You see with chronic illness we have a life of inches, I think. A slower paced life. It takes a lot more effort to achieve any goal. It takes more energy to achieve any goal. So we should be proud of our inches. Here is the thing though. We want to live this life of moderation. We want to do things to help our health. Have a social life. Yet with chronic pain and illness comes this decrease in motivation. Part of that is pure pain. High pain motivated someone to not move much during it.
Lately I have been having troubles with motivation. Which is something that can be a common issue for the chronically ill. We all have obligations in
this life. We all have particular health goals we want to achieve as
well. But some of us have pain. Some of deal with fatigue. Sometimes it
is more one that the other and sometimes it is both. Not to mention
other symptoms, but pain and fatigue compromise our motivation to
accomplish tasks. Both sap our energy and give us only a finite amount
of energy to play with.
In fact according to a previous study I have already written about "So that sensation that you have no motivation to get through the day, to
attain the goals you need to or even attain the goals that are
seriously meaningful to you could have little to do with the pain aspect
of the chronic pain... but is part of the persistence of the chronic
pain itself. We no longer have the sense of their being a reward for our
behavior. We no longer have a sense of pleasure from our
accomplishments. It has been dulled." (Motivation? What motivation.)
So there is study. Either way we have these motivational issues.
It seems to take immense motivation to
achieve Any goal, let alone consistently maintain an activity we choose.
Day in and day out.
I know there are factors we
can do to improve the situation. Get some good sleep. (I vehemently wish this to be possible) Exercise, since that
helps with fatigue, both mentally and physically. I have been told this
over and over but I have actually not yet experienced this elusive
effect. I have experienced some metal clarity from some mild exercise,
but as soon as I got to moderate exercise that disappears and physical
fatigue, well, that remains the same.
The fact remains we can struggle with
maintaining routines and this is fine. It is all right to have days when
it is not possible to achieve our goals. We should never feel guilty
for this fact. We just have to continue on the next day. That is exactly
how I see exercise. I cannot maintain a routine. It is impossible, but I
do get in the weekly requirement. Simply by doing it on the days that I
can. There are days when I can only do a little. Days when I can do
more. And days when I cannot do anything at all.
Another thing we should always remember
is we will not improve at anything by leaps and bounds. Rather we must
take our time to establish new routines. If we want to make any change
at all to our lifestyle for any reason we should adjust it carefully,
slowly and understand it takes about three months for any change to
become habit. I like the rule of 1% for the chronically ill. Never go I
need to improve 100% at anything. No, rather say, I need to improve 1%. I
need to choose one thing and adjust it slowly. In this we can achieve
our goals without hitting too much pain, too much fatigue and inevitable
failure. I am going to use exercise as an example again because it is
an easy one. When I began exercising using aerobic exercise I first
established my limit. That fatigue and pain barrier. Not too far, but
just hitting it. And that was ten minutes. From there it was just a
matter of my little bit of improvement a week. So from ten minutes to
eleven minutes. Slowly by inches working my way up. I had no set goal.
The goal was improving on the previous time. If one day I was back down
to ten, so be it. The next day was a new day. We can do 1% improvements
on any sort of goal we want to choose for our health or well-being.
It is also important that we do not
choose several goals at one time. It can be very difficult to achieve
just One thing more onto the rest of what we have to deal with. Lets be
honest about that. So do that One thing. When you have consistently
achieved that goal then you can consider adding to it. Too many things
and we will get frustrated, flustered and eventually just want to give
up on all this changes. Studies have shown humans are not designed to be multi-taskers. And I think those of us with chronic illness should think of this more. We have focus issues to consider and fatigue concerns. Focus one thing at a time. Take on less not more.
Now that is for goals. But I have issues
with motivation to get up on time. To do anything at all. So on bad days
I have a rule with myself. I achieve one productive piece of housework.
I write one piece of work on the computer or pages of work. And I cook
supper. As long as I do those three things a day I consider it a
success.
Keeping up motivation for all the other
things I need to do? I write lists. So I don’t forget them to be honest.
Then I knock off one thing at a time and feel like I am getting
somewhere every time I do, even know the darn thing keeps growing on me.
Still there are days when the pain and
fatigue win. And there will be days like that. We have to accept that
and not feel guilty about it. We need our rest when we are like that.
Still other days where the depression wins, because there is no motivation on these days.
Still other days where the depression wins, because there is no motivation on these days.
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