One of the things about being self-employed that I always knew I’d probably struggle with is motivating myself when things are feeling a bit rubbish. I found it difficult enough to get myself going when I had a job to do and other people relying on my coming into the office. I always knew that I have a tendency to hide away when things are a bit crap until I’m feeling better. Sometimes that’s half an hour, sometimes it’s a few days.
What I’ve found now is that there is something in my head telling me I can’t do that. I’ve got to keep going and I’ve got to keep working because I don’t have the benefit of sick pay or annual leave that I can use to go on holiday. Or working from home if I can’t face the office. I have to be there all the time. And I already work from home!
So luckily I had a day at a spa day booked with my sister for her birthday last week and it was lovely. Neither of us had done it before but had always wanted to. It was relaxing, we had some treatments and spent a lot of time in the water. It felt a little bit like a relaxing water park and I’ve always loved a water park 😊.
One of the most important things for me was to have some time out and be kind to myself. I’ve been a little down the last couple of weeks, partly because things aren’t progressing as quickly as I want them to and partly because I’ve realised that I spend a LOT of time in my house now. And much as I love my house, it gets a bit tiresome and it means I’m spending a lot of time with just myself!
Now I don’t necessarily have any problems spending time with just me but I’m not always that interesting and I’ve been missing the banter that used to go on in the office I used to work in. But that just tells me I need to get out more and so I’ve now booked in some more time out of my house and in the world of other people this week.
Getting stuck in a rut and finding ways to motivate myself have suddenly become much more important than they were previously. Finding ways to be nice to myself and give myself a break are even more so. I did manage to motivate myself over the weekend by writing myself some nice little notes reminding me that even if I did a little tiny bit of work, I wouldn’t regret it as much as lying on the sofa doing absolutely bugger-all.
I’ve put a few notes to myself in my diary for this week to remind myself to give myself a break and just do a couple of little things. I know that after doing them, I’ll feel more motivated to do other things and bigger things. These will get me back to a place where I’m feeling proud and happy about what I’m doing and also remind me why I started doing this in the first place.
Motivating myself always used to be a bit like a really harsh PT shouting in my head to get shit done or stop being so lazy. Now, my motivation comes from being kind and reminding myself that just doing a little bit is better than getting overwhelmed and ending up doing nothing.
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