For people who want regular personal or professional development advice from a qualified executive coach.
Read This If Your Motivation Is Ever Low 😔
|
I have two contradictory ideas in my mind that I believe are true. But, they are true at different times. The first is: We are not designed to live in a perpetual springtime. Many people at this time of year are feeling their energy sliding. Their capacity is not what it was. The spring is not in their step. And maybe that's because we're attuned to the seasons. Once the harvest is in, it is time to conserve energy to survive the winter. The second is: Everything you want is on the other side of hard. Something I have come to realise in the last few years is that my capacity to work, to push, to raise the bar, to fail, to push again and to work and work and work ... well, that capacity is much, much higher then I ever thought it was. Truth is, I still don't think I am working as hard as I could and I work much harder than I used to. And so, this is how I think about that (kind of) contradiction. About 90% of the time, the solution to my problems is to do more of the right things. The right things might include, short periods of rest, changes in activity to recover, working on something different for a while to see a different perspective, questioning if there's a better way to keep going. But, basically, to keep working towards what I want. And 10% of the time the solutions to my problems is to admit that I just need to stop. But then, to do that intentionally. Not to give up and to use comfort as an excuse to stop trying. Not to see grinding to a halt as a failure, but as a time for a different approach. What I find is that, if I honour the truth of this (most of the time the solution IS to keep pushing), then I never get remotely close either to the ceiling of my capacity or burnout. So, check in with yourself. What do you need right now? It's probably to find away to reach for you goals again isn't it? Stephen -- Join the HeRO Program to transform your life in 90 days. Find out more about Stephen Lock Coaching. Includes details of my corporate offers and services. Take my Path to Fulfilment audit (new for 2025) to understand what might be missing in your life. Try the Stagnation Breaker, to think about how to shift when you are stuck. Subscribe to "Ask Better. Lead Better." to learn better leadership techniques from a coach. For anything else, hit reply. I answer every email personally. |
HeRO Chronicles
For people who want regular personal or professional development advice from a qualified executive coach.
Yesterday's email (I'm sad and this is what I am doing about it) seems to have struck a chord with people in the way I hoped it would. I have never had so many replies from you all. Thank you. They all seemed grateful that I articulated something they needed to read or feel. I'm really glad I sent it. I did have to be a bit "brave" (thanks Jenny), but I wrote it after realising that me sharing my feelings helped a client. They felt less alone. And so I got to thinking, what else do I know...
Some things have happened that I wish hadn't happened. My circumstances are not how I want them to be. My luck has been out recently. I've been thinking I was turning a corner for a while but it hasn't happened. I laughed ironically at something last week and thought, surely nothing else can go wrong ... then it did. And at the same time there's a voice in my head going, "you're a professional personal improvement-y person, so why can't you sort this out?" Which frankly isn't helpful. Thanks...
"Ambition stops being healthy the moment it becomes a mask for fear." So said Alex Hormozi. And I know where he's coming from. Fear isn't a clean burning fuel. It's not sustainable either. Use fear and you'll move fast. You'll escape danger. But you won't last long before you burnout. But I also know that many of us try to make changes because we fear staying as we are. We're terrified that, "this is it". And we determine to do something about it. The problem with this kind of fear is that it...