The summer is over. Alaska is in my past and my leg is almost 100%. I have an updated board of goals full of great ideas but I struggle to find the motivation to carry them out. I am at a motivational roadblock. I do not want to force my way through goals if the passion is not there and I do not want to go down the wrong path.

You know the term practice what you preach, right? That is exactly what I need to do. I tell people all the time to take the situations and events in their lives one at a time to lower the stress level and be more successful in the end. I have slowed down my efforts but I have a list of achievable goals that make my life look amazing.

Teaching myself public speaking, research bullying, start writing and practicing speeches, build a successful TED Talks speech, and volunteer at children’s hospitals. These are only some of the big goals I have laid out for myself and I still have a job to keep up too.

Para professionalism is still new to me. I learned so much last school year but this year there is even more. With my academic level of students with autism, outside of teaching them basic skills, we still have to handle behavior issues, bathroom issues, and now this school year I get to go swimming with one of my students too!

With everything going on in life right now, I struggle to find my forward directional motivation. I love my job so much, but everything outside of it I cannot seem to give 100%. I have given myself an ambitious list of expectations and I need to take them one at a time. I want to jump right in and give 100% to motivating children, but there are so many things that need to happen first. I have started my search for volunteering at children’s hospitals; I believe this a valuable adventure for the children and me. Also found a course book for public speaking and I will start a routine of working through it every Sunday!

Overall, I have great list of goals and challenges that lay ahead but I need to practice what I tell my followers and take them one thing at a time. This speaks for my career; there are still more adventurous ideas that lie within my reach. I would have never thought being full of great ideas, being open to new things, being part of great adventures and having such a positive outlook towards it all would actually have so many challenges at the front lines. However to alleviate all the lack of motivation and challenges all I have to do is accomplish my goals one at a time. From experience, this works every time. This is why it is so valuable to write things down so you can organize what is more important or what needs to come first. There is no problem having a goal list that is very ambitious, especially when you give yourself the right opportunities to make it happen.

I have had this plaque sense I was a teenager. I bought it in New Mexico on a backpacking trip. Back in those times I was not always very positive but I did pride myself on never giving up on things no matter how hard they get. This is a big reminder for me when things get hard. One time things in my life got so incredibly hard I took a hammer to this thing. I wanted to break it but you can see how strong it is. You can see were the hammer hits it but never broke. I would say that day life was on my side. Without this sign I would probably not be here today. DON’T EVER QUIT!