Insight into Motivation #1: Hard work is easy if you are enjoying yourself

During my "lazy period", I thought that hard work would kill me. Honestly. I thought that limiting free time to a few hours per day (rather than having free time be almost the whole day) would be painful, a constant uphill race to nowhere. After all, the rare times when I forced myself to do work were torture.

Which is a lovely example of how you get what you expect. William James once said that "my experience is what I agree to attend to". When I sat down to work and set the timer, I was anticipating a painful experience of having to constantly readjust my focus, forcing my bingo brain to pay attention. 

I thought that I wasn't capable of doing more than 2-3 hours of work outside of class per day, so that was my reality for seven years. 

But the limit only existed in my head.

I tested the limit a week ago, inspired by a friend who studies all day, everyday. I thought that if he could do it, then maybe I could try. 

I found that when I opened up my mind to the possibility that I was indeed capable of studying an entire day, it wasn't so bad. There is a concept in physics that there is more friction involved in starting to move an object than in continuing to drag an already moving one. After some time of sitting at your desk looking over your notes, you will begin to face fewer distractions and experience less tension and resistance. Maybe not every time, but most times.

And you might discover that what you are doing is actually fun, maybe even more fun than browsing FaceBook. I fell in love with biology back in high school for a reason, and rediscovering that passion is exhilarating. The challenge of understanding, on a deep level, how the human body functions is very compelling. It's much easier to study for seven hours on a Sunday, when your exam isn't for another week, when learning the material is a reward in itself. 

The inverse of this is also true: if you absolutely dread doing something, you will do less of it less efficiently. 

If you want to motivate yourself, an effective method is to figure out why your assigned task brings you pain, and then rectify it. 

For me, the resistance came from both the belief that all work would be dreadful, and the nasty feelings of guilt that I associated with my failure to work hard (which inevitably came up whenever I attempted to get something done).

Discovering that the work wasn't so bad, along with realizing that I could forgive myself for my previous shortcomings, has helped my productivity immensely.

I also decreased the dose of my risperidone (with the approval and assistance of my doctor). This drug blocks the dopaminergic D2 receptor. Dopamine is involved in reward and pleasure, so you can imagine how dampening it can lead to motivational problems. You should never change your meds on your own, but if you take antipsychotics and you feel unmotivated, it might be worth talking to your doctor about decreasing the dose or finding another treatment option.

If you really want to be productive, you need to make life fun. I don't just mean rewarding yourself with chocolate after a day of hard work, or listening to music while you study to make it more fun. Those things can help, but what you really need to do is to live a high-dopamine lifestyle. Make your life as thrilling and pleasurable as you can. Exercise, get your blood pumping. Drink that extra cup of coffee. Eat that piece of cheesecake, unless you get a bigger jolt out of exercising self control, in which case don't eat the cheesecake. And play. Learn new things, sing in the car, call that friend you haven't spoken to in years. Live to the point where your soul catches fire and your mind can no longer keep up its deception that the world we live in is anything less than miraculous.

If you do this, you will probably find some fun in whatever it is that you need to do. If all that doesn't work, then you should consider delegating the work or choosing a different career path.

You can't cry your way to greatness, and you can't apathy your way there either. 

You are not your imperfections

I am currently going through a personal renaissance. It's wonderful, and honestly, it is all that I have wanted for a very long time. It is the answer to a lot of prayers, the true dawn signifying the end of a long night (though the sun has been rising for quite a long time, the sunrise is clear and brilliant now). I have energy. I am getting things done, after 7 years-7years!-of laziness that I desperately tried to escape from. It is like I just found the cage unlocked and ran right out.

I feel smarter, maybe because I have confidence in my own reasoning again. I feel in control of my destiny (to the extent that any human can control their destiny) and I truly feel that given enough time and work, I can accomplish just about anything. And I've been having a lot, a lot, a lot of revelations concerning riddles that have baffled me, traps that have ensnared me, and heavy weights that have kept me from flying.

I plan to share some of them with you over the course of the next week.

The first one is one that I had last night.

You are not your mistakes, failures, insecurities, imperfections, and transgressions.

You are going through a life journey, and the goal is to learn how to do better. How to be smarter, kinder, more present, more alive and awake, more human. Along the way, you will inevitably run across intermediate states that are less than ideal. Maybe you had a phase where you didn't work hard enough, or betrayed your best friend, or committed a crime, or forgot to brush your hair for two weeks.

And it is okay. These shortcomings are temporary-if you agree to change them-and they do not define you.

We all know someone who never apologizes when they have done something hurtful. I suspect that this is because their ego is threatened by admitting that they made a mistake. But doing something mean does not make you a mean person, even if you have been nasty for decades. You can always choose a kinder path.

It is a famous paradox: how to accept oneself as you are, while still working to improve yourself. I think it can be resolved by remembering that you are something so much more enduring and worthy than the temporary state you may be in in this moment. Love yourself for your positive traits, and seek to reform your negative traits, because they only determine who you are if you refuse to change them.

So many times, my focus on my work has been compromised because I felt a deep sense of guilt and shame for not working earlier, more, and harder. Ironically, the guilt led to me working later, less, and with a weaker intensity! In high school, I was a hard worker. I gave 100% of myself in everything I did. My senior year, I had a depression that killed my work ethic, and from then until just a few days ago, I had been operating at 10-20% of my true capacity.  I acted lazy, but now I am hardworking again. I realize now what I didn't know then: I was acting lazy, but I am not a lazy person. I could change, and now I have changed. But the guilt from the belief that I was a lazy person made attempting to do any work 1,000x harder than it needed to be.

Your shortcomings only dictate who you are if you let them.

In the next post, I will discuss how to cultivate motivation so that you can make these shortcomings a part of your past.

Don't Settle for a Life That is Less than What You Are Capable of Living

As I prepare to go to medical school in less than 2 weeks, I am reflecting on the reasons why I have chosen this long, at times arduous, at times beautiful, path towards a life destination that will always be worth the climb. 

I don't want to just pass through medical school, get an MD, and be an okay doctor. 

I want to revolutionize the field of psychiatry. 

God knows we need a revolution. During my time at the care center, I saw so many clients stuck in the same cycle of repeated hospital admissions, step down care with us, getting released back into the community only to end up acutely ill and back in the hospital weeks or months later. I know of many more people (including myself for a long stretch of time) who may avoid the hospital, may even avoid serious symptoms most of the time, but don't really ever reach their premorbid level of functioning again, let alone become the best possible versions of themselves that they could be. 

Neurodivergents everywhere are settling for lives that are less than what they are capable of living, and-quite sadly, quite wrongly-mental health professionals are encouraging this. 

Patients with severe mental illness are often encouraged to apply for disability benefits because they are too sick to work. Rather than being a temporary measure to keep them afloat until a way is found to get past the period of decreased functioning, many of these patients are on disability permanently. I don't mean to downplay the severity of serious mental illness, and I know that there are many, many people who cannot work because of how sick they are. The problem with people going on permanent disability is not that they don't need it, but that they are assumed to always need it. It is like their doctors and loved ones are giving up on them-"you're too ill to work, to have a normal life, and you always will be". How could anyone not have their sense of self-efficacy decreased (if not altogether abolished) when that is their care providers' attitude?  Believe me, an episode of mental illness already takes away all sense of self-efficacy. The last thing that patients need is to be told that they cannot. 

Not being able to pursue your career goals is not living!

And then there are the neurodivergents like me who are "high functioning". Let me tell you what "high functioning" means to mental health providers: it is a term used to describe patients who are "getting by". They probably can work or go to school, they get out of bed in the morning, they shower and are able to take care of their nutritional needs. They get by. Most of them are not thriving, or even living. They are surviving, doing the bare minimum to function in society. 

High functioning bipolar for me meant eating almost all my meals alone my first two years of college because I was too anxious/depressed to form meaningful friendships. It meant that throughout college I could not study for longer than 40 minutes at a time without losing all focus and motivation, and that as soon as I absorbed some knowledge I forgot it three seconds later because my shriveled hippocampus (hippocampal size decreases during depression) could not hold on to the information. As a result, I got 4 "Cs" in college, killing my chances of going to a US medical school and what was left of my self-esteem along with it. High functioning bipolar meant for me that when I was in my masters program last year I was so flooded with anxiety that driving to class and sitting through lecture like a vegetable was all that I could do. My scores on exams in grad school were often more than a standard deviation below the class average, despite that my MCAT score was above the class average. 

That is not living!

This is what it means to live: to get out of bed every morning exciting to greet the sun. To eat a delicious and nutritious breakfast while engaging in some mindful practice before heading off to your challenging, meaningful, job that both sets your heart on fire and is well compensated. To be able to work without staring at the clock every 30 seconds to see how much closer you are to going home. To walk or drive home from work without fear that something terrible will happen to you. To go home and have a spouse to kiss if you want one. To fall asleep in your loving spouse's arms, basking in the warmth of peace and gratitude. And more than anything, to live means to know that you have control, that you can keep improving your life, that you are special and important (and everyone is special and important) and that you have a life's mission to carry out. 

I will not be satisfied with my life until I get there, but I will keep striving, keep trying, keep improving myself intellectually, physically, and emotionally. 

And I will help my future patients get there too. Depression, anxiety, psychosis, and even the general trials of life can be overcome. True living is possible. I've experienced being fully alive before, during periods of hypomania. It is possible and obtainable. 

I will help people reach their potential and live meaningful lives during their recovery from mental illness. I can't wait to be that kind of psychiatrist!

Self-Discovery Challenge: Summary of Day 1

I just completed the first day of my thirty day commitment to exploring my identity and growing my self-confidence.

It was a great day. I got coffee with a friend whom I haven't seen in over a year. She is transforming her life, starting a new job in Washington DC. I am proud of her, and so incredibly inspired. After talking with her, I felt like I could create a better life for myself. I felt like I too could bring exciting changes into my existence, and have new things to look forward to.

My positive affirmation for the day was "I am superior to negative thoughts and low actions".  I repeated it to myself throughout the day, including several times in front of a mirror (which just seems like the thing to do, you know? But I felt incredibly silly doing it, nonetheless. Never mind the fact that I talk to myself all the time already anyway). I did have a few pessimistic thoughts today, and when they jumped into my head, I pushed them out with that mantra.

I also journaled on the following question:

Are you a better person today than you were last year at this same time? Or 10 years ago?

Excerpts from my journaling? 

"In a moral sense, I am a better person than I was a year ago. I am less deceptive, less jealous of others...."

"I am emotionally healthier than I was a year ago in that I am less anxious, overall less depressed..."

"I about as insecure and indecisive as I was a year ago, but I am now aware of it!"

"I am more of an adult now than I was a year ago. I make my own money, and I have genuine expenses now,  like high rent, student loans, and a health insurance premium." 

"I prayed in September of 2014 for God to draw me out of this desert of distraction and indecision. I expected it to be an instant transformation, and it wasn't. But I am making progress, and though the road before me is long, I can look back and appreciate how far I've come." 

I actually had no idea how much I better I am doing now then I was a year ago until I answered that question. 

I am so happy and grateful. 

A Journey of Self-Discovery

I'm starting to realize why I am not anywhere near where I want to be in my life. Why I am dissatisfied, unhappy, failing in many areas...it's not because I am simply a worthless person. It is because I believe, on a very deep level, that I am a worthless person.

My boss has told me that I am not confident enough. He told me that that is the reason why he is thinking of letting me go (by the way, I still am employed as of today :-) )

I have a crush on someone amazing, and it feels incredible because I haven't really developed strong feelings for anyone in years. But I mean nothing to them, and for a month, I've been trying to understand why. I think I've figured it out. It's my lack of confidence. They don't want to be with someone they have to take care of and constantly reassure. They want what everyone wants-to be with someone who is strong, capable, and independent.

Well, it turns out that I am strong and capable. I just don't know it. But I have to have been strong to have gotten through everything that I've been through with my illness and persevered.

An issue related to my insecurity is my indecision. I am constantly changing my mind about my career path. Granted, it is almost always between the same three options (psychiatry, psychology, and writing). But still, I have been paralyzed since I left college by this indecision. I have spent an awful lot of money pursuing paths that I later decided were not for me, including $55,000.00 on a masters degree that was supposed to prepare me for med school.

I think that if I figured out who I am and grew to like that person, I would be able to choose a career path once and for all. I might even get to a point where I am satisfied with literally any career path.

So, here is my plan. For one month, from today, Dec. 17th, 2015, until January 17th, 2016, I am going to suspend my constant attempts to discover what I want to do with my life long term. Instead, I am going to spend a month discovering myself and growing my self-esteem.

Here is the plan I wrote for myself:

-figure out who I am. 

   >journal about questions of identity

   >exercise and meditate upon my identity

   

-grow more confident

 > one positive affirmation/day

>list three things I like about myself/day

-Spiritual growth:

   >pray when I wake up, when I go to bed, and when I arrive at work, as well as on a PRN basis

   >meditate

I will update the blog everyday with updates on my journey and the things I've discovered/learned. 

Thanks for listening, dear phoenixes. Thanks for being on my side.

<3 Minerva

Who can save us?

I've been really overwhelmed and depressed lately over some stuff that's been going on in my life, and it has got me focused on all the evil in the world.

Mass shootings. People who abuse their loved ones. People being fired and laid off, and unable to afford their bills. Cancer. Mood disorders.

There is so much wrong with the world, that it is sometimes hard to see any good in it at all.

Chances are, you are going through something in your life right now. You may feel as discouraged and downtrodden as I do. So I'll share my thoughts on how I am getting through it.

God is really helping me. I don't want to offend anyone or push my religion on anyone, but this is my truth. I know that God is real, because I have observed Him. He comforts me, sustains me, supports me. And in this time of uncertainty, the only thing that is getting me through is the knowledge that He will continue to take care of me.

I can't pretend to know who exactly God is. I believe that He is beyond human comprehension. I do believe that He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and most importantly, all-loving. Some people have a conception of a really judgmental, angry God. That is not how I see Him.

I know that some of you have been told that God hates you-because you are LGBT, or have had premarital sex, or have a different religion than the person judging you, or what-have-you-and this breaks my heart. I believe that it also breaks God's heart. He loves you, no matter who you are or what you have done. He knew you millennia before you were born, what life issues you would struggle with, what interests and preferences you would have, what good and wonderful things you would do, in addition to how you would unfortunately contribute to the evil in the world, as all humans sadly do.

You matter to Him. You may feel insignificant and abandoned by everyone in your life, but you-yes, you!-matter to the King of the universe.

Again, I don't want to push my beliefs on anyone, and you can take or leave as much from this as you'd like. But I just want you to know that there is a reason for every hurt you are going through, and that one day, there will be no more tears.

Dear God, I pray for all the people who are in pain (which is to say, the entire world). I pray that You would gather them in your arms and let them know Your comfort. I pray especially for those who have been told that they are not fit for a relationship with You, that You would prove to them, in Your infinite love, how very wrong that is! Finally, I pray that you would help us to keep up hope. Keep us going. And protect us until that day when everything will be alright. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Why do you do that??

Act your age. Don't be so serious. Work harder. Why don't you ever take time for yourself? Lose weight. Learn to love your body. Be nicer. Stop being such a pushover.

Be yourself, but do it only with our approval.


No matter what you do or how you present yourself, you are going to have more critics than admirers.

And if you are like me, you are your "own worst critic" (and now I'm judging myself for using such a glaring cliché, ugghhh).

The truth is that no one is perfect (another cliché-why, Sara, why?!), including you. Finding balance between maturity and humor,  work and play, conformity and open-mindedness, self-sacrifice and healthy narcissism, is impossible.

We all know that we should stop judging ourselves and others, but this knowledge doesn't dwindle our judgment. It just makes us judge ourselves and others for being judgmental. 


One thing that might help you learn to be more accepting of people's faults (including your own) is to realize that there are always reasons for behaviors, habits, and thought patterns.

An intriguing thing that I realized today is that the reason for both our sins and our good deeds is the same: with both vice and virtue, we are seeking positive emotion and fleeing negative emotion. I overeat for the same reason why I write novels-because it feels good. And I avoid pushing myself into new situations (where I might, heaven forbid!, learn something) for the same reason why I avoid keeping a hungry lion for a pet-because it's scary.

We cannot help it; it is natural to chase after pleasure and run away from pain. We can, however, learn discipline, the art of paying for later pleasure with current pain. But it must be acknowledged that discipline is easier for some people to master than others (because the act of exercising discipline is inherently pleasurable for some people, but not for others!).

If you are trying to learn self-acceptance like me, perhaps this is something to remember. Rather than judging ourselves for our shortcomings, we should acknowledge where they came from and gently work towards remedying them.