Do you ever feel like your daily routine is sucking the life out of you? In this episode of the Self-Care Society podcast, we'll explore Psychology Today's list of ten signs indicating you're in a rut, like lacking creative inspiration and feeling like your days are a monotonous blur. Isabelle provides candid insights and actionable advice to help you recognize these signs in your own life and take proactive steps towards reigniting your motivation and zest for life.
Tune in to uncover the skill of recognizing complacency and the courage it takes to make meaningful changes. Isabelle emphasizes the importance of joy and fulfillment and guides you on how to cultivate these amidst the predictability of your current habits. Whether you're battling burnout, boredom, or just the general "blah" of daily existence, this episode is packed with strategies to help you rediscover your passion and purpose. Don't miss out on transforming your day-to-day life into a journey filled with excitement and growth!
Do you ever feel like your daily routine is sucking the life out of you? In this episode of the Self-Care Society podcast, we'll explore Psychology Today's list of ten signs indicating you're in a rut, like lacking creative inspiration and feeling like your days are a monotonous blur. Isabelle provides candid insights and actionable advice to help you recognize these signs in your own life and take proactive steps towards reigniting your motivation and zest for life.
Tune in to uncover the skill of recognizing complacency and the courage it takes to make meaningful changes. Isabelle emphasizes the importance of joy and fulfillment and guides you on how to cultivate these amidst the predictability of your current habits. Whether you're battling burnout, boredom, or just the general "blah" of daily existence, this episode is packed with strategies to help you rediscover your passion and purpose. Don't miss out on transforming your day-to-day life into a journey filled with excitement and growth!
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Self-Care Society podcast with your hosts Celia Williamson, ashley Kuchar, louie Guardiola and Keri Shaw, a podcast devoted to those whose job it is to help others get or remain mentally, physically and emotionally healthy, but who also need to take care of themselves. And how we're going to do this? By first showing you the filtered, pretty version of success, and then the real struggles, real work and raw grit it took to get there, how they took care of themselves and also achieved their goals while doing it Together.
Speaker 2:
We will work with you to improve and maintain your internal health and growth while helping you achieve your external goals and your next professional achievement in life, and we're excited to show you how to follow your own individual and unique path and achieve the dreams you have, while taking good care of yourself. So let's get started. Hello and welcome to the self-care podcast. My name is Isabel Matosian and I will be your host today. There have been times where myself or someone I cared about has felt trapped in their current circumstance. Every day passes by and it's fine, there's nothing wrong with it but they aren't really going anywhere. So let's talk about the skill that it takes to recognize you're stuck in a rut and to get yourself out of it. When I say stuck in a rut, I'm talking about the combination of burnout, boredom and general blah that you feel trapped in with no escape. When people say they're in a rut, usually they mean that they don't know how to find the motivation to change their current circumstances. Let's be honest, we've all been there. We feel like we've grown too comfortable in certain habits or lifestyles and nothing is getting better. There's no growth. It's that constantly apathetic feeling. Unfortunately, things won't get better. That is, until we make the changes happen. This is the part that's the true bummer? Wouldn't we all rather just hope that the solution will magically appear? For some people it does. Some people get lucky and a new adventure or opportunity will find them, but that's not how daily life works for most of us. So how do you take a look at your life and decide that you're in a rut? Do you notice that you don't have a lot of energy or excitement in your day? You're comfortable, but there's nothing that you generally look forward to because of the joy or the fulfillment that it would bring you. And you deserve joy and fulfillment. We all do that it would bring you. And you deserve joy and fulfillment. We all do. This is when we take an internal look and ask if we're growing too complacent. Yes, you have certainty in every moment of your life, but is that really enough? Is it because you love the things that you do or because you're afraid that otherwise you might fail?
Speaker 2:
Psychology Today lists 10 signs that you're stuck in a rut. So before we move on, let's briefly read through those together. Number one and we've talked about this it is that day to day, you don't look forward to much Other than maybe sleeping or just getting through whatever you're doing. Number two you'd like to get your creative juices flowing, but it seems like someone left an empty juice bottle in the fridge. You're lacking that inspiration. Number three even though you keep checking things off your to-do list, it doesn't feel like you're getting anything done. For me, this is like you're getting anything done. For me, this is like you're running through water, moving so slowly but working so hard to accomplish who knows what.
Speaker 2:
Number four your days all blur together and it's not weird to look up, blinking and ask is this Tuesday or Thursday? I personally hate this feeling. It's like being trapped in a time loop. Number five by the time you get free time, you're too tired to do something interesting with it, or just plain unmotivated. I feel like we talk all the time about carving out some free time, but what do we actually do when it's in front of us? If you answered for number six, how are you genuinely? You'd say something like meh, I'm doing meh.
Speaker 2:
Number seven you fantasize about getting away, and not just away on vacations. Oh, that's a good one. Number eight you'd like to add something new to your life, but you're sure that you'll never have enough time or energy for it. We'll talk about this a bit more in a second, because we are not limiting our potential this year. Number nine you're getting sick of hearing yourself complain about feeling stressed, tired and unfulfilled about feeling stressed, tired and unfulfilled. And number 10, which they call the number one symptom of being in a rut, even though you think you'd be happier if you made a change. It's more comforting to stay the same and mope about it All right now. Psychology today is just being a little mean with that one Okay, just kidding, they make a valid point. With that one Okay, just kidding, they make a valid point.
Speaker 2:
Another thing that you might notice is that you aren't getting ahead in life in terms of your finances or your career. You're doing just enough to get by, but not to set you up for future security or fulfillment. That's not to say that life is all about career and money, but you also don't want to lose sight of your financial goals. Having financial security sets you up not only to just decrease stress about money and that kind of anxiety, but it also opens up doors for doing things like taking time off, seeking new adventures or developing new skills.
Speaker 2:
If you're stuck in a rut, you're probably in some amount of denial about it. This is because your life might not necessarily be bad at all, but you aren't living to your true potential. It's easy when you've worked so hard in the past to get a little too comfortable when things finally aren't a huge struggle. Trust me, I know I've worked my butt off for years and then found myself working a job that pays my bills and allows me to stay fed and sheltered and decently comfortable, and sometimes that is enough, at least for a while. It's wonderful to come out of a particularly busy or difficult time and grow comfortable when things slow down, but you have to be careful that you aren't growing too complacent. Give yourself some time to recover, but don't lose sight of the goals that you set when you were running your life at full speed.
Speaker 2:
Once you get past the denial, you can start to identify why you're in a rut, what's holding you back from your true potential. This is identifying what it is that you believe about yourself that's limiting you. Something like I can't get into nursing school. If that was your goal, but if you didn't try, how could you possibly know? Or I can't run a mile, something that simple. But did you really try? Did you look into how to train to run a mile for your specific conditions. There are enough people in the world who will try to limit you. Don't do it to yourself. So when we start to realize what's happening and why, we can start taking measures that will give us some more energy. This is where practicing the more surface-level self-care comes in. This is the exercising more, eating, healthy drinking water, doing things you enjoy stage. Build healthy habits to help improve your resilience so you can find that drive that you've lost. So now let's use that newly discovered energy.
Speaker 2:
One part of your brain that's involved in decision-making, called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex excuse my French is responsible for applying past experiences to current decisions. Your brain solves problems using neural pathways that have previously worked. Creating new pathways can help your brain learn how to get out of the rut. So to do this, you want to take on a challenge. Don't give up until you've learned a new skill or done something completely out of your comfort zone. Keep taking on new challenges without fear. What's the worst that can happen? Shoot for the moon right. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
Speaker 2:
Don't ever fall for the illusion that you are exactly who you're supposed to be in life. We're not supposed to be anything or anyone. We're supposed to fight and try as hard as we can to learn more and find more joy. We never need to settle and, like anything, this is different for everyone. Your goal doesn't have to be to become a CEO or a famous actress or a doctor or any of those jobs that seem really big. You can be perfectly happy with where you are if you choose to be really big. You can be perfectly happy with where you are if you choose to be. But if you aren't and you're stuck in old habits, then break yourself out of them. You are resilient. You have all the tools that you need. Some of them just may need to be sharpened a little bit. I hope today's episode held something valuable for you. If not, listen to a previous one. There's got to be something good in there.
Speaker 1:
I hope you all have a fantastic day. That concludes this week's episode. And remember, it's not selfish, it's self-care.
