What are your motivators?

A work colleague of mine has a beyond normal energy of positivity, even in the most difficult times she is positive, she somehow digs deep and manages to find an optimistic outcome, but I’m not here to talk about her positivity because underneath all of her extremeness of positivity lays another attractive feature and that is her motivation. Seeing the motivation that she has made me think of what I have that motivates me? I read through some of the stories here on rheumatoidarthritis.net and found that a lot of people slowdown in doing what they use to because of the disease, but I haven’t, in fact it’s the opposite for me, I’m trying to do more than what I can.

We all know living with RA isn’t fun and there are days where we have no motivation and from that point the simplest of things become difficult to get on with. So I sat here thinking what’s keeping me going, what are my motivations?

I have written stories previously on rheumatoidarthritis.net but just a brief history about myself, I’m 28 years old, was formally diagnosed with having RA in January 2016 and it’s in both my knees, shoulders, elbows, cervical spine and left middle index finger. I’m on six different types of medication which I take daily including a weekly dose of our favorite drug methotrexate, totaling to seven different branded drugs, just to get me by. How can someone whom is living on these toxic drugs deal with pain every second of the day be motivated? Here’s the break down I have.

I work full time, and travel an hour and half from home to work. My traveling involves me catching two trains and walking up a hill to get to the office. It’s not the easiest thing to get to work, (I even have to wear a knee brace just to make it up the hill) but when the people you work with are supportive and fun to be with it's worth the travel. My boss is very compassionate but most importantly understanding and having that support motivates me to go to work.

By the end of the day I am exhausted and am usually in bed by 8:30pm to ensure I have enough rest to be able to handle the next day, lately I have been staying up a little later, I have been fighting the fatigue so I can spend as much time as I can with my 4-week old niece, because once she starts getting bigger I might not be able to hold her in my arms like I can now. Just seeing her I feel like I can do anything.

My friends are always there by my side encouraging and exciting me to do what I want, and there is never a response such as “no” or “you can’t do that, it’s not good for your knees”. Recently I have managed to go on a hot air balloon and fly around in a helicopter, although none of these activities were easy for me to do they inspired me to push away the heaviness of RA to create these wonderful memories.

I listen to a lot of music from the second I wake up, on the train traveling to and from work, during the day at my desk and just before I go to bed. To me the music I listen to day in and out encourages me to get up and go go go!

I find it funny that it doesn’t have to be a celebrity or a hero that motivates me to keep up, it simply turns out be the smallest things that are right in front of you.

What are your motivators?