Tips to Get Your Mojo Back When You Lost Your Groove
Have you ever found yourself in a rut and you don’t know how to bounce back? Perhaps you were following a healthy diet or workout plan and fell out of your routine. You were on a pace to reorganize every room in the house and suddenly your process came to a screeching halt. Life gets busy and you want to stay connected with friends but your Friday wine night or Sunday zoom call have come to an end.
When April and I launched Hello50 last March, I enjoyed every minute of managing the website and collaborating with women over 50 for our blog. As difficult as 2020 was, taking on the challenge of writing, selling our Never Better bags and establishing a community for women over 50 was truly a bright spot in an otherwise bleak year. However, life happened! I had some personal and professional competing responsibilities and unfortunately, my time commitment to Hello50 diminished. Now, I have never been a New Year’s Resolution kind of girl but I turned to the Hello50 community to find out how to reignite that spark and resume your passion when your routine fell by the wayside.
Here are some tips to get get your mojo when you lost your groove:
Don’t beat yourself up about falling off course: Before you think about ways to change course, know that taking a break can be your body and mind telling you it was necessary. Embrace the break, re-group and set your path forward.
Set both long term AND short term goals: If your goal is to resume a diet, choose smaller goals rather than focusing on the total amount of weight you want to lose. It is much easier to stick to a plan if you can celebrate successes often. Getting into a pair of jeans is a great short term success rather than focusing only on the scale. If you started writing a book and you are looking to dig back into chapter 5, give yourself a timeframe for smaller chunks of the book so you can revel in completing a few pages or a chapter. Know what you what you are looking to achieve but celebrate small wins along the away. It is much easier to stay on a path when you find small successes often.
Was your routine realistic? How many of us are guilty of getting into a commitment with unrealistic goals? If you are wondering why you fell out of your workout routine, was your 5 days a week of 5:00 am boot camp ever going to be sustainable in the long run? Take inventory of whatever it is you sought out to do and assess if the regiment is sustainable over the long run. It might be a matter of readjusting your time, emotional and physical commitment so you are more successful maintaining your routine in the long run.
Connectivity: Whether we are in a learning environment or focused on a task, adults want to be connected to the relevance of what they want to achieve. When we launched Hello50, the goal was to establish an inclusive community for women over 50 by talking about topics of interest. Revisiting that goal was a good way for me to re-energize and get back to writing and collaborating with women over 50. Think about why your process was so important to you. You might need to remind yourself as to what it is you are trying to accomplish.
Success metrics: You may have fallen out of your routine because you didn’t have metrics to identify your successes. If you had established a routine to cook healthy meals from scratch, your success metric might be a decrease in your blood pressure. Not only do you want to recall why you pursued a particular goal but how do you know if you are meeting your goal or coming up short. Create your own barometer throughout your journey to keep yourself motivated.
Accountability calls: Find a person who is also focused on a goal or task and set up accountability calls. When we communicate our goals to someone or project them to the universe, we are more compelled to follow through. You and your accountability partner might help each other see blind spots or barriers to success. The good thing is your partner or accountability team could all be pursuing different passions but each of you help one another to stay on track. I had an accountability partner for several months - she was writing a book and I was writing for the blog and we helped each other stay motivated. Jenny just published her book!
Block your calendar: Time blocking is a great way to stay organized so you are committed to a particular hour, day or time period for your selected activity. Set your phone alarm and block outlook so your time is allotted. Make sure you have a plan so a realistic amount of time is allotted throughout your week or you can time block a month at a time. Once it is on your calendar, it is harder to ignore.
Meditate: If we are talking about rejuvenation, meditating, hiking or finding your inner peace is a great way to prepare yourself to take on new challenges. Shake off negative energy, forgive yourself for falling out of your routine and take one day at a time.
The goal is for your new routine to become a habit and integrated into your life. Research shows that if you stick to a routine for 21-30 days, it can actually become part of your everyday routine. The question is how do you ensure your habit is not a temporary pursuit but rather a long term life change. Identify realistic goals, remind yourself what you want to accomplish and develop availability techniques. Before you know it, you will be back to your NEW self.