Recently I stopped working on my projects for a moment in order to recover fast and completely from a cold I had. After I recovered, I found myself doubting about my projects. Was I going to efficiently accomplish my goals?
For example I doubted if I was helping and inspiring enough people with my blog and I felt discouraged because I was advised to start guest posting on other blogs to drive targeted traffic to my webpage, but I haven’t done any blog posts yet and it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable – Guest posting seems to be essential when it comes to becoming a successful blogger and I feel heavy when it comes that. Because of those doubts, my momentum slowly decreased. I got discouraged. I felt uninspired.
That has inspired me to write and share with you 10 ways how I deal with discouragement in order to feel inspired again. In no particular order:
- Meditate to find out the reason why I feel uninspired and then address the problem from the root. Sometimes just doing what I’d love to do in that precise moment is the answer. Go for a walk, paint, try a new recipe, etc. Just follow your curiosity and you might get inspired in the process. Other times, I find out that I feel discouraged because I am overwhelmed. So I divide the task into subtasks that I can easily achieve.
- Exercise: often, when we feel uninspired, we tend to get idle and discouraged in other area of life as well. By keeping a daily exercising routine for example, we avoid wasting our precious time in a discouraged idle state of mind. We create momentum physically and exercising inspired us to stay dynamic and more focused as well.
- Focus on helping others in various fields. Helping someone else can be a true source of inspiration because we feel useful and with our contribution we make a difference in someone’s life. Helping others get what they want gives us a energy in return to work on what we want.
- Share what is going on with my support group: the people who care about me, believe in me and who support and encourage what I am doing. Generally, I get some new insight or a new perspective after sharing my thoughts with someone from my support group.
- Trust in the Higher Power, God. Ask for help and most importantly be grateful for what is already great. I am grateful for my current subscribers, for the people who currently read and are inspired by my blog and it always makes me happy to see new subscribers and that blog posts have been shared, because it shows me that they have been perceived as useful.
- Focus on doing small things, baby steps, in the direction of the end goal, even though I don’t feel like doing them. This is huge because we don’t always feel like doing what we say we want to do every time. For example, If I said I want to write an ebook, I just sit down to write even if I don’t feel the inspiration to write on a particular day, or even if I think that what I’m writing is not good enough. It is by showing up to write that the book will be created. I can still edit later and make the writing better.
- Forgive myself for feeling uninspired right now, instead of judging. And promise myself that I will not stop out of discouragement. Do you sometimes get angry at yourself for struggling or not achieving your goals? I know I do. But would you be angry at a friend if they were struggling or having trouble to get forward with their goals? No right? You’ll probably show your understanding and offer to help! It is incredible how harsh we can be on our Self sometimes right? Remember to forgive and be compassionate with yourself because you are your first best friend.
- Prepare my comeback. Seek inspiration by reading or watching videos about self development and plan the work that I have in the future. For example, the teachings of Dr. John Demartini – a human behavior specialist – about values really resonates with me, and help me to aligned my goals to what is really important to me. Basically, it says that if you engage in something that is not aligned with your highest values, you are more likely to fail and be frustrated. By aligning what we do to our highest values, we are inspired from within and we need no outside motivation.
- Getting in touch with my inner Self to find out what I really want, through reflection and also meditation. Do I need to re-adjust my goal or is this just a challenge to test how far I can go? It can make a huge difference to identify when we are no longer interested in something and let it go versus when we are facing a challenge that we need to overcome in order to go to the next level of our mission.
- Patience: If we sow a grain and we expect to reap the next day already or as fast as possible, we will get frustrated that it is not possible and get discouraged out of impatience. When we have given our best, we have to keep giving our best and let Nature and Time do their part. I sometimes have to remember myself that to give my best does not mean to work until exhaustion. We still need to enjoy life in its whole, while following our goals: to take care of our health, our family, our relationships, our spirituality, etc. That is why for me, to give my best means to do the best I can do while staying balanced. Balance is key.
Now, I would love to hear from you how you get inspiration when you don’t feel inspired? How do you deal with discouragement?
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