Abstract:

I often say that we do too much and we’ve normalised it so much that we don’t think it’s much at all. But sometimes, we objectivey don’t do a lot and have a lot of time – and still don’t pursue our passion, hobby, or interest.

It sounds odd. Why wouldn’t you want to do something you enjoy, that makes you happy? This is when people call themselves lazy, useless, or plain weird.

Your mission today is to learn why you’re not lazy, and how to find the motivation to do what you love.

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Background: It’s not laziness

As mentioned above – and stated many times before – you’re not lazy for lacking motivation. There are several possible reasons for why you’re feeling like this, and none of them include “lazy” or “weird”. These are a few:

• A lot of people do too much. They aim to fill every moment of every day with activity, be it work, household, family, friends, exercise, going out, passions and hobbies.

• Those who don’t do too much, still may also be emotionally exhausted from media use, which plunges you from outrage, to amusement, to compassion, to anger in quick succession.

• Almost nobody gets enough rest. You’re supposed to spend over 40% of your time resting, including sleep. That’s what a healthy mind and soul need.

• If you’re neurodivergent or have suffered trauma, you might battle with executive dysfunction. It’s got nothing to do with laziness, and therapy can help enormously.

Task: Get motivated to pursue your passion

I put together a 3-day program that requires a maximum of one day advance planning. The planning goes into clearing space for these three evenings. Then you can get going:

Day 1: Rest

For once, take 40% of your time to rest, as you really should every day. Just find out how it feels. 40% is just over 9 ½ hours, so get enough sleep and when you’re home from work, put up your feet and do absolutely nothing. No TV/radio! Just rest.

Day 2: Play around

When’s the last time you did something that served no practical purpose (apart from social media doomscrolling)? Do it today. Plan what passion or hobby you’ll pursue. Read up on your interest. Use the internet, but for research purposes. Take notes, doodle, have fun.

Day 3: Take two (hours)

Reserve 2 hours solely for your passion, hobby or interest. You don’t even have to pursue it, you just can’t do anything else. Spend time thinking about, reading about, and if possible, pursuing your hobby or interest.

The twist is that you’ll now repeat these three days ad infinitum. If your house threatens to turn into a dump, hire a cleaner. The more dedicated time you carve out for rest, play and passions, the easier it’ll get.

Transcript

This is the transcript of what’s spoken in the video. You can also find this in the form of subtitles on the bottom right of the video itself.

Motivation can be fickle

How come you sometimes don't feel motivated to do something you actually love?

Hello, welcome to this week's Wild Spirits News. My name is Sibylle, and I help women between 40 and 60 to do lots of what they love and to find their unique life purpose. And if any of this sounds interesting, check out my website wildspiritscoaching.com.

Today's subject is "3 days to become motivated to pursue your passion" or hobby or interest. Now, I often say that we do entirely too many things in our lives, and we have normalized this to the extent that we don't even see them as very much at all. However, there are also situations where we objectively don't do that much and we might still not be motivated to pursue a passion, to do what we love. And that's the reason why so many people think that they are lazy or useless or just weird. It does sound weird! Why wouldn't you pursue your passion? But there are very good reasons for this, and your mission today is to learn how to find the motivation to do what you love in 3 days.

Background: It’s not laziness

The background to this is called 'It's not laziness'. As mentioned above and honestly, as I've stated many times before, you're not lazy for lacking the motivation. There are many reasons why you might not be motivated, and none of them have anything to do with laziness. Here are a few of those possible reasons.

• A lot of people, like I said, simply do too much. There's this idea that we need to fill every minute of every day with activity: work, housework, family, friends, exercise, going out... It just never ends, and human beings are not designed to be active all the time.

• Those who don't do too much might still be exhausted emotionally. I've just written an article about this, by the way, which I'll link in the description below. Basically, emotional exhaustion often comes from media use - social media, but not only, it could come from the TV or the radio as well. So on the media, we get flooded by emotions. We might be outraged about some politician. The next moment, we laugh about some joke, then the next moment we feel deep compassion for an acquaintance who's just lost a loved one, and another minute later, we're angry at something. So this is a quick succession of strong emotions, very different strong emotions, and that can leave us absolutely exhausted. And that's not a state that is conducive to being motivated to do anything.

• The next point is that almost nobody gets enough rest. Did you know that you're supposed to spend over 40% of your time - I think it was 43% - resting? Almost nobody does that.

• And the last point is, if you are neurodivergent or have any sort of trauma in your life, in your past, you might battle executive dysfunction. Now this goes far beyond the scope of coaching; very mild executive dysfunction can actually, coaching can be very successful there, but anything that goes a little deeper, you need a therapist. And it's very treatable so I warmly recommend you do get therapy for this, because this is not - again, nothing to do with laziness and it is treatable.

Task: Get motivated to pursue your passion

This brings me to the task which is 'Get motivated to pursue your passion'. I've put together a 3-day program which requires a maximum of one day of advance planning, and this advance planning consists of clearing these three evenings, the following three evenings, so no housework, nothing, right? And then you do the following.

Day 1 is called 'Rest', and on Day 1 you for once actually get those 43% of rest. Just see how it feels. Now, 43% or 40% is over 9 1/2 hours. So let's say you sleep for 7 hours, then you'll still have 2 1/2 hours, over 2 1/2 hours that you'll need to rest. So when you come home from work, put up your feet and don't do anything at all, no TV, no radio, just rest. Take a nap if you have to. Once again, see how you feel. That is Day 1.

Day 2 is called 'Play around'. When was the last time you did something that had no practical purpose whatsoever? This is what we're doing today. And since this is about passions, play around by thinking, daydreaming about your passion. Look something up, read up about it, go down a rabbit hole of research, use the internet, but for research, not for social media, right, to learn things. Make notes, doodle, have fun, right? This is about, this is is about playing around.

And Day 3 is called 'Take two', and that means take two hours. So on Day 3, you need to block off two hours - so not half an hour here, half an hour there, it needs to be a block of consecutive two hours - for your passion or hobby or interest. Now you don't even need to pursue your passion, but if you don't, you need to - again, the the rule is, you can't do anything else, you can't do anything other than your passion. So you can think about it, again, maybe research it if you want to, and if at all possible, then pursue your passion, hobby or interest. That's what you do on Day 3.

The Twist

Now the twist is that you repeat these three days over and over and over again. This is what your life should be like. The more you clear space for rest, playing around and your passions, the easier it'll get, and you'll find motivation is no problem at all anymore. And if in the course of this your house begins to resemble a dump, then hire a cleaner. There are more important things than the dust on your shelves, and your joy and your life are definitely one of those things that are more important.

So I hope this video has been useful. If so, then leave me a comment below the video or reply to the email that you got the link to the video with. And if, like I said, if this sounds interesting, then go to my website wildspiritscoaching.com and you can also sign up for the Wild Spirits Newsletter/Love Letter there, which is a 100% spam free, one email per week, where I always include some actually useful information for you. I'd love to have you there. Have a beautiful week and I hope I'll talk to you soon. Bye!