What Motivates You?

Recently, I've been a little bit consumed with the notion of love languages. Gary Chapman proposed the idea in his book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. While I haven't read the book, the concept seems pretty clear cut: not everyone feels loved the same way. This may explain why once, when Richard and I were dating and he was making squat working at a Christian summer camp, I got angry with him when he spent almost an entire pay check buying me 2 dozen roses! Gifts is not my love language. I found this little survey online that helps you determine your love language: click here. Before I took it I was convinced that my love language was Acts of Service, but on this quiz I got Quality Time. My guess is I'm bi-lingual in language of love because I love, love, love it when Richard helps me around the house, or gives the girls a bath, or gives me a massage, or even brushes my hair. Those last two could also count as quality time and physical touch, so that explains why I really love them!

I've been really unmotivated recently. I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping well due to a bunch of crazy dreams that wake me up. I told Richard that I feel like I'm watching movies all. night. long. Yesterday, I also laid off the caffeine because I'm pretty sure it contributes to the dreams. (I could write a series of posts on how severely caffeine effects me)! Furthermore, life is in a high gear phase for us. Richard's band, Affix, has been going full-force. He's also working full-time and a full-time student online. So while I support all that he is doing, you can rightly assume that he doesn't really have time to make me feel loved in the ways that really work for me!

Needless to say, my nifty schedule that I made has not been going according to plan. The problem with being a stay-at-home-mom is there aren't a whole lot of serious consequences for slacking, but there also aren't a whole lot of rewards for excelling either. Why clean when for one, it will be dirty again the next day, and two, I don't have the energy to get it all clean? My guess is some women love a clean house enough that it is motivation alone. And it might be motivation for me as well, if I could get it all done in one day, and it would stay that way for more than a few hours! I homeschool the girls, but right now, they are only in pre-school, and either advanced or on target for their ages. Sure, teaching Evelyn to read is important, but it's not going to hurt her to miss a day here and there. The one thing I have been managing to stay on top of is laundry, but it's draining to do it day-in and day-out. I don't want to make it seem like I'm complaining, I'm just pointing out that I NEED something to motivate me! Where's the beef?

So yesterday, the girls went back to visit my mom, and I had the afternoon free. I really wanted to spend a lot of time cleaning, but I was sooooo tired. So I hashed through some ideas for rewarding myself: I ruled out a bubble bath with a good book because our tub really isn't that comfortable and the water only covers half of me, and I also decided not to use food since I've been lacking major self-control on this issue anyway, and don't need any extra calories. I also don't have any hobbies I love well enough to use as a reward either (not this time of year anyway). Then I had a brilliant idea! I asked Richard if he would give me a 20-minute massage as my reward for cleaning for two hours! He loved the idea. Not really, but he went for it with the addition of going out to dinner and making it a date.

Cleaning was still drudgery. It literally took me 3 and 1/2 hours to do 2 hours of cleaning. I finished just minutes before Richard got home from work. But it worked! And consequently, I enjoyed my house a lot more today.

So, what motivates you?