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As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself. Hiding your core feelings takes an enormous amount of energy, it saps your motivation to pursue worthwhile goals, and it leaves you feeling bored and shut down. Meanwhile, stress hormones keep flooding your body, leading to headaches, muscle aches, problems with your bowels or sexual functions—and irrational behaviors that may embarrass you and hurt the people around you. Only after you identify the source of these responses can you start using your feelings as signals of problems that require your urgent attention.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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Never allow yourself to be sapped of your extraordinary energy that is the necessary ingredient for creating something new and progressive.
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Janvier Chouteu-Chando (The Girl on the Trail)
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Knowing your purpose motivates your life. Purpose always produces passion. Nothing energizes like a clear purpose. On the other hand, passion dissipates when you lack a purpose. Just getting out of bed becomes a major chore. It is usually meaningless work, not overwork, that wears us down, saps our strength, and robs our joy.
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Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?)
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Please do not bully yourself into doing care tasks. Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. Most of the time it is paralyzing, compounding the barriers one already has to completing care tasks. This sets up a cycle where the uncompleted task creates shame, which in turn saps motivation and energy, often leading to avoiding the task altogether
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K.C. Davis (How to Keep House While Drowning: 31 Days of Compassionate Help)
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Negative thought saps a person’s strength.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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Succumbing to the self-pity and “woe is me” narrative accomplishes nothing—nothing except sapping you of the energy and motivation you need to do something about your problem.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius)
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Never give up the freeness of your soul. Live your duty to mankind, nurture creatures of this world as a true mother of the earth, but never shut your imagination off from those desires that distinguish you from the ordinary. Never allow yourself to be sapped of that extraordinary energy that is the necessary ingredient for creating something new and progressive.
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Janvier Chouteu-Chando (The Girl on the Trail)
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Left unchecked, discouragement will become your eyes and ears, determining what you see and hear and how you see and hear it. Unchecked, it will become the master of your emotions and the ruler of your choices and actions. Unchecked, discouragement will rob you of your hope and motivation. It will steal your reason for doing good things. It will rob you of your ability to trust. It will make you closed, self-protective, and easily overwhelmed. Discouragement will sap you of your strength and courage. It will cause you to see negative where nothing is negative and miss the positive that is right in front of you. If given room, discouragement will tell you lies that have the power to destroy your life. Discouragement is natural for someone who is suffering, but it makes a very, very bad master.
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Paul David Tripp (Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense)
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This isn’t some libertarian mistrust of government policy, which is healthy in any democracy. This is deep skepticism of the very institutions of our society. And it’s becoming more and more mainstream. We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society. Social psychologists have shown that group belief is a powerful motivator in performance. When groups perceive that it’s in their interest to work hard and achieve things, members of that group outperform other similarly situated individuals. It’s obvious why: If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day. Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers. I have watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown’s temptations—premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault. My dad, for example, has never disparaged hard work, but he mistrusts some of the most obvious paths to upward mobility. When
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J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
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While the family and servants gathered reverently to view the magnificent creation, Kathleen took West’s arm and tugged him out of the room. “Something is going on here,” she said. “I want to know the real reason why the earl has invited Mr. Winterborne.”
They stopped in the space beneath the grand staircase, behind the tree.
“Can’t he show hospitality to a friend without an ulterior motive?” West parried.
She shook her head. “Everything your brother does has an ulterior motive. Why has he invited Mr. Winterborne?”
“Winterborne has his finger in many pies. I believe Devon hopes to benefit from his advice, and at some future date enter into a business deal with him.”
That sounded reasonable enough. But her intuition still warned that there was something fishy about the situation. “How did they become acquainted?”
“About three years ago, Winterborne was nominated for membership at two different London clubs, but was rejected by both of them. Winterborne is a commoner, his father was a Welsh grocer. So after hearing the sniggering about how Winterborne had been refused, Devon arranged to have our club, Brabbler’s, offer a membership to him. And Winterborne never forgets a favor.”
“Brabbler’s?” Kathleen repeated. “What an odd name.”
“It’s the word for a fellow who tends to argue over trifles.” West looked down and rubbed at a sticky spot of sap on the heel of his hand. “Brabbler’s is a second-tier club for those who aren’t allowed into White’s or Brooks’s, but it includes some of the most successful and clever men in London.”
“Such as Mr. Winterborne.”
“Just so.
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Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
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The enterprise management platform company SAP uses a social currency like that of iStockphoto or Stack Overflow to motivate developers to answer one another’s questions. Points earned when the employee of a development company answers a question are credited to a company account; when the account reaches a specified level, SAP makes a generous contribution to a charity of the company’s choice. The system has saved SAP $6–8 million in tech support costs, generated numerous new product and service ideas, and reduced average response time
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Geoffrey G. Parker (Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy―and How to Make Them Work for You)
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Super Mario Bros. hooks newcomers because there are no barriers to playing the game. You can know absolutely nothing about the Nintendo console and still enjoy yourself from the very first minute. There's no need to read motivation-sapping manuals or grind through educational tutorials before you begin. Instead, your avatar, Mario appears on the left-hand side of an almost empty screen. Because the screen is empty, you can push the Nintendo controller's buttons randomly and harmlessly, learning which ones make Mario jump and which ones make him move left and right. You can't move any further left, so you quickly learn to move right. And you aren't reading a guide that tells you which keys are which--instead, you're learning by doing, and enjoying the sense of mastery comes from acquiring knowledge through experience. The first few seconds of gameplay are brilliantly designed to simultaneously do two very difficult things: teach, and preserve the illusion that nothing is being taught at all.
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Adam Alter (Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked)
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What saps your energy and drains your strength? If it makes you feel bad on the inside, it will make those around you feel bad too! Don’t be the energy vampire whom people want to avoid.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3))
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Many students don't do well in School because they don't know you expect them to do well They want to do well, but it doesn't seem so important to do so. They don't have reasons to. You don’t give them reasons to. And worse you don't even ask them to. Indecision - Shulai or shulai not? Is it worth it? What's the point? Questions like that sap a Student's enegy and motivation. Plus affect his emotions. Schools who use anthems where students "say they pledge to do well and be diligent and so on" yet they aren't held RESPONSIBLE for their pledge are messing these kids up. It's like taking an oath and not caring to fulfill it. It's like conditioning a person to not take pledge seriously. I pledge to NIGERIA my country... How many of us all stay true to that pledge? The issue is if a thing is important to YOU as a parent or school enough for you to get your child or students to pledge it or promise it, then you MUST FOLLOW IT UP. Underachievers need to MAKE decision to be better day in day out. GIVE them a CHOICE. One that can FUEL their achievements.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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A lazy man often lacks the motivation to fight the very thing that has sapped him of his motivation.
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Shawn Davis (The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions)
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In general, though, new leaders are perceived as more credible when they display these characteristics: Demanding but able to be satisfied. Effective leaders get people to make realistic commitments and then hold them responsible for achieving results. But if you’re never satisfied, you’ll sap people’s motivation. Know when to celebrate success and when to push for more. Accessible but not too familiar. Being accessible does not mean making yourself available indiscriminately. It means being approachable, but in a way that preserves your authority. Decisive but judicious. New leaders communicate their capacity to take charge, perhaps by rapidly making some low-consequence decisions, without jumping too quickly into decisions that they aren’t ready to make. Early in your transition, you want to project decisiveness but defer some decisions until you know enough to make the right calls. Focused but flexible. Avoid setting up a vicious cycle and alienating others by coming across as rigid and unwilling to consider multiple solutions. Effective new leaders establish authority by zeroing in on issues but consulting others and encouraging input. They also know when to give people the flexibility to achieve results in their own ways. Active without causing commotion. There’s a fine line between building momentum and overwhelming your group or unit. Make things happen, but avoid pushing people to the point of burnout. Learn to pay attention to stress levels and pace yourself and others. Willing to make tough calls but humane. You may have to make tough calls right away, including letting go of marginal performers. Effective new leaders do what needs to be done, but they do it in ways that preserve people’s dignity and that others perceive as fair.
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Michael D. Watkins (The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter)
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Don't be sad that one day or another you met someone who undermined your capabilities and sapped your energy, what that person did could be the strongest crucible that forged a great leader
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Ahmed Elkadi
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Hiding your core feelings takes an enormous amount of energy, it saps your motivation to pursue worthwhile goals, and it leaves you feeling bored and shut down. Meanwhile, stress hormones keep flooding your body, leading to headaches, muscle aches, problems with your bowels or sexual functions—and irrational behaviors that may embarrass you and hurt the people around you. Only after you identify the source of these responses can you start using your feelings as signals of problems that require your urgent attention. Ignoring inner reality also eats away at your sense of self, identity, and purpose.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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We cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Fool, don’t you have hands? Or could it be God forgot to give you a pair? Sit and pray your nose doesn’t run! Or, rather just wipe your nose and stop seeking a scapegoat.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.16.13 The world is unfair. The game is rigged. So-and-so has it out for you. Maybe these theories are true, but practically speaking—for the right here and now—what good are they to you? That government report or that sympathetic news article isn’t going to pay the bills or rehab your broken leg or find that bridge loan you need. Succumbing to the self-pity and “woe is me” narrative accomplishes nothing—nothing except sapping you of the energy and motivation you need to do something about your problem. We have a choice: Do we focus on the ways we have been wronged, or do we use what we’ve been given and get to work? Will we wait for someone to save us, or will we listen to Marcus Aurelius’s empowering call to “get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.” That’s better than just blowing your own nose (which is a step forward in itself). June
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
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Nothing saps one’s confidence and motivation quite like being micromanaged.
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Dave Stitt (Deep and deliberate delegation: A new art for unleashing talent and winning back time)
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As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself. Hiding your core feelings takes an enormous amount of energy, it saps your motivation to pursue worthwhile goals, and it leaves you feeling bored and shut down.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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As a matter of principle, I didn’t believe a president should ever publicly whine about criticism from voters—it’s what you signed up for in taking the job—and I was quick to remind both reporters and friends that my white predecessors had all endured their share of vicious personal attacks and obstructionism. More practically, I saw no way to sort out people’s motives, especially given that racial attitudes were woven into every aspect of our nation’s history. Did that Tea Party member support “states’ rights” because he genuinely thought it was the best way to promote liberty, or because he continued to resent how federal intervention had led to an end to Jim Crow, desegregation, and rising Black political power in the South? Did that conservative activist oppose any expansion of the social welfare state because she believed it sapped individual initiative, or because she was convinced that it would benefit only brown people who’d just crossed the border? Whatever my instincts might tell me, whatever truths the history books might suggest, I knew I wasn’t going to win over any voters by labeling my opponents racist.
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Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
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Regardless of how well our lives may be progressing, there will come days and experiences that sap us of any semblance of hope and happiness. Remain steadfast through periods of struggle.
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Jay D'Cee