Staying Motivated During Your Journey
Megan Evertson is the creator of From M.E. to You; a blog where she shares her thoughts and experiences to the online world. Megan is currently a marketing student at James Madison University. Next semester, Megan will be studying abroad in Europe. You can find her on Twitter as @MeganEvertson.
W
ith two years of college under my belt, I can say that my journey has taken me great distances and yet I am only at the beginning of my path. Despite my youth of experience, I have already discovered that there are two ideal traits to staying motivated and traveling far – passion and ambition.
I realize just how cliché it may sound, but the power behind these traits is invaluable and will aid anyone in their journey. Grades, professors and other demands of school, along with the struggle to land interviews, internships and eventually a full time job can hinder your motivation.
My goal is to cleanse you of those obstacles in your journey and refresh your own passion and ambition.
Starting with Passion…
Passion in a person makes them sincere and original. With passion, existing skills are taken to the next level and develop with ease all while earning your education and professional credentials.
The summer after my freshmen year of college, I applied for my first internship. Despite my lack of related course work, I was eager to begin my journey as a young professional in the marketing world. Amongst the resumes and emails I submitted, I was fortunate to come across a start-up business with an unpaid internship on Craigslist. As I typed a short email to accompany my resume, my goal was to communicate my desire to learn, to further my experience and become a part of a community. A short series of emails and a phone interview later, I accepted the internship. I was later informed that my sincerity in the email conveyed that I was not just a generic applicant merely looking to inflate my resume.
Passion creates an eagerness to learn and indulge in your topic of choice. Excitement makes all your hard work worth the effort; sometimes it helps just to have something to remind you of that. If you’re struggling to stay motivated in what you do, look to a few different aspects in your life in which you are passionate. Keep those thoughts with you.
Add Ambition…
If you’re passionate about your work or hobbies it’s almost effortless to find the ambition to pursue it all.
I volunteered to write this post for GenYJourney.com because I know how frustrating life can be for young people – one has to be the best in a sea filled with schools of talented fish. We present the same degrees with lists of extracurricular activities to potential employees with hopes we’ll be the one to be offered the job. You can’t stop if you haven’t reached your goal; you have to keep striving for what you want.
It seems like an obvious idea, but there is point when one must look past basic endeavors and go that extra distance to get what they want. Each of us will have different limits where our ambition must shift up to a higher gear.
I experienced my own shift after two and half months of applying for a paid summer internship and hearing nothing in return. I realized that when school was done, I wouldn’t stand to be unemployed for the summer – I started exploring family networks, applying to more internships – even if my qualifications were not quite aligned – and making phone calls. My efforts paid off! And while results may not always be immediate you have to continue to push forward. If you stop, then you’re missing out on the opportunities.
Final thought…
Experience and classroom credentials are always important to have. However, YOU have to find the ambition that will propel you forward in your career, as well as the passion that will make all your experiences much more enjoyable and worthwhile.
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