Shop This Look

A hot cup of coffee. The feeling of the crisp morning air while sitting on the patio. Morning sunshine peeking through the curtains. The humbling words of a daily devotional. 

A morning text from your lover or best friend. The sound of birds happily chirping. A perfect night of sleep. A challenging workout complete before 7 AM. 

The recipe for a day of productivity can mean starting the perfect day prepared to put your best foot forward.

But what about the seasons of life where it’s abnormally difficult to motivate yourself? 

Or what about the times when things are not going your way, no matter how hard you try to do all the right things?

What about those times of complete and total burnout?

It’s easy to motivate yourself when things are going well. 

But today I wanted to talk about those times when it’s overwhelmingly difficult to feel motivated.. or sometimes simply get out of bed.

The past 6-8 weeks were hard on me. I wasn’t #1 in sales at work, I couldn’t think of anything creative for the blog, the weather in Dallas was cold and rainy, I’ve been super hard on myself, and I questioned my purpose on a semi-daily basis.

Things are starting to turn around as life will always present us with peaks and valleys. But I wanted to share how I kept myself together when everything seemed to be slipping.

Shop This Look

1. Give yourself grace

Whether that means allowing yourself to have a moment of feeling uncomfortable or simply taking some time to breath, it’s important we ALL give ourselves a break every once in a while.

In this millennial culture of go go go, push push push, work full time and build up your side hustles, be the perfect mom/wife/girlfriend/friend/employee/sister/whatever, it’s impossible to ever catch up or truly get ahead.

What I think we need more of is grace to just be. Sometimes we aren’t going to be on fire or full of passion for what our day to day looks like. And we have to tell ourselves that this is NORMAL.

Give yourself grace and tell yourself that on some days, just showing up is enough!

Shop This Look

2. Take some time to shake off the negativity or self-sabotage

When I’m feeling down, or just negative in general because I’m not making progress as quickly as I’d like, I get really hard on myself. 

The mind is a powerful thing, and sometimes I get dangerously stuck in my head.

Despite what some of those self-righteous self-help books or blogs will tell you – I believe sometimes you need to get out of your head and let loose.

For me, sometimes that means going out and not counting how many drinks, and just dancing or singing until the negative energy leaves my body. 

Other times that means spending time with one of my best girlfriends with a few bottles of wine and just venting until there’s nothing left but tears of laughter.

Sometimes it could also mean some quiet time, going on a vacation, or a day trip to the spa. 

But really – it’s all about finding what it’s going to take to get you out of your own head and relax. Whatever that is for you – go do it!

And don’t feel bad about it. We MUST detach from our grind so that we can come back stronger, with more to give and with new, innovative ideas.

Sometimes we find our drive within a few days. Other times you need to dive a little deeper and take a month to get to the bottom of it. That’s what happened to me recently.

Shop This Look

3. Try a new routine 

I love reading about the habits of CEOs, entrepreneurs and highly successful people. I’ve read all about how they wake up at 5 AM and accomplish about 15 things before 9 AM. 

But what about those of us who can’t for the life of us wake up before 6 AM without dying? 

If I know I have to wake up the next day before 6, I get extreme anxiety the night before and get shitty sleep. No matter how early I’m in bed, I just have this thing about waking up before 6.

I’ve finally learned what works for me and that’s the important first step for anyone.

But now that I know I really can only give an extra hour (not 2-3) in the mornings, I have started reading a daily devotional when I wake up. It’s simple. Nothing demanding or crazy.

I wake up between 6 and 6:30, make coffee, read a 2 page devotional for women and journal on it for 20 or 30 minutes.

I also started making the bed in the mornings. Those two things have made my day to day remarkably more productive. 

They both were just enough to make me feel ready to take on a day full of meetings, pitches, creativity, communication, workouts, cooking, and doing all the things.

I didn’t put too much pressure on myself to become this insane morning person overnight. I just added two small habits into my routine and I start the day off feeling SO good.

Find one or two things you can incorporate into your routine that you feel might inspire you to have a better day.

Shop This Look

Let your light shine

Now bookmark this post when you are in the dumps or just going through a difficult time.

&& just remember beautiful, you are incredible and worthy of whatever your heart desires.

Don’t let the difficult times dull your sparkle. You will get through it and you will come out on the other side smarter, better and stronger.

~XXXO, Mary