#81: 3 Steps to Find Your Center In Times of Frustration or Lack of Motivation

So I'm on a walk right now. It's a beautiful Sunday morning here, or technically, yeah, it's still morning. It's 11:49 AM. Beautiful Sunday morning here in North Florida, and I'm on a walk. I'm talking through my iPhone right now, and I think the quality is okay. I did a little test, think the quality is all right, and I just figured why wait to get back to my office and then, you know, things come up and work and house and kids and all the other things, why wait to share what is on my heart right now when I could just open up the, uh, voice memo app and get it out right now? So something that I have been thinking about is coming back to your center and the importance of finding, one, what your center is and what that means for you, because it's different for everyone. But how do we ground ourselves in times of stress in just times of, you know, work or life or whatever. You know, things feel off-center. They feel off-balance. Maybe you can't find your motivation. Maybe you have the motivation, yet you don't feel like you're moving forward. Maybe you feel cluttered, or like everything is just in like disarray. So how do you find your center? Where do you come back to, to find your home, to find your space, to find— what's true for you and helping you get back into your highest, to help you get back into the frequency. And we talk about this a lot with our clients, but the frequency of success and the frequency of you making your best decisions and the frequency of you operating from a place of, I am moving towards my goal and I will never go backwards, rather than I am in a place of scarcity or I am in a place of survival or I can't do this and I don't know how that will happen, et cetera, et cetera. And instead it's, okay, I get it. This is not the most ideal situation. This is hard right now and I'm moving forward and there's a solution and I'm figuring it out and I'm building my skill sets that are going to help me be a better leader, better business owner, better human being. So a couple of things is number one, you have to identify what your center is. So you have to identify, How do you get back into that place? Now, this is different for everyone. So this could be, you know, um, I'll speak personally. This could be going on a walk. So simple, so simple, going on a walk. This could be you just getting outside and putting on your, your sneakers and just going for a walk in the sunshine. It is so sunny today. It's so beautiful. It's Probably, I don't know, like 84, 83, something like that. It's perfect weather outside right now. And I feel literally like I'm coming alive right now. And I'm reminding myself that, oh yeah, walking and being outside and being in the fresh air, like this is such— this is one of those things that just bring me back to myself. So maybe that's for you. Maybe finding your center, finding your your space to operate in your frequency of success. Maybe that is reading a book. Maybe it's at the end of your day, you sit down, you have some reading time. I actually have a client who starts his morning by reading. He wakes up at 5:00 AM to get in his reading time. Maybe that's your center. Maybe that's how you start your day. Okay? You just have to find what is that thing for you. It could be multiple things., you know, it could be going on a walk, it could be working out at the gym, it could be, you know, uh, listening to music, it could be writing, it could be playing pickleball. You know, it's different for everyone. So number one, you have to identify what that is that brings you peace or that brings you back into alignment with who you are. And it may not— it probably won't— it will not most likely have anything to do with work or productivity or even making money. I mean, it may— those things may help you, but help you achieve those things. But I'm pretty sure I just got catcalled. Wow. Anyways, um, you want to find out what that thing is for you. Okay, now the next thing you have to do is you have to be able to— so number 2, you have to be able to identify how do you know when you're off-center? How do you know whenever you are off balance? How do you know whenever you are in misalignment with your future moving self, with that person of yourself that you want to be. So again, speaking personally, if I am off-center, it channels through frustration. So I will feel a sense of frustration, and it's not anger. It is just I feel very disorganized. I feel as if— and I may not even be in a physical sense, but like I feel frustrated. I feel like there are so many things in my mind that I either want to accomplish or I want to complete or I want to get started on, and I don't have the time to do it. So for me, time and frustration come through, and it's like I don't have enough time, I don't have enough space, and then I feel frustrated to do these things. And so it can even feel counterproductive. Oh, well, you're going to go take 30 minutes out of your day to go for a walk whenever you could be doing the thing that it is that you want to do or doing the work or completing the thing or whatever. But I know that if I'm in this state of frustration, I'm definitely not operating from the frequency of success, first of all. And second of all, my focus is going to be complete crap. It's going to be complete crap. I am probably going to kind of twiddle on my computer and look at my 17 different tabs that I have open and jump from thing to thing. And then I'm going to be even more frustrated. At the end of the day because I did not complete what I needed to complete. So you have to identify when you are off balance. Now, this could also manifest in being snippy or snappy with your coworkers or with your kids or your partner because of frustration or because of misalignment. So maybe it manifests in how you show up in your relationships and your life. Maybe being off balance is like you're craving sweet foods, you're craving like junk, and you are finding yourself like going to the pantry throughout the day just to have something to eat. And that is often a symbol of, number one, if you're actually doing that, it's actually a symbol of not getting enough sleep. So ask yourself, okay, how much sleep am I getting? Because if you're reaching for the junk and especially like the sweets and stuff, that is almost always a symbol that you're not getting enough adequate rest. So, you know, maybe it manifests in what you're— the fuel that you're putting into your body. You know, it's different for everyone. So what makes you feel off-center? Okay, how do you know that you're off-center? All right, and then number 3, whenever you're in this place, I want you to think about who do I surround myself with? Where do I need to be spatially to help me get back to my center? So, you know, I'm sure you've heard the saying like, oh, you are a cumulation of the 5 people that you spend the most time with. You know, I think that that can kind of— I don't know if I totally agree with that, like in 100%, like black and white. I do think that it's definitely a contribution to that. But just circumstances may not always perfectly line up with that. But I do think that it's important. To be aware of it and to be aware of who you're spending your time with and to be aware of the rooms that you're in and be aware of the things that you're listening to from others and be aware of where you're spending your time. I actually had a really great conversation with a friend this past week. We went to a concert and it was like 12 o'clock in the morning, like 1 in the morning, we were driving back. It was like an hour and a half away from my house. We were driving back and We had this really great conversation because she lives in my hometown, actually. So she's from my hometown. She is very goal-oriented, very ambitious, like really like a stand-up, like, just she wants better for herself. And she's talking about like, okay, like, how do I, you know, continue to build? And we're just having like a really good conversation. And the number one piece of advice I gave her and that I want to give you in finding your center is you have to put yourself in the places and in the spaces to where growth is the norm, to where developing yourself to be the best that you can be is the norm, where you are around other people that inspire you, where you're not the smartest person in the world— in the room, where you're not the most ambitious, you're not the most experienced, you're not the most qualified. Like, you have to put yourself in these places and spaces where you are in, where it is conducive to growth, okay? Because we are like plants. We're like plants. And I'm walking around, it's a beautiful spring day, and like everything is just so green around me. And it's like a plant. We have to be in a place to where we're receiving sunlight, we're receiving fertilization, we're receiving water, where we have fresh air around us. Like we have to be in those places. In those spaces, because if not, we will be browning and we will be wilting, or we will just be stagnant. Okay? I had a houseplant that literally, like, it stayed alive for years. It was one of those, uh, it's like a pothos, and it stayed alive for years, but it never grew. I had it inside on my kitchen counter. Um, no, actually, that wasn't the one. I had one in the living room in like this pot of soil, but it never grew. And I know why. I actually know why. I don't even have this plant anymore, but I know why. It's because I never change the soil. Like, all these years I never changed it. I would water it, but it just really didn't have the nutrients that it needed to grow. It had— the sunlight was fine. I just didn't put new soil in the pot, so I just didn't have new nutrients, new soil, new fuel for it to grow. So ask yourself, what new soil, what new fertilizer, what new nutrients am I giving myself to grow, to come back to who I am, to be inspired? How am I conducing my own growth? How am I encouraging my own growth? Because at the end of the day, it's on you. You know, it's not on me. It's not on your partner. It's not on your friends. It's on you. It's on you to put yourself in those places and to be responsible for your own growth, your future, the way that you show up in the world, the way that you show up in your work. It's on you. No one else. Okay? So those 3 things, that's what I want you to think about. And I want you to just really lean into that. We've got the spring energy. It is Q2 of the year. We're just moving along. And no excuses, you know? No excuses. Okay? So have a great day. I will see you in the next episode.