When all is lost
I went back and forth on what to call this post. Some of my final options were, "When the motivation is gone" and "When you just don't want to do it". To be honest, I think all three things are related. When you can't find motivation and you just don't want to do it, you feel like all is lost. I've discovered over the years that everyone has a strength and a weakness. I know that isn't really news, but what I have found out is that once you get to a certain point your strength and your weakness is the same thing. If one of my strengths is getting everyone on the same page, then my weakness is that sometimes we are waiting for someone who is moving way too slow. If my strength is looking at a situation from every angle, then my weakness is that I still want to think about a situation when everyone seems to have made a unanimous decision. So, what do you do when you wake up one day and the motivation is gone, and you don't want to do it and your strengths have become a weakness? The first thing you need to do is to hit the pause button. I want to emphasize that I said pause and not stop. If I said to stop, some people might think of that as quitting my job, or leaving my spouse. I don't want anyone to do anything drastic during this timeframe, so just pause. The next thing that needs to happen is to look at your to do list, and then take it down to the bare minimum for the day. I say day, but what I really mean is daily for a week or two. Lately when I have looked at my to do list, I go into analysis paralysis. I stare at my list, and I have no clue where to even start. I see big projects and I see small projects and I have no clue which one to start off with. Some tasks will take five minutes some will take an hour, which one do I start with? This morning, I looked at my list that had 17 things on it, and I cut it down to 5. I picked a place to start, and I started. By starting and hopefully crossing something off the list, you start to feel at least a little bit of motivation or positive momentum. So now what? This is where it is important to know what fills you up. I'm not talking about pizza; I'm talking about what keeps your cup filled. One of the reasons we are in this situation is because we let ourself get drained. The opposite of being drained is to be filled. Everyone has something that helps fill them up. Maybe, lunch with a friend or going and helping out somewhere. Maybe some people need to work out or listen to loud music. What is something you can go do, that will leave you feeling full and energized. If you aren't sure what fills you up, you need to take some time and look at how you feel after doing things during the day. When you finish talking to someone, do you feel drained, or do you feel energized? During this time of feeling lost, we need to reduce our time with people who drain us and make an effort to go be around the people who energize us. So far this is what we have done:
We hit the pause button.
We looked at our to do list and reduced it to just the 3-5 things that have to get done.
Take some action, start on the to do list and gain some momentum.
Find some people or things that fill you up and give you energy.
We only have a few more things we can do, so next we really want to communicate with someone from our five people. Let someone know that you are in a busy period, and you feel lost. You need an accountability partner. You don't have to go into some deep dive, but just let them know you are struggling. Next, we need to focus on sleep. We have to recover and the only way to recover is to sleep. Finally set a due date, what is a due date? A due date is a date probably about two weeks away. For the next two weeks, you will focus on this list. You will reduce your to do list, you will get sleep and you find out what gives you energy. When the due date arrives you have to re-evaluate. Do you feel better, or do you feel the same or worse? If you feel better, then you know that you need to incorporate these weeks into your quarterly routine. If you feel the same or worse, it's time to take some more drastic changes and talk to someone who knows way more than I do.
Hit the pause button.
Reduce the to do list.
Take Action.
Get some energy.
Communicate
Sleep
Set a due date.
Seven things, seven days in a week. All is not lost, it's just time to hit the pause button!