Monday through Friday it’s the same thing. I wake up, groggily make my way to the bathroom, shower, brush my teeth, get ready, grab something to eat, drive to work, get annoyed with traffic, work, come home. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Sound familiar?
Sometimes we get stuck in a rut. We feel uninspired, unmotivated, and unfulfilled. So how do we crawl out way out of this and continue to run as far as we can away from that black hole of numbness? Well, it’s probably different for all of us, but here are some things I’ve found.
Culture existing hobbies and find new ones. If we find ourselves sitting in a vat of routine, mix it up with activities you enjoy. Learn to play the guitar, become a marathon runner, paint murals, read entire novels; really your choices are endless. If it makes you happy, do it.
Do something spontaneous. It doesn’t have to be something big, but do something that is unplanned. Go to a free concert, have dinner in a park, go for a drive. This will break up that feeling of routine and get your creative juices flowing again.
Find inspiration in others. When I feel like I’m not living up to my potential, I like to look at people who are. It gives me hope that maybe I will be able to do the same. This week I found the project Makers, about women who have changed industries and blazed the trail for the rest of us. If they can’t make me want to go and change the world, I don’t know what will.
Treat yourself. If it’s been a particularly routine and uneventful day, take yourself on a date. Take yourself to ice cream or get that iced coffee that is way too many calories but just tastes so good. Indulge yourself in the comfort food that always lifts your spirit. You deserve it.
Listen to music. When I’m feeling especially dull, I resort to sticking those two ear buds in that will beat my ear drums into my brain with inspirational songs. We all have those albums that bring us out of our shells and help us remember who we are again. Really, this rarely fails to at least raise me to the edge of the ditch I’m in so I can pull myself out. Don’t underestimate this power.
So what works for you? Sometimes I like to tell myself that I’m not in a rut and I fight it and fight it until I’m in deep. So deep that it takes lots of ice cream and spontaneously jumping into way-too-cold bodies of water to get me out. So I’m trying to remember the little things that inspire me, so I don’t have to keep jumping in cold lakes.