Path to Your Destiny

Everybody has had one of those days where “nothing seems to go right”. You might call them “one of those days”, my desired term is “lackluster days”! “Lackluster” literally means “lacking enthusiasm”. On a normal day, you have a high amount of energy and brilliance, and you’re dedicated to working towards your goals. On “one of those days” - lackluster days - you have no enthusiasm. You have no brilliance, no shine, no vision. You feel dreary, your day is dull.

Trying to get any work accomplished on a lackluster day is like trying to actively listen to nails on a chalkboard for hours on end. Nothing worthwhile seems to get accomplished. You fiddle around with a task or two here and there, you procrastinate beyond belief, you take naps when you should be working - in a nutshell, you do everything in your power to keep you from working on any of your goals.

How do you overcome a lackluster day so you don’t continue to feel down and depressed? First you have to get to the source of your lackluster day; then you have to consciously fix the broken source to repair your enthusiasm. (It sounds simple in theory, but it’s not so simple in practice!)

Why do lackluster days happen?

Is your motivation sapped? Both internal and external motivation can wildly vary day to day, depending on your mood. Some days the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow feels like it’s enough to keep you amazingly productive for a month; other days you couldn’t care less about how those end rewards look. Low motivation = a lackluster day.

Do you have clear goals along with detailed plans to accomplish those goals? If your outside world is totally unfocused, your inner thoughts are going to reflect that to a fault. Having a plethora of goals and plans to work on can be wonderful sometimes - projects are a cure for boredom! - but unclear goals with messy planning to boot cause more damage than good. People, including myself, love to set up projects with a clear path to accomplishment. It makes for a smooth sail. But when the plans hit the fan and easily crumble under pressure, the end result is stress on yourself. Fuzzy goals with skimpy plans = a lackluster day.

Are you not getting enough sleep (causing you to feel tired), did you sleep too much, or are you getting sick? Obviously, not getting enough sleep (or even getting too much sleep) saps at your energy. You feel lethargic and like a sloth, almost incapable of getting any real work done due to tiredness. In the same vein, getting sick will plague your body with a multitude of ailments - who doesn’t know what it feels like to get the flu? No energy + sickness = a lackluster day.

Do you just not care about your projects? Honestly! If you feel overworked, overstressed, and just plain awful, why would you even care about your goals and plans? High motivation, detailed planning, and adequate sleep provide the energy, but you have to care about what you’re doing. Working too much overtime and feeling inundated with stress are the two main things that will chip away at how much you care about your projects. Huge workload + too much stress + less than rosy outlook = a total lackluster day.

What do you do on a lackluster day?

Relax! Take a deep breath, push your nonessential tasks to the side, and take a break from your life.

When you encounter a lackluster day, a day where nothing seems to be going right and you feel at your wit’s end, take it as a sign. Your body and mind is sending you a clear message - “Hold on, buddy! Something’s not right here! Slow down, take it easy for a little while.”

Figure out why you’re having a lackluster day. Lay in bed for 20 minutes and just think about the reason you feel unmotivated and so down. Or better yet, journal about your thoughts and feelings. Take a walk outdoors, if that’s something you enjoy. Take an honest look at yourself; get to the root of the problem. Are you having a lackluster day because you aren’t treating your body as well as you should? Or is the day caused by feeling overloaded with goals and plans, and you feel ambivalence about what you should be doing? Do you need to readjust your focus to find better motivation - would that cure your lackluster day? Or is the answer “none of the above”, and the source of your lackluster day doesn’t even come close to what’s listed above? (There’s a good chance of that!)

Feeling lousy is often your brain telling you “Hey, something isn’t right here. Take a breather! Listen to what we’re trying to tell you - we seriously know what we’re saying!” Take listen when those feelings happen. Work through them, and before you know it, your lackluster day will pass to a new, fresh day of hope and encouragement.

A few weeks ago I stumbled on an article about solving problems with a list of 100. The “list of 100″ is a fairly simple concept: you give yourself a topic or question, and you brainstorm 100 answers to that problem. Thinking up solutions to a list of 100 kicks your mind into thinking in unfamiliar patterns - the first few answers are easy, the next few answers are hard, and then the last answers come easier because you end up breaking out of your Comfort Zone of Thinking. Breaking out of your thinking box allows you to put together novel, interesting solutions to problems that are bugging you, and more often than not those solutions you dream up will be the ones that work the best.

Does a list of 100 work? Absolutely! And incredibly well, at that. I have a few tips that I use to make the list of 100 even more effective as a brainstorming tool - by applying these to your list of 100, you may become even more creative and think up of better solutions. (Before reading these tips, it’ll help if you read the original article here first!)

• Throw in a few restrictions. Suppose you have a blog you want to publicize, but whenever you write your list of 100 publicity methods, you start thinking too broadly and the list becomes a mess. Instead of a vague list of 100 (e.g., “100 Ways to Advertise My Blog”), think in smaller, more restricted terms. Perhaps you can write a list of 100 ways to advertise your blog only through other blogs, or 100 ways to advertise your blog using solely social media websites. By restricting your list of 100, you narrow down your ideas; your thinking becomes more clear and focused.
• Make your topic novel and interesting. If you’re trying to create a list of 100 on an incredibly boring or trite topic, switch it up a bit. Your brain loves to think in patterns and ruts as it cuts down on thinking time. If you’re trying to brainstorm on a topic that’s been done to death (e.g., “100 Ways to Sleep Better”) your brain will automatically start throwing out solutions that you’ve heard before - because you’ve heard them *all* before! Rephrase the topic to make it more interesting (e.g., “100 Ways to NOT Sleep Better”), and you’ll have an easier time coming up with new solutions.
• Having trouble thinking of solutions? Rephrase the list topic. If you’re having difficulty trying to make the list work for you, completely rewrite the topic. Keep the topic along the same lines, but reword it so you look at the problem from a different angle. For example, instead of “100 Ways I Can Eat Healthier”, why not write “100 Tips I Would Give to Others to Eat Healthier”? One perspective is focused on you, the other perspective is focused on others - depending on which list you choose to brainstorm with, you might get two totally different answers.

Try a list of 100 today! What obstacles are you currently facing that could be solved by brainstorming up 100 creative solutions?