A Fro in Progress

I was born with a thick head of coily, kinky, curly, spongy hair.  For years I tried to impose gravity on my hair, when by nature it was designed to defy that very thing.  Instead of working with it and loving and appreciating the awesomely wild beast that is my fro, I worked hard to tame it.

I began a cycle of growing out and cutting my hair until I got fed up in April 2010 and quit using a chemical relaxer to straighten it.  So I grew out my hair for four months, and in September 2010, I cut it (ha!) into a baby fro.  I never really knew how to care for my natural hair properly.  I had chopped my hair off before with the intent of "going natural," but I always gave up and returned to relaxing my hair.  I didn't know there was a growing wealth of knowledge for women with my hair type who wanted to wear it the way it grew out of our heads.  Growing up, I didn't know very many women who wore their way like that... you know... nappy. 

So now that I've gotten to know my natural hair, I'm growing it all the way out into the biggest fro I can muster.  Peep the progress from July 2011 to July 2012:

Want to see what my hair looked like boy-short almost two years ago?  Click here for a throwback.

Or click here for video I made celebrating one whole year with all natural hair.

When you don't feel like doing ANYTHING...

Motivation, I think, is a myth.  Not just a myth, but a crutch that people rely on to propel themselves into the fantasyland of success that they have built up in their minds.  At the risk of sounding cynical, the other crutch may be inspiration, which is also somewhat emotional.



source


Either you do something or you don't do it.  There is no "try."  I love that. I use that notion often to get my butt out of bed at 5:00 am to head to the gym before work.  I use it to push through each work day, and to catch up on that neverending pile of laundry/dishes/whatever.  We like to coddle ourselves and others around us in an imaginary hammock stretched between failure and success.  Failure is not a bad thing.  It is a simple fact that we somehow allow to change and define us.  What we do with failure is either positive or negative.  Failure itself rests on neutral ground.

My last blog was about goal setting.  I wanted to talk about motivation because, this week, my motivation has been very low.  Last week was pretty awesome, but this week sucks for some reason.  Maybe it's the cloudy weather we've had since the weekend.  Maybe I'm just generally feeling funky.  Sometimes I am hit by a wave of BLAH that renders me useless.  I decided to create a vision collage to remind me of all of the reasons why I am reaching for my goals.  Although inspiration alone won't make me do the work that is necessary to reach my goals, it does help me to focus on what needs to be done, rather than how I feel. 

My vision collage

So, if you don't really feel like doing something you probably *should* do... do it anyway.  Or if you don't do it, just don't wallow in guilt and beat yourself up.  Take a nap or go for a walk or chill out for a while [or go make a vision collage!!!], and start fresh.