more questions - especially the difficult ones. The difficult questions offer the most amount of soul-searching.

Meant to Be

Do you ever feel like you were just MEANT to be so many varying things that there would never have been a lifetime long enough to be everything??

When I was young I was into everything.

Music
• piano lessons
• voice lessons
• theory lessons
• band (trombone)
• musical theatre

Athletics
• badminton
• volleyball
• basketball
• cross country
• track and field
         - long jump
         - triple jump
         - 100m
         - 200m
         - 400m
         - high jump
         - shotput
         - discus
         - javelin
         - hurdles
• softball
• kayaking
• sailing
• golf
• snowboarding
• gymnastics

Dance
• ballet
• hip hop
• breakdancing
• tap dancing

Writing
• non-fiction narrative
• poetry
• short stories
• essays
• research projects

I remember practicing and practicing and practicing everything. I went to regional competitons, provincial competitions, I was in summer camps, I won awards, I won hoardes of categories in Kiwanis festivals, I travelled with teams in international tournaments. I was IN it. All of it. I wanted to be a professional everything. I wanted to be the girl singing the national anthem for an international competition and then stepping out on the court. I wanted to be on stage performing opera and musical theatre and jazz and hard rock. I wanted to be in the Summer AND Winter Olympics - gymnastics and snowboarding and track and volleyball and rowing and ski jumping and ski aerials. I wanted to be an Olympian of everything. Not to beat everyone else - but because I wanted to master everything. I wanted to be an expert in every field imaginable - academics, literary arts, music, athletics, everything.

As I got older, I streamlined my focus, but still had a hundred different roads I wanted to take all at once.
I wanted to be a professional - a CEO of a specialized company, I wanted to be a famous dancer, a famous athlete, a famous singer/performer, I wrote music, I released two cds, I wanted two Masters degrees and a Ph.D., I wanted to research, to learn, to be a full-time career student, while playing concerts all over the world. I wanted the full-ride scholarship for a Masters degree because of my volleyball only to take sabbaticals to go on tour. I wanted to volunteer and be a Musical Therapist for the Children's Hospitals around the world and specifically work with terminal kids. I wanted to write and become published and be a famous writer. I wanted my music to get noticed and, at the very least, become a one-hit-wonder.

Now, my goals are growing smaller, but they are still too big for me to ever fulfill. I want to learn more languages and travel for a living. I want to provide background music and vocals, I want to go back to school, I still want to do a Masters degree and research. I want to be famous for my voice, for my art, for my writing, for my poetry, and for my strength. I want to be an inspiration and a source of motivation. I want to go to culinary school. I want to study history, learn how to draw. I want to get published. I want to write several books. I want to kayak every weekend, I want to build a library, I want to get my grade 7 & 8 Royal Conservatory for piano, I want to sing in an opera, I want to release another cd. I want to become an inspirational yogi who travels the world. I want to meet everyone and understand various languages. I want to build and library and host sophisticated literary book clubs and discuss existential crises with groups of people. I want to spend every week in the mountains writing and reading and kayaking and hiking. I want to go sailing and skiing and snowboarding.
I want to do everything.
I want to learn everything.
I want to improve upon everything I already love.

I love having goals.
The only issue is that my goals become bigger than anyone could really do in a lifetime. Sometimes I become overwhelmed with wanting to do and be so many different things... there are so many roads I would love to take. There are so many roads that were opened up to me. I could have done any one of those things at any point in time.... and I love what I have already done.
I may never fulfill all of those amazing goals, but I am proud of what I have accomplished, and I am grateful to live the life I lead, even if I had to wave goodbye to most of those grandiose paths.

None of the above would have ever fulfilled me more than experiencing love and support. Those are the two most important pieces in my life. It is amazing to me that I can look back at all of the avenues I wanted to take, and still be blissfully happy with where I am at - despite illness and pain and physical limitations.
Love.
Support.

Build your goals around those two concepts and you will never be truly disappointed in the life you have led.

Keep a Routine

I grew up knowing and believing that challenging oneself is the best way to promote growth. Challenge the physical, mental, and emotional boundaries of your existence and you will always feel productive.

Being without a job, facing limitations on food, on energy, on activity, and mildly with mobility, there is often a razor-thin line between challenging myself and pushing too far.
Before all of this extra illness, pushing too far usually meant a strained hamstring or sore muscles that prevented me from being able to climb a flight of stairs a couple of days later. Pushing too hard meant massive bruises from diving in volleyball, blisters on my palms from clutching a baseball bat, spraining an ankle, or cracking a rib... All injuries that would heal.
Now pushing too hard can mean a sudden unexpected trip to the emergency department, days of vomiting, days being stuck in bed. With so many chronic and autoimmune diseases, when I push myself, it needs to be in small doses and at a turtle's pace. Pushing too hard - going overboard - can even trigger a flare-up or essentially piss off my body so much that it winds up retaliating for months on end. Sometimes I won't recuperate for months, if at all.

So how do I push myself now? How do I keep a routine and keep strong?

Now I push myself by trying to have goals, but always listening to my body.
I have found that fresh air is something that I need every single day. So every single day I ensure that I spend at least a couple of minutes outside, even if it is just standing right outside the door waiting for Dex to finish his business.
I try and do a stretch or two once a day. On days when I have a little more energy, I do more.
Although I spend the overwhelming majority of the time at home and in the bedroom, I try and wear something different each day. I have several pieces of clothing that are specific for spending entire days at home and I usually cycle between those particular outfits, but I try not to wear the exact same pair of pajamas every day. If I spend too many afternoons in the same set of PJs, I immediately find that my mood is negatively affected.
Getting up, making the bed, and changing into an entirely different outfit helps uplift the atmosphere.

I want to push myself further. I want to try walking outside more. Weight-bearing exercises (simply bearing my own weight) are supposed to be the optimal activities for Ankylosing Spondylitis. So even though my instinct is to rest and lie down when I am in this much pain, I need to remind myself that I am supposed to walk and stretch as much as I can without flaring up my other illnesses.

So there is my first goal:
• Walk more. Stretch more. Keep getting fresh air.

I want to push myself further by actually getting dressed each day. Instead of cycling between some 8-odd outfits I wear to bed, I want to take a small step further by actually getting into an outfit for the day, regardless of the fact that I will be spending most of those days in bed anyways. I miss getting up each day, picking out an outfit, and following through on a beauty routine.

That's my second goal:
• Get myself in an outfit that is put together every day.

This next one is a goal I have already been working on lately with quite a bit of success. I want to make sure that I am writing something almost every day. Aside from days with mind-bending migraines, I expect myself to write a blog, or write in my journal, or work on learning or writing a new song, or a card, a letter, or quotes from the latest novel I am reading. Taking it even another step further would be to make sure that I have a reliable online presence.

Third goal:
• Write something each and every day.

Fourth goal:
• Maintain a persistent online presence.

Another goal I have been working has to do with cleaning my life up. Nothing drastic of course, but I am trying to minimize some of the chaos. I have purged my closet three times in the last four months. I continue to find clothing and material items that I no longer find joy with. I am working on letting go of items that I no longer need or use, updating certain parts of my style that are outdated, and slowly reducing the amount of stuff that sits there, unused, for no reason. Even today I finally decided to pack away several dresses that I have had since I was 11 years old. These items are 20 years old already! They are in great shape and they still fit me nearly perfectly, but I need to let go of some of these items. While I am working on this particular project, I may even try that hanger trick -> where once I have worn an article of clothing, I turn the hanger around. After a year's time, if a hanger hasn't been turned around, that article of clothing gets donated or chucked. This plan would also motivate me to follow through with my other goal of wearing an actual ensemble each day.

Fifth goal:
• Rid myself of excess stuff that I do not use.

I want to push myself physically and emotionally. I want to push my boundaries for walking distance, I want to make meditation a more regular activity, and I want to be out in nature more often. I want to take a drive out to the mountains even just to sit there for half an hour. I want to revel in the beauty of nature and appreciate my surroundings more. I want to see the stars and hear the birds and the rustling of trees in the middle of the week. I want to curl up in a sleeping bag in the back of a truck, listening to the sounds of the forest and enjoying a hot apple cider. I want to quiet my mind more often.

Goal six:
• Regular meditation and get back to nature.

Another major goal is that I want to get back to a routine of being more frugal - or putting my money towards more meaningful endeavors. Instead of buying that super cute dress I saw online, why not buy an extra board game instead? Instead of getting an appetizer before dinner, save that up for something functional for the house. Instead of giving in to my love for heels, remembering that I cannot even WEAR heels on a regular basis anymore and spend it, rather, on an evening out with RJ - going to a movie or maybe eventually going bowling or just to experience something together instead.

Goal seven:
• Make smarter decisions in regards to monetary expenses.

The next one is all about friendships. Taking the time to nourish friendships and to connect while being unplugged. Rely less on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat for the latest news and updates about friends, and rely more on direct conversation. Genuine conversation.

Goal eight:
• Unplugged connections and cultivating true friendships.

The next major goal that I would like to accomplish, something that will help to better myself and to keep things in perspective, is to help others more and to be less selfish. There are small changes that I can make each day to be less indulgent and self-serving, so why not try and make those changes?

Goal nine:
• Help others more often and worry about myself a little less. Try and treat people better every day in some small way.

Number ten - very straightforward and predictable for me - is to make sure that I am continuing to be involved in music and maintain some level of athleticism even though I am stuck at home most days. I can listen to music if I can't play. I can watch sports if I can't step out onto the court. I can stretch on my yoga mat while I watch a game of volleyball. I can do squats in the living room with headphones in listening to the newest request. Do what I love - every single day.

Goal ten:
Do what I love every day.

Essentially I want to get out of my own head more and focus on everything around me, while continuing to work on my own health, my own trajectory of progress, and take in more experiences. I want to expand my knowledge, learn new talents, improve myself in every aspect that I can think of.

Do you know what the best part is?? None of these goals are so futuristic that I can easily forget them. They can be achieved here and now - and none of them should affect my health in any negative way. None of these goals or decisions are dependent upon me feeling better, getting better, or gaining more energy. I don't need to rely on the latest breakthrough medication or that hopeful procedure that could improve my pain levels in order to accomplish any one of these goals.