A Series of Motivational Speeches: Part 1
Presented On: 09/09/2020
Evaluation and Feedback 1
How many of you have ever felt basic? Basic as if you have no energy, no motivation and no drive to do anything but at the same time you feel satisfied with the work you have done, content with how the day went and glad that it’s over. And if anyone asks you how you are doing or how are you feeling your answer is just “I’m okay”, or “I’m just tired”. That my friends is how I felt last week, and for the most part of August.
I have one goal in this post, and that is to try and get at least one of you motivated and fired up enough, so that you don’t feel basic.
Now you are all probably wondering, “Kish, here you are, trying to motivate us, but you just felt the same way last week. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?” Yes, yes it is. I am a hypocrite, and I rarely practice what I preach, but you know what they say ... “Coaches they never play!”
But I digress, what makes us feel this way? What causes us to feel so lost and down? You have survived 100% of your worst days. You have made it through every challenge that was in front of you and yet you feel this way. Why? I mean you know you want to do something, so why don’t you do it? Are you really tired? Or are you just making excuses so that you don’t feel guilty about not doing that one little thing?
Now I am not discounting the fact that everybody has their own agenda. We all work our 8 hour days, some of us have training for another 3 hours, half the day is gone without even having a chance to go to the bathroom. None of us wanted this pandemic, and it was forced upon us, and now it brings up the question of are we working from home or living where we work?
I know that we are not in the position to dictate our hours and say we’re done for the day, or that we
just want to stop working. But at the same time, we are all too concerned about what every Tom, Dick and
Harry think about us, instead of what we think of ourselves. I think it’s best said by Rocky Balboa to
his son,
“You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you, you’re no good, and when things got hard,
you started looking for something to blame. Like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already
know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care
how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You,
me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard
you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how
winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya
gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be
because of him, or her, or
anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you!”
If you get knocked down 7 times, you get back up 8. Until that last breath leaves your lungs, you keep getting up and fighting! You have been given such an amazing gift, and how do you choose to use it, by worrying about what some random person thinks about you instead of worrying about what you think about yourself.
It took me years to reach this level of self confidence that if someone doesn’t like me or does not like something about me, that is not my problem. That is THEIR problem. Why should I change who I am for someone who does not matter to me? I am happy being who I am, doing what I am doing and living my life to the best that I can, so why should I stop for one person who thinks otherwise? Why should I let that one person make me feel basic?
But it’s not just other people who can make you feel that, I know first hand, that you can make yourself feel basic. And it can be the small little thing that you could not do that just makes you feel absolutely dejected. I’ll give you an example, when lockdown started and I was adjusting to working from home, it took me about an entire month to get into a good routine. I was working, studying, gymming, reading and gaming everyday. I felt that I was adulting like a champion. And then a spanner got thrown into the works. I couldn’t read or study every night. My time was being taken up by COI’s and mandatory training and everything was just piling on. And I couldn’t read my books or gym, and it made me feel absolutely basic. From adulting like a pro, to feeling like I am barely holding my life together.
But why was I feeling like this? I can’t help that I have other commitments to attend to, and if I cannot read or gym, then it is not a train smash, I just need to re-order my time and priorities. Simple right? But still I felt as if I could do it all and when I couldn’t because of things I could not change I felt basic. I was looking for something to blame when I shouldn’t have. I should have just accepted it, and tried to do something that I could, with the time that I had.
Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is, we can do more damage to ourselves than anybody else. You are your own worst enemy, and sometimes you are standing in your own way. Now when all of this is done, look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you can do it. Whatever you want to achieve you can do it! Because let’s be honest, I know that you can do it, you know that you can do it, and everybody else knows that you can do it. So let me ask you this my friends, "If everybody knows that you can do it, including yourself, then what the hell are you waiting for?"