Oh man, what am I doing with my life? What do I do now? I’m just out of ideas.
And so it begins – the downward spiral into listlessness. Do any of these questions sound like something echo’ing in your head?
Stop! These thoughts are taking up valuable clock-cycles… and frankly, doing the exact opposite of what you hope they will do. Instead of generating some awakening or epiphany, they’re actually creating a neural pathway teaching your brain to go right back to the same thoughts. Listlessness.
The excuse we make
The past few weeks have been tough. Where I had all these ideas for my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve got a blank space. I had been anxiously creating new Yoga workshops, a series, and a retreat. I had been creating new events for creative collaboration. Now? I’m just wandering around the woods, literally, considering taking a full time position.I chalk it up to my daughter just going off to college…
That’s what we do. We create excuses for this listlessness, almost a “it’s-just-life” or worse, a “woe-is-me” scenario. But, really, how does feeling like you have no direction correlate to some action, in-action, or event?
It doesn’t!
I get back to my car, which is parked outside of the Yoga studio I’m teaching a workshop at next weekend. I check my phone and there’s two messages from personal design clients. I can’t help but think ‘Whew! I’m packed. When is there time for me to figure this…’Yeah, that’s when it hit me: I’m living the dream I had a few years back. I’m doing the things I wanted to be doing.
The funny thing…
So, why the feeling of listlessness? Often, we actually arrive at the place in our life we had dreamed of being. At some point in our past, we had wanted to be exactly where we are now.
That’s right. What wanted to be here… and we got here. Woo hoo! What we don’t do is take the time to enjoy where we are. We feel like if we’re not struggling or climbing or getting better, faster, stronger, we aren’t doing anything. The truth is, we just did something!
Enjoy it!
Embrace the feeling of listlessness as an indication that you’ve made it. Enjoy that you’ve made it. Relax, and wait for the next opportunity to present itself. The next chance to become a better, faster, stronger you.
Listlessness is not an effect of an outside influence; it’s a cue that you’re ready to grow again – to seek another bigger dream.
The next time you’re feeling listless, take a look at how far you’ve come. Take a few moments to appreciate the work and effort that you put in to live this dream.
Pssshhh… take the whole weekend.
You win! Game over! 😉 What a weird feeling, right? Our society is so focused on always having something to achieve, I can totally see why that feeling is so uncomfortable. Enjoy it though… it’s hard won and probably won’t last.
Ah. Now that makes sense. No wonder I feel listless when I’ve finished all my work –having nothing to worry about gives me something to worry about. 😉
Cheers, Stu!