I've always considered myself a motivated person.

I've long had high aspirations and goals.

I've long been a big dreamer.

I thought I was doing everything right in terms of determination and motivation. I woke everyday ready to aim big, ready to work, ready to take another step on my journey towards my goals...

I was so focused on my goals, that it took a long time to question where my motivation came from.

What motivated me?

Those three simple words never crossed my mind. I had no reason to doubt my motivation. For a long time I was seeing the milestones that I sought. It's only on days that I grew tired or impatient, that I let myself wonder where my motivation went and how I could bring it back.

I think that I never bothered to ask myself where my motivation stemmed because I didn't think it mattered. Surely as long as I was motivated my reasons didn't matter.... That was wrong.

When you're motivated for the wrong reasons, it's easy to lose it. It's easy to grow impatient and frustrated. It's easy to feel hopeless and belittle yourself.

There is a wrong kind of motivation and that stems from peer competition.

Realizing that most of my daily goals stemmed from impatience and self-imposed competition with my peers, was such a big game changer. It helped me re-evaluate my real intentions and goals. Because realizing that I was motivated for the wrong reasons also led to the identification of my real desires, rather than the desires I thought I ought to hold.

I was satisfied with a grade until a peer voiced a higher grade. Suddenly I wanted to do better for the next test or assignment. While I fooled myself into thinking that I sought these better grades for my own improvement, I see now that it was really a goal to be better than my classmates... I placed so much pressure on myself and came to resent school.I chose a career path that I wasn't passionate about, to ensure that I was on the higher end of financial stability. I told myself that considering my personality traits it only made sense to go into health care... I'm now confused on how to move forward in my career.I lost interest in a sports league because I found myself only having fun when I was winning or performing well.

I'm going to use exercise as an example of strategies that I used to transform my view of my goals. To explain the way that I transformed my goals to self-improvement instead of the attainment of social standings.

For the first time in years, I've been exercising consistently. In the past I found motivation to start working out through envy. I saw what society defined as a perfect body, and found the will to go walk into my basement and follow unrealistic YouTube videos. But just as soon as I started, I stopped because I got discouraged. I wasn't seeing the abs and shape portrayed by the clickbait images. I was impatient for results.

When my brother bought a punching bag, I started using it for fun. I threw on boxing videos and laughed at myself the first few times. I found myself genuinely enjoying it. Because I was thriving to improve my performance without the haunting expectations of meeting someone else's ability.

Now that I've found a mean of exercising that I enjoy, I look forward to my morning workouts. And when I'm done, I feel good. I feel good not because I'm one step closer to abs or a small waist. I feel good because I'm taking care of my body. I'm enjoying the process because I've stopped focusing on the end goal. Of course, I look forward to seeing the changes in my body. But, I'm also loving the way that exercise now feels like a form of self-love.

I'm no longer perfecting an imperfect body. I'm improving an already beautiful body.

I'm no longer thriving to look like the model on the pilates add. I'm thriving to take the best care of my body in my capacity. And I say in my capacity, because even though making time for self-care activities like exercise is important, somedays I'm just too tired or have too much on my plate.

Conclusion

Take another look at your goals and make sure that the dreams you're following truly are your own. We are all unique individuals with different strenghts and qualities. It's not fair to compare your progress to that of another persons.

You don't have to achieve something just because your peer did.

Do your best. That's all that really matters.