Get back from holiday and you should feel rested and ready to "get back at it", right? This was not my experience this year...what was wrong with me? All the motivational and goal-setting posts just made me roll my eyes. Then, I came across two articles that basically explained what I was going through. I'm sharing what I learned. I want you to skip the curiosity of what could be affecting you and go directly to shaking it off! Articles mentioned in this episode: How to Motivate Yourself According to Behavioral Psychology The Best Way to Boost Your Motivation When You Just Aren't Feeling It

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to our podcast Finding Your Genie, on this episode “New Year… so what?”

• have you struggled to get the enthusiasm most people find in a New year, new opportunity, new beginning approach, thinking it's a load of crap? You are not alone! In this episode, we are going to tell you why you feel like that and what you can do to get you moving into a new year with a new perspective. (And stop listening to those cheeky gremlins!)

I lacked motivation and was completely despondent with a sparkling clean new year! Why?

We got back from holidays a week after new year and after having an amazing time with my family and a pretty fabulous break I was feeling pretty despondent. I just didn’t have the motivation to even think about work. I knew I had to and of course then on my social media, I am getting loads of things popping up about goal setting and getting started for a wonderful new year.. Blah blah blah.. I was totally shocked as to why I was thinking like that. It was as if a gremlin had crawled into my ear and found its way to the cockpit and started to whisper things like “how can I possibly make goals when I have no idea where I am going or what I want?” I had to shake my head hard to get rid of the microphone in the gremlins hand.. Goodness.. I needed to find out firstly how did the Gremlin find its way to the cockpit? and why did I listen to it and allow myself to start feeling ridiculously depressed and quite negative about the year ahead? I was gagging, scrolling through all the positive lovely inspiring posts people were putting up. I needed to find out what the heck was going on and how do I get my mojo back so I can push forward.

I was reading an article on Medium (I’ll post the link in the show notes) and something struck me. They said that when a few things go wrong, you don’t hit goals, or get “constructive feedback” on something you’ve been working really hard on, this will start affecting your enthusiasm. When we receive positive feedback we become more motivated, and perform much better and then we get amazing results and feedback which motivates us even more and the cycle continues. This is the same the other way around. If we perceive our efforts in doing something is not paying off or we get negative feedback this will result in the lack of motivation. Lack of motivation causes procrastination and the cycle continues.

I started to think ok that’s interesting so how is this relevant to me. I had an amazing holiday, I was in the sun on the beach, I felt good in my skin so why the crash… what was going on in the background. I have been working on a project for a good 3 years now and just before Christmas we decided to test the market for our project and I was not getting great results. I hadn’t quite managed to hit my goal weight before going on holiday and there were one or two things that happened on holiday that I felt was my responsibility (new years eve party with the family that not everyone enjoyed and I really wanted it to be a special night) so stacking all of that together there seemed to be an underlying “poor return on investment” on my part and the lack of motivation set in. Doubting all that I was doing and wanted to do.

Failures can be grouped into two categories - real and imagined (how interesting is this?) If you have a very ambitious goal (maybe a business goal) you will definitely experience failure at some point as an example you might have to shut a business down or take a loss or if you have a health goal you could find that one week you gain a pound or two.

Have you heard the saying “failing your way to the top” - well often these perceived failures are small blips that are actually moving you in the right direction. This is where you need to recontextualise the feedback you receive. If the failure is imagined we need to change our thinking and if the failure is real then we need to change our behavior.

To change our thinking we need to set goals we know we can achieve and once we hit those we can upgrade to the bigger ones and so forth. Pay attention to the goals that you can’t see that you might be achieving, like growing your awareness, developing a new skill etc. Change the way you see and think about failure. E.g see it as a learned opportunity. To change our behavior we need to take on a new challenge, change our strategy and choose the right opportunity by thinking about our strengths, weaknesses and values.

Now I must be honest I understand all about acting as if but when I read on verywellminded.com (again I’ll put the link in the show notes) about acting as if you have motivation I did a little chuckle. That is something that has never crossed my mind and you know what next time I lose my motivation I think I am going to try this. So when you don’t feel motivated you need to ask yourself “What would I be doing right now if I felt motivated?” What would I be wearing, how would I be thinking, and what actions would I be taking? Then, do these things, and see if your motivation level increases.

I love love love the 10-minute rule. When you think of something that you need to do like going for a walk or doing the ironing (I hate ironing!) say to yourself “Right I’ll do this for 10 minutes” and after 10 minutes you need to ask yourself if you want to continue or quit. You will more than likely continue. Getting started is probably the hardest part.

I do have to say if you have lost all motivation for long periods of time like two or more weeks and your lack of motivation is starting to impact daily things like dressing or leaving the house that’s probably a sign of something more serious and to consider speaking to a professional.

Understanding why we might be going through a lull period and actually admitting it to someone that you can confide in is probably the first step into feeling a heck of a lot better. I felt so guilty that I was feeling like I was and when I finally admitted to a close friend of mine how I was feeling the relief was pretty amazing, and I couldn’t believe that she was feeling the same way. Once we talked about how we both were feeling it was pretty amazing and how good we both felt and it was as if all those feelings were blown into a balloon and floated off into the ether making us both feel lighter than ever and ready to make some goals with a clear and happier outlook.

I would love to hear if any of you have experienced anything like that before and what you did to get your mojo back.

Thank you for listening to Finding Your Genie,