Letter to Those Who've Lost Their Motivation

Dear CLINT

There’s so much I still want to create and foster in my life, and yet I feel utterly beaten down. I feel like I have nothing left to work with. I’ve been through a lot on my journey thus far, and I’m now at a point where I’ve lost all my motivation – I just can’t seem to find the external and internal sources of motivation I used to have. Do you have any wisdom you could share?

Sincerely,
A Discouraged Student

This email was inspired by another email we received this morning from a new course student:

Our reply (an open reply to all who have lost their motivation):

Dear Discouraged Student,It’s time for a quick story about life…

Once upon a time there was a woman in her mid sixties who noticed that she had lived her entire life in the same small town. And although she had spent decades enthusiastically dreaming about traveling and seeing the world, she had never taken a single step to make this dream a reality.

Finally, she woke up on the morning of her 65th birthday and decided that now was the time! She sold all of her possessions except for some essential items she needed, packed these items into a backpack, and began her journey out into the world. The first several days on the road were amazing and filled with awe – with every step forward she felt like she was finally living the life she had dreamed.

But a few short weeks later, the days on the road started taking a toll on her. She felt misplaced and she missed the familiar comforts of her old life. As her feet and legs grew more and more sore with each new step, her mood also took a turn for the worse.

Eventually she stopped walking, took off her backpack, slammed it on the ground, and sat down beside it as tears began streaming down her cheeks. She stared hopelessly down a long winding road that once led to an amazing world, but now seemed to lead only to discomfort and unhappiness. “I have nothing! I have nothing left in my life!” she shouted out loud at the top of her lungs.

Coincidentally, a renowned guru and life adviser from a nearby village was resting quietly behind a pine tree adjacent to where the woman was sitting. When the woman began shouting, the guru heard every word and he felt it was his duty to help her. Without thinking twice he jumped out from behind the pine tree, grabbed her backpack, and ran into the forest that lined both sides of the road. Stunned and in complete disbelief, the woman started crying even harder than before, to the point of near breathlessness.

“That backpack was all I had,” she cried.” And now it’s gone! Now everything is gone in my life!”

After about ten minutes of much-needed tears, the woman gradually collected her emotions, stood up again and began staggering slowly down the road. Meanwhile the guru cut through the forest and secretly placed the backpack in the middle of the road just a short distance ahead of the woman.

When the woman’s teary eyes fell upon the backpack, she almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing – everything she thought she had just lost was once again right in front of her. She couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. “Oh, thank heavens!” the woman exclaimed. “I am so grateful! Now I definitely have what I need to continue onward…”

REMEMBER:

As we journey through our personal and professional lives, there will inevitably be periods of incredible frustration and despair. During those tough times, it will sometimes appear to us that we’ve lost everything, and that nothing and nobody could possibly motivate us to move onward in the direction of our dreams. But just like the woman who stumbled across the guru, we are all holding with us a backpack of support that comes in many forms – it can be a simple email or text message from someone we respect, inspiring blog posts, insightful books, helpful neighbors, and so much more.

When we are feeling discouraged and demotivated, our opportunity is twofold:

• To recognize and appreciate our backpack of support – our external sources of motivation – before a random guru (or someone with far more crooked intentions) has to steal it from us so that we can finally see what we have always taken for granted.
• To be present and tap into our own hearts and minds – our internal sources of motivation – which have the power to push us back up on our feet and guide us down the road to our backpack of support, even when it appears to be lost forever.

No matter your circumstances, you always have what you need to take the next smallest step.

As Epicurus so profoundly said, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Be mindful. Be present.

Keep going.

How to Change the Way You Think About the Things You Can't Change

Ready for the truth?

Most of your stress comes from the way you  respond, not the way life is. And when you adjust your thinking, all that extra stress is gone.

There is a real opportunity in every difficult situation to understand yourself more deeply, and also to improve your life.

I encourage you to reflect on recent situations where you’ve felt let down – where life’s outcomes were nowhere near as good as you expected. Rather than focusing on the uncontrollable things that were “done to you,” consider instead your part in what went down. For example, perhaps your gut told you not to do something, but you did so anyway. Or maybe you were deceived a second time by the same person, and wish you had let go of the relationship sooner. Or perhaps you just weren’t paying attention and ended up missing out on a great opportunity.

It’s so easy to be negative when things go wrong, or blame others for negative outcomes in your life. But do negativity and blame change anything for the better?

No!

Truth be told, the best time to be positive and take responsibility for your own peace of mind is when you don’t feel like it. Because that’s when doing so can make the biggest difference.

No matter what the specifics of your troubled times are, taking a moment to look inward at what you could have done differently and how you could potentially avoid similar situations in the future can be a healthy exercise. This is not to blame yourself or shame yourself, but simply to give you the opportunity to learn, on a higher level, from your experiences.

It’s about learning to choose the most effective response in a difficult, uncontrollable life situation.

It’s about learning to think better so you can ultimately live better, no matter what.

The key is to realize that no matter what happens, you can choose your attitude and inner dialog, which dictates pretty much everything that happens next. Truly, the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another – to train our minds to see the good in what we’ve got, even when it’s far less than we expected.

It’s about choosing: Will I allow this to upset me? Will I choose to make this bad or good? Will I choose to stay or walk away? Will I choose to yell or whisper? Will I choose to react or take the time to respond?

When our Getting Back to Happy course students come to us feeling down about a life situation they can’t control, we typically start by reinforcing the hard truth: sometimes changing your situation isn’t possible – or simply not possible soon enough. You can’t get to a new job in an instant. You can’t make someone else change against his or her will. And you certainly can’t erase the past. But...

You CAN always choose a mindset that moves you forward. And doing so will help you change things from the inside out, and ultimately allow you to grow beyond the struggles you can’t control at this moment.

Here's a powerful question that will support you with a positive attitude adjustment when you need it most:

Who would you be, and what else would you see, if you removed the thought that’s worrying you?

Think about it...

Identify a specific thought that’s been troubling your worried mind lately, and then visualize how your life would be different if you removed this thought:

• How would it change your outlook on your present life situation?
• What other possibilities and opportunities might you see?
• What else would you be able to accomplish with this shift in your focus?