Lethargy to Lit!: Ask This One Question To Make The Shift And Reignite Your Spark

Their spark had gone. It just wasn't there anymore. They were in this lethargy and they hadn't even really noticed it. They just noticed that they felt heavy, but they just got up every day and just kept going through the motions. And this was that opportunity to stop, take a step back, reflect, and really see what was going on. You're listening to the Circle C Project Foreign welcome to the Triple CE Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live lifeless. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the big Lord, rock hat life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. Sit now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. What's up? Welcome to episode 93 of the Triple C Project with me, your host, Ryan Spence, author of the Triple C Method. Gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life lit. Get it from all your favorite bookstores. And when I wrote that book, when I was sending it to beta readers to read to give me their feedback before I finished the the final manuscript, a really good friend of mine who loved the book and gave a great review and all of that good stuff, but he suggested to me that for the title, including lit in the title, wasn't I worried that that term might be a bit dated in time, as slang does? Because it's one of those, those terms, they're sort of street slang terms really lit and language changes, right? And I thought it was a valid comment, but I was very clear that that's what I wanted. I wanted to keep it as lit. And the reason for that is when you say the word lit, for me at least it conjures up this image of a fire, right? And if you see where I write on social media, on my website or whatever, I always use the fire emoji next to it because that's what it, that's what it denotes to me, this image of a fire. In order to have a fire, you need to have a spark. It starts with a spark. And the idea of living lit is that you have this spark which builds into this roaring flame and you're fire. I mean, you're on fire. Your life is on fire. Everything around you is on fire. It just feels amazing and warm. And powerful. And so lit is so much more to me than just the. The slang. It's the imagery as well. But in order to have a spark, you've got to have. You've got to have the good conditions to have a spark. And you. You can't create a spark. And that spark can't turn into a fire if it's damp, if it's overwhelmed by debris, by external factors beyond itself. And so to carry this imagery further, this analogy forward, when you are. If you imagine yourself in a. In a forest and you've got a pile of twigs and you're trying to light it, but the damp, and they're probably covered by leaves and other debris that won't burn, and you just can't create a spark. So you can't create a fire. You can't get the thing lit. For me, that stage in life is. That's the state of lethargy. And that's where I found myself in those wilderness years of my time in Big Law. And I know that that's where a lot of my clients find themselves, too. That's why they come to work with me. And so in this episode, I'm going to talk a bit about lethargy, what it means to be lit in life, how you get from lethargy to lit. And I'm going to share with you one question that you can ask yourself to help you to start to think more deeply about how to make that shift. And it's a question that sounds quite simple, but I asked it of my client recently. I'd asked it before, but I asked it of a client recently. And the process that that client went through and where we got to just made me think it's something that I really should want to share on the podcast, because it's something that you can do yourself. Okay, so lethargy, I used a bit of the analogy, but let's talk about it in a bit in real terms. What does it mean to be in that state of lethargy now? For me, lethargy is that feeling of. Of heaviness. You know, that feeling like where you just. Everything just feels heavy. It's kind of like you're wading through treacle or through quicksand. And I call it a kind of mental quicksand, because so often your body is moving, it's kind of going through the motions, but your mind is just so clouded and so foggy and just so heavy. Right. And you consistently feel like you're in a funk, like your mojo's gone. And you wonder if you're ever going to get it back the longer that this feeling goes on. And that's how I felt in my latter years in Big Law, because I knew something wasn't right. I knew it wasn't working. I knew looking ahead at the life that was waiting for me if I continued where I was, I knew that that wasn't what I wanted. But I had no idea if or how I could change that. And so that just sent me deeper and deeper into this funk, into this state of lethargy. So is this something that you're feeling now or something that you felt, if you have, then you probably really getting the image, the picture of what I'm, what I'm saying here. So I'm going to leave that one and move on to lit. And so what does it mean to be lit? And I talk a little bit about this in the book the Triple C Method, but I'm going to use a different analogy here just to kind of really get the point across in a different way now for me, I love, I love my coffee. I need my coffee, particularly first thing in the morning. And so when one of the things to me, one of the things that brings me that feeling of feeling lit, is that first sip of coffee in the morning. Coffee's just brewed, it's quiet, there's no one else around. I can look it out in my garden or preferably be on a holiday on a balcony, looking out as the sun rises. And you know, first of all, there's just that familiar aroma as it glides slides up through the nose and it just gives that warm and that fuzzy feeling, you know, just prepping you for, for what's going to come next. Because you've been here before and your hands clutch the coffee cup. I mean, even if it has a handle. Wrapping your hands around the coffee cup is just kind of just amazing. And you feel the heat travel from the cup to the palms and then just continue through the hands and the arms. And just that warmth just permeates round your body. And then the piece de resistance. You, you take that cup, you raise it to your lips and you just hold it and you feel the, the, the heat of the cup on, as it connects with your lower lip and then your upper lip. And as you close your eyes, there's just this blissful feeling that washes over you like a nice hot shower as the black nectar just hits your tongue, slides down the back of your throat, and that's heaven. Okay, I drifted off. I drifted off a little bit there. But when I'm talking about that, like I can feel and I can see all of these things, things happening. And I just know that, yes, I'm going to feel amazing once that first sip hits. And that feeling, that feeling of contentedness, that feeling of excitement, of joy, that's what it means to, to be lit, to live lit. And the idea of living life is trying to encompass more of those moments into your life so they become the norm rather than the exception. Okay, so for you, it may be coffee, it may not, it may be something else. But think about that thing, all those things in your life that give you that same feeling of excitement, of joy that you know that anytime you think about it or you do it, you're just going to feel amazing. And that, that's your, that's your state of litness. That's the state that you are trying to cultivate, trying to create more of. Okay, so if you're in that state of lethargy that I talked about before, that funk, that heaviness, how do you get from there to a state of litness? And there's no one way. And in the book, the triple C method is really a guide to do that through the stories that I tell and the exercises that I share. So there are many ways that you can do that over a sustained period of time. And it's not an easy process, but if you want to do it relatively quickly, just to kind of get that short term shift, then how do you make that, how do you figure out what you need to do to get from that state of lethargy to that state of being lit? And the way that you can do that or one of the ways that you can do that is by asking yourself this simple, what does my soul need right now? That's right. What does my soul need right now? Okay, now you're probably thinking, what the hell are you talking about? I don't know, you know, like, you talking about souls and what it needs? Like, I don't know, like literally I'm trying to just get through my day. But I want to share a short story about a client that I worked with recently and were in that process where they were in this state of lethargy, they're in this funk, in this heaviness, in the moment, sat there in the session and I asked them that question, okay, what does your soul need right now? Because we're going around in circles and they were complaining about lots of things that were going on and that was all cool, but it wasn't getting them any further. And I felt it was time to stop and to figure out, what do we do next? Where do we go from here? So I asked the question, what does your soul need right now? And then I followed up and what can you do to give it what it needs? And then I waited and I said nothing, which is a common occurrence in my sessions, because I want to ask the question and I want to hear the answer. I don't want to fill silence and give the client a way out. Because it's by doing that depth of work to get to the answer that the change happens, that the shifts occur. And so as I waited, I observed. I observed the discomfort that they felt not immediately having an answer. Because when you're used to being seen as being successful, as getting the grades and getting the promotions and the bonuses and working on the big fancy deals and all of that kind of stuff, there's kind of an expectation that you have of yourself, that you should just know things, you should just be able to just do things there and then. But that's not reality. And you might know the work, but you don't necessarily always know yourself because your work and your life has taken over and the societal conditioning has removed a lot of the knowledge of self that you otherwise would have had. So this is a process. This is the process that we go through when we work together. And so I also then observed the frustration that they felt as they were trying to persuade me to move on. Because it was uncomfortable to start thinking about this. It was taking them to places that maybe they hadn't been before. But I waited and I said nothing because I know how this plays out. And as I watched them go through this cycle of emotions, I then saw. I saw the thing. I saw that shift as that metaphorical light bulb appeared above their head. They got it. They knew in that moment exactly what it was that they were missing that their soul needed. And for them, what their soul needed was joy. They'd forgotten how to have fun, how to bring some joy into their life because they'd been pushing for so long. They'd been on deal after deal after deal and they'd been sacrificing everything for their career. You know, they'd barely been seeing their kids, barely been seeing their friends, barely been seeing their partner. I mean, hardly had any time for any sort of well being or self care or exercise. And all of that had led to them being almost a shell of their former self. And their spark had gone. It just wasn't there anymore. They were in this lethargy and they hadn't even really noticed it. They just noticed that they felt heavy, but they just got up every day and just kept going through the motions. And this was that opportunity to stop, take a step back, reflect, and really see what was going on. And just by asking that question, what does your soul need right now? It slammed on the brakes and it forced them to think. And I gave them the space as long as they needed to really get to the answer to that question. And once they realized that it was joy, that's what had been missing. It'd be missing for so long, they'd forgotten how to. How to have fun, how to bring joy into their life on a regular basis. Then we could start to do the work. We could start to explore ways that they could bring that joy back. And the thing about this question, what does your soul need right now? There could be big, grand things that it needs. You know, your. When thinking about joy, your soul could need a huge two week luxury holiday, a big blowout. But that might not be possible right now. Which is why the question is, what does your soul need right now? It needs that. But really what it needs is it doesn't need that per se. It needs the feeling. It needs what that will give you. And so if you don't have the finances, the time, the energy, the resources to get that thing now, how else can you cultivate some of that feeling now? Because we want to get to the thing that your soul needs. If the thing that your soul needs is joy, then how can you bring that joy into your life right now in a way that is sustainable, in a way that works for now? Because if you put it off and say, okay, my soul needs joy, but I can't get that now, so I'm going to pin that joy on some distant thing in the future. Chances are that's never going to happen. And even if it does, you still got that entire period when you're just miserable and that's no way to live. You're literally in survival mode and we want to get you to thrival mode. That's what I want to do. That's the work that I want to do with you. And that's obviously where you want to be too. You want to feel alive, you want to live. And so going back to this client, and as they began to remember times when they felt joy, because that's what we did, you want joy. Okay, well, what does joy mean? Tell me about a time when you felt joy. And as they began to live those moments and talk about those moments. There was a huge shift in their demeanor, the way that they sat, the way that their face looked. This big smile started to come up, and it was the first time in a while that I'd seen that look on their face. I'd seen their body shift in that way. And when I pointed it out, they noticed it too. And they realized just how much they had missed joy. They had craved it and not even really known it until that moment. So we brainstormed and we got a huge list of ways that they could start to bring that joy in on a daily basis, not even taking a huge amount of time, ultimately then building up to kind of bigger things when they did have the time to do those things, the resources to do those things. But by remembering what it was like to feel joy and by recognizing that the joy was what their soul needed, it needed feeding. They could start to put in place a practice habit, strategies to ensure that their soul was fed that joy on a consistent basis. So that they never felt into the bottomless pit of despair that was lethargy. Doesn't mean that they never felt bad. Does it mean that they never felt exhausted or stressed. But what it meant was that they were at least still feeding their soul daily. So they never allowed that to fall to dangerous levels. And for me, recently, I've had to ask myself this question as well and really listen to what my soul was telling me. And my soul had been telling me for a while, really, that it wants to. Wants me to get back and teach yoga. I really missed teaching yoga, but I. I took. I stopped for a while. I moved back to the uk. I taught for a year and then I stopped for various reasons, including the studio closed down. And I just kind of wanted to reevaluate my relationship and how I wanted to do it. But then the opportunity came up, the end of last year to start teaching again. And I've got. Okay. I felt I was ready. And when I taught that first class at the end of February, at the end of that class, I realized that this is what had been missing. And it wasn't that I didn't have spark. I mean, I love the work that I do and I had a lot of good things going on. But I kind of now, looking back, see it as, you know, you have those gas hobs on the stove and you often have four rings. And it was kind of like three other rings were firing for me. But there was that fourth ring which wasn't quite turned up to the max. Yet. And then I taught yoga and suddenly they were all on full, all blaring out this amazingly warm, comforting heat. And I now got a regular gig teaching again. And I just feel that that spark, that, that spark there has just been reignited for me. It's kind of adding to this feeling of litness in my life. So that's what I found. That's what my soul needed. And by giving my soul what it needed, well, by listening and recognizing what it needed, then giving it to it, it's impacted my life in a positive way. And so what I invite you to do following listening to this episode is to take some time with this question for yourself. So sit. Sit in silence and stillness for as long as you have a couple of minutes, maybe, just pondering this question. What does my soul need right now? And really listening in, going inwards and seeing what feelings come up for you. Does your soul need joy? Does it need rest? Does it need a challenge? Does it need stimulation? Does it need connection? There are so many things that might come up for you. And once you recognize what, what it is, that thing that will just hit you. But, ah, that's it, that's what I need right now. Then you can start to brainstorm the different ways that you can get it, the ways that you can make those things happen. Small ways, medium ways, large ways. And start to do what you need to do to ensure that your soul continues to be fed exactly what it needs. And that, as I say, will stop you languishing in the despair of lethargy and allow you to start to live your life a little more lit. And that's what I'm trying to do for you with this podcast, is to get you from lethargy to let. Because life's too short to be languishing lethargy. Life's too short to feel like you're drowning in this mental quicksand. Life's too short to feel like you're trapped in a box inside a mental cell that you can't get out of. You need to feed your soul what it needs to allow yourself to feel alive, to feel excited, to feel lit. So what does your soul need right now and what can you do to get it? Ask yourself and send me a message. Let me know what it needs and what you're going to do to make that happen. Email@heyamryspence.com or head over to the Socials Instagram, iam underscore Ryan Spence or LinkedIn. Just Ryan Spence. You can find me there. All the links are in the description of the show. So yeah, go ahead, join. Drop me a line. Tell me, what does your soul need? What did you take away from this episode? What's a key insight? And what what will you do differently now that you've listened to this episode? I love to hear how this, how the show impacts you because that's why I make the show. I've been where you are. I've been in the depths of that lethargy, not feeling that you can get out of it, not feeling that there's a way out, feeling there's a way to do anything differently. And I want to share what I've learned on that in that journey, on that quest that I'm still on so that you can maybe not stay there as long as I did. And if you're looking to get that spark back to reignite that spark, and you want to kind of see what that feels like, then you should come and try one of my one off find you'd Spark sessions. Find your Spark is a one off one to one session where we together for 75 minutes help you find your spark, help you to figure out your your mission and start to plan out some steps to help to get you there. You can find out more by heading to subscribe IO Find your Spark Again, the link is in the description of the show or just send me a DM the word Spark on socials and I'll shoot the deets over to you and help you find your spark so you don't have to languish in that lethargy any longer. Okay, that's it for me this week. Thank you as always for being here. If you found anything valuable or insightful from the show, please share it with a friend and drop me a review. Reviews are really helpful for me and they're helpful for people who are looking for new shows to help them in their own life and help them move forward. So really appreciate if you could do that for me. And until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project. In the spirit of the Triple C, here's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcast.com Triple C or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how this show can help them. Second thing you can do Share Share this episode Share a previous episode with a friend. Someone who you feel the best benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three, head to iamryspence.com get on the mailing list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to. My new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here. And until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.