10 Steps To Getting Your Inspiration Back

3. If you don’t have a “why,” then it’s definitely never too late to create one. Consider these things when you’re creating a “why”: • What are your values, and how is this project aligned with them? Do you have a reason for wanting to do this? It might be that you don’t have a “why,” so if you can’t think of one, I would really consider if the project is even right for you, because if you’re not feeling motivated and there is no reason to do it that you can think of, maybe the lack of motivation means you’re not supposed to be doing it. • What is doing whatever you’re uninspired about going to mean for you? What will happen if you actually get out of bed and make this happen? You can future-pace and see what will happen. Are you going to feel proud of yourself? Will you be able to make a certain amount of money from it? Will it mean feeling like you’re capable of doing big things, getting projects done that you set your mind to? What is the end goal going to be? When you have the anchor, the “why,” it’s really awesome to help you start to get some movement created.

5. This is human nature. We’re not going to want to jump up, even if we’re doing something we love, every single day. Especially if you are creating something yourself, it’s really easy to lose interest initially after you get excited about something. There’s always that momentum, that excitement, when you first get started, but then things might either be harder than usual or maybe you’re coming against some obstacles that you hadn’t anticipated. Perhaps you’re not seeing immediate gratification you wanted to see. Could be you’re just tired. So anticipate that in advance, be okay with it, and know that very few people are excited to get going every single day...no matter what they might tell you in their personal-development books, if you read those. Women, our menstrual cycles have us feeling completely different emotionally at different times of the month. There are four different phases. I recommend an awesome book called Woman Code by Alisa Vitti. In it, she talks about how different times of the month are going to have us feeling predictably different things. There are going to be times when we feel really creative, energized and focused, more social.

6. Then there are going to be times when we don’t want to do anything. This is also really big for women entrepreneurs because a lot of times we might feel like, yes, we’ve made a decision, we want to do it, and then some point later in the month, we’ll say, “Actually, it doesn’t feel right anymore.” It’s not that it doesn’t feel right; it’s just that we’re in a different phase in our cycle. So just understand, these things are going to happen, and account for them. Stick with your decision. If you’ve thoughtfully set up a goal and you have your compelling “why,” the best thing you can do is stick with your decision. Trust in your initial decision and the “why” to go with it. Just anticipate it.

8. Some things you can do to feed yourself that diet of motivation are: • Listen to podcasts like this one. This is meant to help you see that people can overcome different things and create the kind of life they feel proud about. You can search for whatever you want to hear about. 2.Read motivational books. There are all kinds of awesome books out there. Just do a search on Kindle, search for feedback; you’ll find all kinds of great things. When you’re driving or exercising, one of the things I love to do in the morning is go on the treadmill for 20 minutes and listen to audio books or podcasts that motivate me. It’s such a great way to get the day started, to hear about people who have reached their dreams. I definitely recommend that. 3. Go to Meetup or networking groups with growth-oriented people. Surround yourself with the types of people who want the same things in their lives. Do whatever you need to do to make sure your brain is constantly getting infiltrated with “dreams are possible,” “things are possible,” “even when there are obstacles, you can make this happen.”

10. As we talked about, you’re not going to feel one hundred percent raring to go every day, but tell yourself that you’re committed to consistency anyway, even when you’re not in the mood. Even if you’re creatively flat-lining, you can do something to give respect to your project. It might even be sending out a little email or mapping something out, coming up with some ideas. Start creating something. Even if it’s a horrific first draft, it’s still better than nothing and it still shows that you’re committed to what you’re doing. I would just do a little bit every day to give some momentum to the project. It’s also going to help you set your neural patterns in your brain to show you that you’re going to do this project even when it’s not comfortable. The more you do things when you’re not comfortable, the more your brain is going to start to recognize that you don’t stop just because you don’t feel like doing something. Sometimes it’s just having five minutes of courage to see past not wanting to do it, and just doing it anyway. It will get easier with time.

11. Also, taking the consistent actions is going to help you get closer to the results you wanted, which, of course, is going to inspire you more and get you more motivated anyway, because you’re going to start to get that gratification. Once those results start to show up, you’ll start to go full circle. You’ll get back to that same spark of passion that you had in the beginning, only this time you’ll have pride in yourself knowing that you can follow through on things and will have a really good story to tell.

13. This is a little bit out there, but just listen to me on it because I think it’s actually really helpful. Do a mental inventory and ask yourself, “Who inspires me? Who are my heroes?” and learn more about them. If they a have autobiographies, read them. If they have Facebook pages, visit them. Learn more about their mindset and how they think. Maybe you can even talk to them. Send them a message on Facebook or Twitter. You can also have mental conversations with them. Remember those “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets that were really big for a while? You can do the same thing with the people who inspire you. Ask them in your head, “What would you do if you hit this snag? What would you do if you were feeling unmotivated? How would you respond if someone said this to you?” Whatever the question is, whatever you’re feeling unmotivated about, just ask them. If that doesn’t feel comfortable, just say, “What Would {Name} Do?” and you’ll start to get some answers and clarity for yourself. A lot of times it can be really hard to pull ourselves out of a funk, but when you have something outside of yourself, it helps you gain that perspective.

15. It may be that you’re just not feeling motivated, but if you find that this is happening over and over, it might be that you need to set yourself up for success energy wise. Look at what you can do to support your body more. For example, are you drinking enough water? I know, for me, that when I have a lot of water throughout the day, I am definitely way more energized than when I don’t. When I feel dehydrated, I feel drained. There’s an awesome app called Waterlogged. You can track how much water you drink throughout the day. It’s really simple and a great way to make sure you’re getting your water in. They say to drink half of your body weight in ounces. So try to do that. When you wake up in the morning, have 8-16 ounces of water first thing. I have my water siting right next to my bed so I wake up and drink it. It’s a really great way to start getting the water.

16. You also might want to make sure you’re getting enough greens in your diet. Greens will give you a lot of long-lasting, natural energy. The great thing about having lots of green vegetables is that it doesn’t give you that shaky feeling that you may get with sugary things or even fruit sometimes. It gives you a consistent, sustained energy. Look at where you could add more greens to your diet. Maybe it’s using the powders to mix into your morning smoothie. Even making a smoothie could really help. One thing that helps me with my energy levels (and I recommend it to everybody) is keeping a food log. The nutritionist I’m working with, Ginny Johnsen, is amazing. She’s had me keep a food log where I track how I feel before and after anything that I eat, what my hunger level is on a 1-to-10 before and after anything I eat, and what I’m eating and the situation I’m eating in.

17. It’s been really helpful for me to track and see what foods make me tired that I’ve never realized make me tired, what foods make me energized and happy. I recommend keeping that food log because you’re going to gain a lot of valuable insight. You’ll be able to start optimizing for feeling at your peak. You also might want to consider how much you’re exercising. Sometimes even just getting up on the morning and doing 20 minutes of exercise, even just a power walk, can be really great in helping you get your energy back. These are all things that may seem small, but they add up to help you become your best self.

19. If right now you’re feeling exhausted and burned out, I want to remind you not to be busy just because you can be busy. One thing that a lot of people do is work all the time and use it as a badge of honor. They love to talk about how busy they are and they love to tell everybody how busy they are. Tim Ferriss, who is an awesome author, talks about how being busy is really a form of mental laziness. It’s lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. So it’s basically just doing a bunch of things that are in front of you instead of really taking the time to think about, What are my highest-leverage action steps? So if you find you’re at the computer constantly or doing the same things, feeling like a hamster on a wheel, and you’re not making progress, I would say it’s time to reevaluate what you’re doing and just start to do the things that have the highest impact for your project, your job, or whatever it is.

20. I would also say to work smarter, not harder. Take some time to think about what you really need to move ahead on a project. A lot of times people come up with all these different ideas to get things done, but scale it back to the most important action steps. Once you identify those, cut all the busy tasks and focus on those highest-impact things. After you figure out what the highest-impact activities are, cut your work hours. You’re going to be amazed to see that when you focus on just what’s important, you’ll create more results in three hours than you could in 12—easily. You schedule the hours you want to work, and if you just have focused action on those things (cut out Facebook and social media too), you’ll be able to make amazing things happen. Then when you’re working less hours, it will reduce your burnout, it’s going to give you time to go live life, which will help stimulate your creativity, bring back new inspiration and excitement into your life, and will end up helping you with whatever you’re working on anyway.

21. You also might want to consider outsourcing. I love www.MyFancyHands.com. You might want to go on Fiverr. There are all different types of places where you can outsource very inexpensively. Work in blocks of time. Make sure the time you’re spending on work is utilized as well as possible. As I mentioned before, if you work three hours instead of 12 hours, you might be shocked at how much more you can get done. Within those three hours, there are ways you can set it up where you maximize even that time. One of the things that’s awesome is to set up blocks of time to work. For example, maybe you work 50 minutes and take a 10-minute break. You’d have 50 minutes of a very concentrated task, get your break, boom, boom, boom. It might be something like working from 8:00-11:00 a.m...

22. 8:00-8:50 – Write a rough draft of a blog post. 8:50-9:00 – Take a break. 9:00-9:50 – Reach out to 20 potential places you want to guest blog post in. 10:00-10:50 – Answer 20 emails.10:50-11:00 – Take a break. If those are your three highest-impact activities for the day, that’s great! When you have these little blocks of time, you don’t force yourself to keep working and you have some time to regenerate within the breaks, then it’s awesome. When you go to www.RachelRofe.com/abcgift, I’m giving away software that’s normally $97 that you can use to time yourself for each specific task. Once you have that timeline, you’re not going to be crawling off onto Facebook. It’s going to help you focus on getting to your goal. It’s going to help you make more progress every day, which will make you feel happier and proud of yourself every night when you go to bed. It also helps with your inspiration, so it will all come full circle.

24. You know how when you clean a closet, a desktop, or something that had been messy for way too long, and it feels so good to have it clean? That feeling extends to everything. Check out your desk. If your desk is messy, even if it’s your computer desktop or the desk where you actually work, take some time to clean it. Organize your papers, throw out what you don’t need, and just give yourself that magical feeling that comes with decluttering. Once you do that and it’s a nice, clean area, put some things out that inspire you and make you feel really good. Depending on what inspires you the most, maybe you’ll put up pictures of your family or people who inspire you, maybe quotes that motivate you. You could even put up Post-It notes of the goals you have. You can also add some beauty to your desk, like a candle that smells really great, fresh flowers, a new notebook or pen that you really like. If your computer desktop is full of icons, files and stuff you don’t use anymore, declutter it. When I had my computer stolen about a year and a half ago, it was one of the best things that could have happened, because I got rid of all the stuff that was really taking up psychic energy. I think keeping things as lean as possible is always a great idea. It keeps you free to take in new things and have more inspiration and a flow in your life.

26. It can be really hard to go about things by yourself. If you have people around you who know what your goals are, then it really motivates you to get more things done. I recommend a podcast I’m doing about tools that I love. There’s one tool called www.StickK.com, which is a really great goal-setting tool. There’s the Lift app. You can also just find a friend or someone in a Facebook group. Tell people you want to be held accountable. Especially on the days where it would be much easier to crawl into bed, if you know you’re going to have to tell somebody that you either did or didn’t get something done, it’s going to motivate you. Maybe you’re motivated so you don’t look bad, or you just want to be excited to tell your friend that you’ve gotten things done. I would set goals every year, then every month. Meet with your accountability partner(s) once a month, once a week, once a day, or all three, and share what you’ve gotten done. They can share with you what they’ve gotten done. If you are working on similar goals, you can brainstorm solutions to things. It’s all really helpful.

27. You could also just report on Facebook. Even if you don’t have anybody to mastermind with, you can say on Facebook, “I’m committing to getting this done by Friday. If I don’t, here’s what’s going to happen.” Then just post and let people know if you’ve gotten it done. There are lots of ways you can hold yourself accountable.