- It's not always easy, but you got this.
(calm music)
What's up socials?
Welcome back to Amy TV.
If you're like most people, you're not perfect.
Actually, that would make you like all people.
None of us are perfect, it doesn't matter how many times
you've tried to wake up early or change your routine
or quit a crappy habit or do something
that's gonna make you feel more productive,
it doesn't matter how many times you try to refine that,
it doesn't matter how many times you sucked at it,
all of those people, whoever have any of those things occur
at any time, which is everybody, is going to have
a situation where they do not feel motivated.
I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that every single time
I post a video on my channel it's something
that I'm able to do 100% of the time all the time
and it's just like fabulosity over here.
I mean, it's a little fabulous over here
but I'm not perfect, so that's why it's not
really surprising to me when I get this question,
a lot of the time when I have so many ideas,
things that maybe you're willing to try
to get more done, be more productive,
go after some form of success, but have a little bit
of an issue on the motivational side.
And then I hear from those people hey,
what do you do if you're just not feeling that motivated?
That is totally and completely normal,
and I actually have a few things that I'm,
I'm not, I don't know if I'm consciously doing them.
I'm not like oh, let me grab my I'm not motivated
right now checklist because if I'm not motivated
right now I don't want a checklist.
Like come on.
But there are things that I am consciously observing
that I do when I'm in a less motivated period
or if I'm in a rut, that allows me to feel okay
about what's happening at that moment,
and makes me realize that there is going to be
a better day down the road.
So I just thought I would share with you
what those things are.
I don't know if they're necessarily how to
but I think you should be thinking the same thing.
What can you observe about yourself during these lulls,
during these moments when it's not totally ideal.
You're not a super productive person at that moment,
you're not super pumped about how you're approaching things
but you can understand that this may be a part
of the process and so you're just going to see
how things go and do different things during that time.
It's a period of time for different things,
rather than maybe the big thing that might feel
a little bit hard to attack right now.
So I want to share some of those things
that I've kind of observed about myself when I'm going
through a less motivational state
and maybe they will resonate with you
or they'll be something you can take forward with you
as you respect yourself during that time
when you're just not being that perfect,
which is always.
Before we get started, make sure you subscribe
to this channel.
I make new videos every Sunday and Wednesday
and I would love for you to be back for the next one.
Also, I wanna share something with you
at the end of this video, so make sure that you tune in
because I would love to hear your thoughts on this
in the comments below.
The first thing that I notice about myself
when it's a less exciting, productive time for me
is that I am craving moments of relaxation.
I'm booking more massages, I might entertain
more TV time in my life, I'm just looking for ways
to check out.
Now, if you feel like that's you a lot of the time
and not just some of the time, there may be
a different kind of balance there that you have
to observe, but for me, I always feel like I should
be doing something so when I'm seeking out moments
of relaxation, I know that I'm sort of in
a little bit of a lull, or I just genuinely feel exhausted
or tired from a lot of things going on
and I'm trying to respect that time for myself.
But regardless of the situation when I feel like
I'm craving those moments, I have to stop
being too hard on myself about it,
and let it happen, just take that time to relax.
What's the point of relaxing if you're gonna give yourself
a hard time about it?
Like that's the complete opposite of that being productive
for you and that potentially fueling you in the future,
so I think that's one thing.
Don't give yourself such a hard time about it,
it's just a matter of is this all the time,
are you literally getting nothing accomplished,
is this bordering on some sort of anxiety or depression
versus no, I just need to take a chill like for a minute.
You have to decide that on your own, you need to be able
to talk to somebody about that on your own,
but for me when I'm like no, I just really don't
wanna do anything right now, I know that at this point
in my life, that's just me needing that recuperation time
and I'm not gonna give myself a really hard time about it.
I already know that somewhere in the back of my head,
I kind of want to make myself feel bad
so that alone is gonna give me a limitation
of how much I'm relaxing but I'm also gonna say
you know what, just let it happen when it needs to happen.
I actually feel I crave the morning pages,
that activity a lot more, when I feel less purpose
in the other things that I have going on,
the things I don't really want to do at that moment.
So in a way, it's this healthy procrastination.
Yes, I can not do that thing for a minute,
but in place of it I'm gonna do something
that's still gonna stimulate my mind
and my creativity and I know that if I just sort of
chat with myself, write it down, get all the ideas
out of my head for three pages, something is bound
to trigger a moment in me that's gonna want
to make me do something or get back to a certain level
of productivity.
The next thing that I do when I'm not super, super
motivated but still trying to feel productive
is catching up on other things.
So I will find that home stuff isn't happening as much
when I have a lot of work to get done
or things that are keeping me busy,
so during these lower motivational periods,
I'm thinking I still gotta do something,
like how about I clean out that closet
that I haven't been able to do since last year,
or how do I kind of get all the laundry done
in one day instead of this crazy mess that might
already be happening.
Is there something that you have to do
that takes a long time that you've been putting off
because everything else has been in the way?
Sometimes these smaller wins are a really big thing
for when you're feeling a lack of motivation
because you still feel like you're doing something.
The next thing I do is actually something I do
all the time anyway, but it's one of those bridge activities
that makes me still feel like I'm
in a super-productive state, which is writing
all of my ideas down.
Every time I have sort of like an aha moment
or a new idea or something I wanna do, I write it down.
I actually just installed a whiteboard because that's
my favorite place to just write something suddenly
if I feel like it's something I want to brainstorm around
or I just want it to be there when I'm feeling
more creative so I can look at it and go oh yeah,
that's a really good idea, I've gotta do that.
Just planting those seeds in different places
throughout your life, whether it's in a bullet journal
or if you keep notes digitally or you have a whiteboard
or your notes app on your phone, it's so great
if you can just keep looking at that and go,
oh, look at all these cool ideas that I have.
I need to do them, and I know that that
can be tough for some people, just a list of ideas.
There's tons of ideas people out there that have
a harder time actually doing something about the idea,
but I would like to think that if you at least
wrote it down, got it out of your head
and put it down on paper, that you would feel
a little bit more motivated to do something about it.
I feel like taking that first step means getting the idea
out of your head and putting it down,
outside of your head, on paper, in real life.
You don't have to tweet it, you just have to have it
somewhere where you're gonna run into it again.
The next thing I do is once again, another great habit
that during periods of super productive times
I'm already doing so when I'm having a lull,
I'm already in the habit of doing it,
so therefore it stays consistent in my life,
and that is just listening and learning
to new information and motivation as much as possible.
So I love podcasts for this, I love listening
to Ted Talks on YouTube, just sort of turning it on
and listening in the background.
These are the easiest things you can do
when you're multitasking, whether you're cooking dinner
or on the treadmill or whatever you're doing,
just listen to that stuff, let a positive reinforcement
be in your brain if you're already sort of down
and out about your current state.
The only way you're gonna be able to change that state
is if you let someone else talk to you about it
and sometimes there might not be a real person
that's gonna do that or somebody that will want
to do it with you as consistently as listening
to lots of podcasts and lots of videos
would do for you and so I love this habit,
I feel like any time I'm not in dire need
of silence, which I love silence.
Let me tell you, I love the quiet.
But when I'm doing something and I feel like
I can entertain another source in my ears
while I'm doing that thing, usually cooking dinner
or something along those lines or just cleaning up
around the house, I love to just have a talk,
just some sort of talk, whether it is a podcast,
or a video on.
The next thing I do is just move.
Just freaking move.
Sometimes taking Lucy out for a walk is something
I don't wanna do but I know simply the action
of entertaining that for her and also just moving
my butt across the world to get her to the park,
that is action that helps you not stay still,
stay in a rut, and so keeping your workouts
on the calendar and doing the cardio or doing
the strength training or going to the trainer
or going to classes, when you're feeling a lull
in other ways, staying motivated by staying active
is so important.
I think if your reason you're watching this video
is because you're not motivated to actually work out
then this is even better advice for you
because if you're trying to get closer to something
that might feel really challenging to you now,
then do something that's not challenging at all
but is at least going to get you closer to that
and that could just be taking a walk.
Like let's say every day at five o'clock you take a walk.
Just having something like that, again,
it goes back to calendar blocking and scheduling
and allowing yourself to factor that into your life
on a consistent basis.
How can you do that so that you never lose that habit
when you go through these peaks and valleys of motivation?
And the last thing I'll say, number seven,
is just let the process happen.
Just let this be okay.
Maybe you have a changing feeling about productivity
and motivation because the sun is shining,
it is gorgeous outside and all you wanna do
is go out there and not be in your office
and not do your homework.
Then feed off of that energy and know that any time
that you take away from the super go, go, go
is not necessarily procrastination if you feel
like it is fueling you.
You kind of have to just decide for yourself
when are you fueling and when
are you actually procrastinating.
Like if you're sitting down and you're watching
every season of every show that's ever been on Netflix
and you're saying I'm recuperating, that's probably
gonna be a stretch, especially if you are not moving
your body every day, you're not listening
to any other sources, you're not having
your moments of creativity or silence,
and just observing yourself and what you have
going on.
If all you're doing is being engrossed in a newsfeed
on your phone and a series on your television,
I have a really hard time believing that that's
full-on recuperation me time.
But I do love a good binge day, but like there's one
binge day.
We're not talking about a day, we're talking about
a serious motivational lull, a very big valley
that is keeping you from being at your best
over a considerable amount of time.
Even if that's just a week, you're not gonna do
the binge thing for a whole week, okay?
Unless you're on paid vacay.
Then it's fine.
So just allow yourself to relax,
do the things that you want to do in that period of time,
realize you have obligations you've gotta stay
good on all the things you've said you would do,
you've gotta do those things, but let the process happen,
because oftentimes we especially in the United States
don't give ourselves just the time to relax
and just to just be okay and chill
as much as we actually need and if you do that,
you might actually find that the next week
or the next month or hopefully sooner than that,
you are going at it harder and better than ever
because you had time to sort of align your ideas
and get back with the program.
If you have been searching for an answer
to this question, how do I stay motivated
when I'm not or how do I stay motivated when it's hard,
then you already took that first step of knowing
that you wanna do something about it.
So it's up to you now what you're gonna do.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
What happens when you have that lack of motivation
or you feel like you're just not quite at 100%?
Leave those comments below, I wanna see what you guys do
or how you think about this, how you process this,
and what we can do to help each other.
One quick note I wanted to tell you about,
I've been planning a little bit around what something cool
would be that we could do for the 200,000 subscriber mark
which is coming up so fast.
You guys are obnoxiously cool, can I just say
that you're obnoxiously cool?
We just hit 100,000 subscribers earlier this year
and I feel like it just snuck up on us,
this next milestone and I really wanna pay you back for that
as much as I already love to do that,
I wanna do it even more, and so I got to thinking
okay, what's something different we could do
around here and I wanted to come up with a new series idea.
You may have already seen this, it was on my Instagram,
it was in my community tab here on my YouTube channel,
I just asked, what do you wanna see first?
I'm not saying what do you wanna see at all,
I'm saying what do you wanna see first
and one of the overwhelming responses was an actionable
book club, this concept of hey, let's read,
summer's coming, how can we make the most of that time,
get that motivational earbud in there
or just sit down with a book and read,
and I'm really excited that that was such
an overwhelming, number one response.
The other ones I'm still, there's still some action
happening there so don't freak out if you were like man,
I couldn't decide between one or another one,
but I just wanted to give you the heads up on the book club
because to me an effective book club is one
where I actually tell you the book that we're all
gonna read together, I don't wanna just be like hey,
it's book club day, here's a review of a book.
I want us to do it together and then decide
how we're gonna take action on it,
so I was trying to figure out the best way
to do this and I think here's what I'm gonna do.
You've gotta be following me on my Instagram,
Instagram.com/schmittastic.
That is where I'm going to be announcing
the book club book every month as we do this.
Throughout the summer I think we test it for the summer
and see how it goes.
I wanna see if you guys love it or hate it or whatever.
I've ordered a few books, they're literally in my mailbox
right now, I have a couple on my shelf I'm considering.
I'm gonna take a look, I'm gonna choose one I think
would be really, really good for all of us to read
and we'll have our first one coming out
in the next couple weeks for us to all pick up together.
So essentially the point is make sure you're subscribed
or following me on my Instagram so that you know,
Lucy can you stop coughing because literally
I am almost done.
The point is follow me on my Instagram,
that's where I'm going to announce the book of the month
so you know to go grab your copy on Amazon
or Audible, whatever the case may be, and I'll also tell you
what the date is that I'm planning on being finished
with the book and I may ask you for something in turn,
stay tuned for that and then I'll let you know
kind of when that review video is gonna come out.
So yeah, I just wanted to make sure I told you that,
make sure you follow on Instagram so that you don't
miss those details, I'll try to pop it in
some other places too, but quite frankly
that's like the best place for you to find out
what's going on here and anything that I have
going on when I'm not actually publishing a video,
so definitely stay tuned.
That's all for today, socials, thank you so much
for tuning in, I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes
and remember to continue to go after the life
that you want.
Cheers.
(calm music)