Uninspired

Have you ever felt like nothing or no one can ever get you out of this hole that you have dug for yourself?

You listen to people talk about what they are currently doing to achieve their goals, you watch YouTube videos and read blogs, and you even WANT TO WANT to do something but you cannot. Have you or are you currently feeling this?

Life is busy, I get it. No argument here. I have almost every part of my day scheduled and there always seems to be a long list of to-do’s that need to be ticked off before you even think of doing anything for yourself. Therefore, you are so uninspired that you just go through the motions of every day, wake up with just enough time to get ready and perhaps not even that, go to work which is also not as enjoyable anymore, and when that is all done you get back home and you cook, clean, and so on and so on. You autopilot your life and before you realise it, it’s been one month, two months, or even more since you did anything for yourself.

Let me tell you, I GET IT! I would not have written this post a few months ago because guess where I was? My self-sabotage couch (if you have no idea what I am talking about, see this post)

Now you might be thinking it is easy for me to sit and write about this topic and how to overcome it but I do not know you, I do not know what is going on in your life, and you are probably right. But I can tell you this much, I have experienced enough in my life, gone through the motions (physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually) to tell you there is a way out. You just need to be active in your own life.

I have so much to say on this topic that it could go on forever, but I won’t because you will probably get bored and leave. My aim in every post I do is to give you two or three simple tangible steps to get you going, you will find after that, things will just start moving.

Do not think I forgot that if you are reading this you are probably sitting on your self-sabotage couch, so the steps you need to get moving need to be minimal. I know everyone is different and not everything works the same for everyone but I hope that my steps help, even a little bit.

The first thing we need to do to get out of the “I WANT TO WANT TO” do something to the actual doing is to:

REFLECT

This needs to be intentional, so you need to get a piece of paper and a pen and sit at a table, no not sit on the couch or in your bed, at a table. Remember we are trying to be intentional. Yes, you can use your phone but there is just something about physically writing that just makes things more ‘real’.

When you have a piece of paper and pen I want you to set a timer for 10 minutes and I want you to really think about and answer the following questions:

1. What is making me feel uninspired?
2. What is being uninspired doing to me?
3. What do I want to change?

If you finish before 10 minutes that is fine, as long as you intentionally and honestly thought about and answered the questions above. If you go over 10 minutes, that is perfectly fine too!

Once you have answered all the questions spend a few minutes reading and reflecting on them. Ideally, this should be done out loud but if you can only do it in your head then that’s fine too.

Read out the question and then your answer, as you are doing this think if there is anything else that comes to mind that you may want to include, if not, then continue to the next question. Do this until you have reflected on all your answers.

In case you do not know quite how to do this I am going to give you an example:

1. What is making me feel uninspired? The sheer quantity of work to do every day from work itself to then having to vacuum daily, do washing and pack it away, and the list goes on. Once work ends at 4 and I start doing what needs to be done I do not want to do anything else
2. What is being uninspired doing to me? It makes me irritated, I get so mad at myself. I have all these things I can do, read, draw, paint, write, and up-skill myself but I am so tired and uninspired and then hate myself for feeling this way yet I still sit and hang out on my self-sabotage couch wasting my life.
3. What do I want to change? I want to do ONE thing every day that makes me happy but also refreshes me (drawing, painting, writing, learning something new.) I want to stop being on autopilot ad start living intentionally.

Now that you have a better understanding of what actually makes you feel uninspired, and how it makes you feel let us move on to the doing.

Often when we feel uninspired and we WANT TO WANT to do something but we don’t, we sit around and either numb ourselves or we ‘plan’ what we love, for example, I want to get better at drawing and painting so I spend a lot of time watching videos of other people doing it and never actually do it myself. While there is nothing wrong with watching videos or reading stuff, we need to be intentional about it so that it does not become a numbing mechanism. We need to get out of the planning phase and into the doing phase.

The second step to trying to get out of this uninspired phase is going to sound ridiculous but hear me out.

JUST DO IT

Okay, Kayla! So I am on my self-sabotage couch and I do not feel like doing anything yet here you are telling me to do something ((insert face palm here))

Well yes, my friend that is what I am telling you to do. There is no permanent cure for being inspired, it happens to everyone all the time. What I want you and I to do differently is what happens after you feel this way. You almost catch the feelings before it does any damage or any more damage.

We live in a world that says, do it later, we have time. Guess what? We do not. How much time do we waste on feeling like shit waiting for it to miraculously disappear while the world continues? TO MUCH TIME. We need to get over this ‘I need motivation’ thing. No, what we need is to reflect and just do it.

So you have just finished reflecting on what makes you feel inspired, what it is doing to you, and what you want to change. So go on, just do it.

Do it right now, well I mean after you finish reading this ((insert smiley face here))

Reflecting allows you to feel your feelings. Get them out of your head and on paper. Just doing it allows you to intentionally change what is making you feel this way, even if it is only 10 minutes.

Alright, example time.

On my list I wrote drawing and painting, I also write about learning something new. So I am going to count to 3 and get off my self-sabotage couch and go to my craft table and get out my sketchbook, pencils, paint, and all the other necessary equipment. I am going to set my iPad up and head over to YouTube and choose one of those videos I watched and I am going to follow along, draw and paint. Is it going to look good? Probably not. Do I care? No. After 5, 10, or 15 minutes I am feeling so calm and happy that I just want to do this all the time.

Okay now remember this feeling, remember how light you feel doing the thing you love doing. You are going to need to remember this feeling when you are down and in that hole, we spoke about at the beginning of this post.

Can I tell you the secret to stop feeling uninspired? Rinse and repeat those two things. ALL THE TIME. Feel the feelings, get it out on paper and understand why you feel this way, and then just get out there and do the things that make you happy.

You are the only one living your life, no one else, and if you are constantly sitting on your self-sabotage couch trying to numb things nothing is ever going to change.

NOTHING CHANGES IF NOTHING CHANGES.

So count to 3 (for real, count to 3) stand up, even while reading this post and go complete steps 1 and 2, right after one another and I pray that you actually do this. Do it for yourself, you need to stop just surviving every day, you need to start living every day.

Now GO!