A few months ago, I was demotivated.
It wasn’t just about writing.
It was having an impact on my whole life.
Intense fatigue, a mix between burnout and depression.
A loss of desire to do anything.
Writing, my favorite activity, no longer appealed to me.
The thought of sitting in front of a screen and writing repulsed me.
I was losing my taste for the things I love.
It’s not the first time this has happened to me.
I’m passionate about everything I do.
I often put too much energy into it.
Every action you take consumes energy.
When you run out of energy, the machine stops.
You didn’t even realize you were empty.
You want to move forward but you can’t.
Brutal.
Having passed the age of thirty, I’m beginning to understand that these low periods are inevitable.
As humans, we go through cycles: lows and highs.
I’ve written about this before, talking about highs and the fact that after each high, we return to our normal level of happiness: phenomenon called the hedonic treadmill.
But the other way round, it doesn’t work like that.
When you’re in the worst low, it’s going to take a long time to get back to your normal state unless you really take care of yourself.
Our goal in life is to make the lows the shortest and the highs the longest.
But how to survive these dark periods ?
Here are a few tips to help you in these tough times.
1) Back to Basics
The first step is to get back to basics.
Your body and mind need a rest.
- Workout
- Gym
- Good nutrition
- Sleep
- Sun if possible
You have to force yourself to rest your body and let it breathe.
Take a break from life.
The priority is yourself and nothing else.
2) Not making important decisions
These are the times when you want to make dramatic decisions.
You want to stop everything, change your life, change your routine.
When you have problems with your old life, you want to destroy it to be able to can create a new one.
But your emotional state is fragile.
This is not the time to make any major decisions.
Emotions are the enemy of logic.
Instead of destroying everything, pausing is the right solution.
You can press delete later (if you still want) when you’re back to your normal self.
3) Journal
Your diary is your dearest friend.
If you’ve ever gone through a period of lows by journaling your emotions.
You know that it’s only a passing period and that you’ve already survived.
The storm will pass.
You just have to hang in there.
4) Take time for yourself
This is the best time to try new things.
Find a new passion.
Try to get away from your old routine.
Rediscover positive emotions.
Reclaim your time and energy for yourself.
During this period, I took care of myself.
I closed my mind to the aggressions of the outside world.
Low periods are inevitable.
We’re bound to doubt our path at some point.
This doesn’t mean that the path is no longer the right one.
But it does mean that you need to put your bag down and rest for a while, so that you can set off again, recharged and ready to overcome new obstacles.
In this age of glorified productivity, we sometimes forget that we’re not machines.
That we need to take care of our bodies and minds to keep moving forward.
And that’s all I wish for you this morning.
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