Maybe it was my kids’ summer vacation coming to an end, or maybe it was a result of being sick last week. Maybe it was hormonal, or maybe the moon was in a funky position, or maybe… who knows. But something happened over the last week. It snuck up so gradually that I didn’t recognize it until it was a full-blown...
TOTAL LOSS OF MOTIVATION
There I was, cruising along, full of energy and passion to get sh!t done, riding high… and then WHAM!
I wasn’t.
I just wasn’t.
And it got me thinking…
Who says we have to be motivated all the time? And why? Doesn’t it stand to reason that, just like the ebb and flow of the tide and every other cycle in nature, our motivation will wax and wane?
Everything we read and see suggests that in order to achieve our goals we have to be hyper-motivated every waking moment of every day. So when we lose motivation, we assume something’s wrong with us!
And then the voices enter… “You knew this would happen. You always give up. Why did you even set this stupid goal? You’ve lost so much time now, what’s the point? You were fine before you thought up this cockamamie scheme, you don’t really need to keep going…”
Am I wrong?
(Side note, I’m impressed I just spelled cockamamie!)
Anyhoo…
When we start to feel our motivation slipping, we have a few choices:
We can listen to those voices and give up.
We can fight the feeling of burn-out or lack of motivation and half-heartedly push forward.
OR!!! we can pull back, be gentle with ourselves and take a little time to re-center… And then come back more focused than ever!
Number 3 means we give ourselves a break. We take inventory of all we have accomplished and then give ourselves permission to step away from our goal for a short time. And during this time we don’t beat ourselves up for not working toward the goal; that would be counter-productive.
During times like this, I throw myself into the things I love that are often neglected during my intense periods of drive and motivation. Last week that meant playing tourist with my boys on the boardwalk, racing them on the ninja course, sitting on the couch with them watching YouTube videos and Impractical Jokers (Best.Show.Ever.), and reading a new book I purchased - (Deep Healing: The Process of Mind/Body Medicine by Emmett E. Miller So far it’s great! I highly recommend it!)
Sure, I did what absolutely HAD to be done – bills, laundry, cooking, book keeping, business maintenance, commitments with absolute deadlines... But the rest of the time I freed myself from anything related to my goals.
And today… I missed my goals! I woke up eager to get back to work and make sh!t happen again!
I don’t want to burn out, and I don’t want you to either. Some people can go 1000% 1000% of the time and that is FANTASTIC! But the rest of us mortals need a little balance, a little self-care, and some memories made with the people we love.
Because at the end of the day, our goals are important, but so are the memories we make along the way.
So is taking care of ourselves and allowing ourselves to fall in love with our dreams over and over again.
Let’s be gentle with ourselves as we push hard toward our dreams… Push hard, yes. But play hard and rest hard too.
Because there’s so much life to be lived.
xx Jen
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