Feeling the Funk: How I’m Choosing to Get Out of My Rut

I was in this funk.

 

I couldn’t pinpoint the very moment that set my drive and inspiration a few steps back, but it happened.

Was it the change of weather?
Was my workload becoming too much?
Was it because I hadn’t devoted much time to my brand?
Was it because I would become a year older?
Was I burnt out?

 

There was not one thing I could complain about. Life was actually descent.
Nah, I’m downplaying it. Life was like Drake’s chorus on Big Sean’s blessings.
Way up I feel blessed.

 

However, the combination of these questions did loom over me like a black cloud. In the midst of feeling this funk, I began listening to The Friend Zone podcast.  It was episode four when HeyFranHey said the following:

 

” It’s easy to not see your progress. We are fragment mentally. When I’m feeling depressed because I’m stuck in the past.  When I feel anxiety, I’m worried about the future. But when I’m stuck in today and just getting ish done as the day comes I’m moving and its fine. When you are in those feelings just remember that you are thinking in the wrong direction. The days that I’m feeling abundant. You are in the NOW.”

 

To help live in the now, I decided to plan my birthday festivities. I wanted to stop thinking about those questions that loomed over me and focus on a new year of life. I knew the very medicine that I needed would be a change of scenery.

 

Therefore, I planned a week off to explore Los Angeles, a city that I wouldn’t mind calling my next home, and I also planned some time for a turn up in Las Vegas to end the weekend.

 

There comes a point in all of our lives when we start to run out of momentum and many times we tend to lose that flame and energy with the change of season and as Q4 approaches.

 

So now that the leaves are changing, the temperature gets cooler and daylight becomes shorter, how do you stay motivated to complete your 2016 goals.

 

For me, a change of scenery was my choice of medicine. While in Los Angeles I set up with meetings with a former mentor, a colleague and a professional who I admired from afar but would now meet face to face. These meetings were necessary as I felt drained. I was pouring up glasses of lemonade for everyone else with no one to fill me back up. My tank was on E and going across the country helped me regain the fuel that I was missing. My LA visit gave me a fresh perspective, but ultimately it reminded me that self-care comes first. The first step to self-care is admitting that you don’t always have it together all the time and that you may need help. It’s okay to have some one pour into you with their prayers, wisdom, perspective and encouragement.  It’s healthy to be vulnerable because you don’t have to have it together all the time.

 

I needed to be reminded of my mission.

I needed to be reminded to have fun.
I needed  to be reminded that timing is everything.
I needed to be humbled.
I needed to be told that it’s okay to move at my own pace.

 

My trip wasn’t all business. I made sure to have fun and with the hospitality from SLS, Las Vegas was the perfect place for the turn up which allowed me to dance away my stress and aggressions with friends who kept a smile on my face.

 

Now that I have returned to the Big Apple, I’m motivated and ready to end this year with a bang and to make 2017 the best it can be.

 

Whether its church, a vacation, a spa date, exercise, family time or a social media hiatus as your choice to get rid of the funk, it’s necessary to get out of your rut. Self-care is the best remedy.  If exercise helps you shake the blues, change up your routine and go on a hike or take a run in an unfamiliar neighborhood. If you don’t have the money to turn up in Vegas then rent a car and enjoy some fall foliage on some of the America’s most scenic highways and roads.  Stop, take a deep breath and take the load off of your back. The only way you can be good for anyone else is if you are good with yourself.