The other day I encountered the fitspo below.

I had mixed reactions to it.

One reaction was, “Yea f@#! all those people who don’t believe!”

Another other was, “Yea but that is crappy external motivation. You have to do it for you.”

And a third was, “How long does that motivation truly last? I mean it doesn’t help you find your internal motivation and confidence…”

While beating the odds and defying others expectations can fire us up, it isn’t truly lasting motivation.

It isn’t motivation we can count on.

Because even though it motivates, criticism isn’t positive.

It plants a negative seed in our mind. It plants doubts and fears even if it drives us to prove them wrong.

And in times of doubt, those seeds will grow, potentially causing us to fail.

True success depends on us being positive because plateaus and hiccups and even failures are going to happen. Wanting to defy someone else’s doubts isn’t going to keep you going when the going gets rough.

Because wanting to defy someone else’s doubts is almost like admitting you have them too. When reaching your goal means believing in yourself, knowing you can do it, even when setbacks occur.

I heard a quote awhile back about how successful entrepreneurs must be eternal optimists.

The same could be said, in my opinion, about anyone who is successful at reaching their goals.

This eternal optimism is a key trait that helps them to persevere as the inevitable complications appear when they start to build their vision into a reality. – Marcos Galperin

External optimism.

Believing, hoping, KNOWING, you can and you will make yourself and your world a better place.

Knowing you will do what it takes to reach your goal.

Knowing that even when life/people/whatever get you down, you are going to get right back up and persevere.

Success isn’t about not getting knocked down. It is about getting back up and never giving up.

People may make fun of you for your external optimism. People may put you down and tell you that you can’t. People may doubt because they never had the positivity and drive to do it themselves.

But it doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter if you prove them right or wrong.

It only matters that you BELIEVE you can be better…That you want to be better. And that you never give up on your goal.

And when I say this, I say this as a person who knows it isn’t easy to pull  yourself back up. As a person who has fallen more times than I can count. As a person who has always gotten back up no matter how bruised, bloodied and destroyed I am.

Because even though I may be bruised and battered. Even though my self-confidence and attitude may seem like they are in the gutter….I always believe I can make things better.

Somewhere deep down inside there is always that burning flame, that drive, to make myself and my world a better place.

And while I may mope around for a day after a big blow, after I feel my world seems to be collapsing around me, there is always that glimmer of hope.

A glimmer of hope shining not from without, but from within.

That external optimism, that eternal belief that you CAN, which simply makes failures a learning experience NOT the end to your goals and dreams.

Be thankful this week for all those failures. For all those times you managed to pull yourself back up.

Be thankful for all those bad times because those bad times showed you how strong you could be. Those bad times that showed you that somewhere, deep down, you really do believe in yourself to be able to get back up.

Be thankful this week and remember that you are your own best fitspo not some stupid picture telling you to prove someone else wrong.

Because let’s face it….