“The start-stop of a successful individual is very quick. They might get sick, depressed, demotivated for a while, but then get back on track immediately.”
These last ten days weren’t really mine. The illness and demotivation to one side, I was kind of feeling lost and out of track at the extreme, not reminding myself of my vision and goals at all. I got into that monotone state of life without any of my healthy habits and full of distractions, in which I literally just existed for about ten days.
First, my sleep rhythm was disturbed, then the diet, after that I started to waste the majority of my time online, then I wasn’t feeling any reason or motivation to work at all, then I slowly quit workouts and runs, got lazy, demotivated, inactive, exhausted and finally, after a very long time I got sick.
Despite being aware that this state of life is not suited to my personality, vision, and mission, and I had to immediately quit it, I simply wasn’t able to. There was a strange unwillingness, a barrier. It wasn’t because it was fun to be in such a state of life but rather I completely lost control over my life. But I finally managed to quit it.
To prevent this from happening again, we first have to identify the underlying issues.
In this blog article I will discuss the foundational concepts to stay on track, and how to recover if you lose control and lose your track like I did.
It’s so tragic and interesting how fast human nature tends to forget where we just were, what we were just doing and what we were just thinking about.
I do not talk about a standard “forget” like what you have eaten yesterday for dinner or what thought you just had. I mean a deeper, a metaphysical “forget” where you actually are aware of your initial thoughts, goals and state of feeling but they appear senseless or you contradict them and don’t get the point anymore.
It wasn’t really the case with me, but it certainly was evolving to that. I had my goals and thoughts in mind but could not get motivated to get to work. I somehow lost that inner thirst, desire and natural willingness to hustle. My energy was gone. I just wanted to do nothing at all. My fear was that this state of feeling would be permanent. But I managed to prevent this from happening and this “forget” from conquering me.
But what was the reason at all? Why did I get into such a monotone and inactive phase? And how did I manage to quit this laziness?
First of all, it surely has multiple reasons why and how I got into this inactive and demotivated phase. Bad sleep, bad diet and falling victim to distractions are, according to my observation, the greatest ones.
1. Sleep
Sleep quality is foundational for a sustainable life, which I assume is pretty clear. Yet for me, as an early bird, even though my sleep score was fine, I could not manage to wake up early at all, which is when I accomplish the majority of my tasks and work. The optimal day for me was: waking up around 6-7am, working on the priority of the day till midday, then doing easier tasks till afternoon, and then doing a physical activity. But in this last week, there wasn’t any single day where I managed to sleep before 1-2am; on some days it was even 6-7am when I managed to sleep. So I couldn’t wake up before midday and do anything meaningful, and afternoons I usually spent doing nothing, with the excuse that I already had done nothing. So number 1 priority is, and has to be, the sleep.
2. Diet
Another great reason for my breakdown is of course: the diet. I am a big defender of the idea “you are what you consume”. Whenever I eat something sweet, fatty or unhealthy, I mostly do not want to work or do anything productive. And in these last 10 days, I was receiving very tasty desserts and food, which I mostly couldn’t resist. So my already low motivation due to my poor sleep routine completely crashed with the consumption of unhealthy but tasty food.
3. Distractions
The last one I could think of as a great reason for my loss of control over my life in this last week is that I succumbed to distractions, mainly social media. I just said “you are what you consume”, and didn’t say “[…] what you eat“. So the same concept applies to the consumption of information and content. We human beings have a limited amount of attention and focus ability and have to carefully choose what to spend this resource on. So I did not have any energy or focus on work, after brainlessly scrolling during the day including just before sleep, and messing up both my sleep quality and my ability to focus on something. Most of us often get on our phones without any thought or purpose in mind, but just because it has become a habit.
These are the major factors to focus on in order to stay on track or to fix if you’ve lost complete control like I did.
The “Forget” Wormhole
So we discussed sleep, diet and avoiding distractions (especially social media). Yet I would not have come to this realization without an urge, an inner instinct to quit this phase.
We talked about a deep “forget” that human nature tends toward. Human nature is never sure: we might contradict an idea we were yesterday totally convinced of, or cannot see the underlying purpose of a goal anymore that we had set one week before, or consider a decision as completely pointless that we just made.
I almost had a similar “forget” moment in this phase. I had my goals and mission but couldn’t get myself motivated or wanting to work. However, I prevented this “forget” from happening temporarily and perhaps even making me completely lose interest in my goals and holding me stuck in this phase for a longer period of time.
How did I manage to do so? Very simple but effective: writing my “why”, vision, mission and goals down and reading them continuously. I luckily gained the habit of reviewing my why and goals each and every morning just before the day started.
In this phase, having my goals, why, vision and mission written down and everything from my old self (before those 10 days) saved in my LifeCloud literally saved the day, since it reminded my subconscious mind who I always was, what I was doing and pursuing and what I should be doing right now. My conscious mind always knew this, but my subconscious one apparently had to see it too.
If you know the animation movie “Inside Out”: I said the same thing for our memories but it is also the case for our goals, I’d argue. One continuously has to remind themselves of their goals, vision, and mission so that what they pursue always makes sense and keeps going. So just as the emotions in “Inside Out” remind Riley of her most important memories that she should not “forget”, we also have to remind ourselves of our most important goals, our “why”, our vision and mission that we should not “forget”.
So I managed to get rid of this monotone, inactive, and perhaps a little depressed state of life by reminding myself of my goals and who I actually am, but also by empowering myself with this quote I had heard and was also inspired by back then. I now know that the core values underneath a sustainable rhythm are a good sleep schedule, a good diet, and a daily life with minimal distractions. Yet besides these, reminding oneself of one’s goals also plays a critical role in overcoming such breakdowns and avoiding fatal “forget”s.
