Okay, story time!
As you may know, I’ve been in Bali living the digital nomad life. I spent my first month in Ubud where I felt most drawn to and from the second I touched down everything just fell into place. I met amazing like-minded people that I clicked with instantly, I found awesome places to work from like Outpost and HUBUD, I went on fun adventures and explored temples, forests and rice fields. It was AWESOME. I felt like I’d found my place and my people!
However, the second month came around, I moved location and everything went to shit. On my first day in Canggu I had a motorcycle accident which carved up a good chunk of my body and took me out of action for a week. I then got the flu, I went through two more scooters because each one had major problems, I caught one of the housemaids attempting to steal my wallet, I got mild alcohol poisoning and I found it WAY harder to meet like-minded people.
It all took it’s toll and sent me into a negative downward spiral. I was ready to leave Bali. I was over it. I guess it was the islands way of telling me to GTFO, right? I had barely done ANY of the work I needed to do because I was super unmotivated and had completely lost my mojo.
And before I realized it, the end of the month had caught up and I hadn’t made ANY travel plans so I had to do a visa run. I left it so last minute that I chose to go to the nearest and cheapest place for one night.. East Timor. Yup, the recently war torn country brutally rampaged, looted and burnt by Indonesian forces in 2002!!
Uhhhh, do you think I got a wake up call from that experience? You bet your ass I did! I felt like I’d transported to Nairobi! Tin shacks, dirt roads, trash EVERYWHERE, concrete gated houses with barbed wire fences and intense poverty. I had to have my wits about me at all times.
To be fair, I did have a great experience due to my wonderful AirBnB hosts. But the experience gave me a WHOLE new perspective on my “shitty” month prior which I will share with you in the three tips below.
And guess who got their mojo back? Amazing what perspective can do huh? 😉
1. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ATTITUDE
Misery LOVES company and negativity breeds more negativity. Yes, some crappy things did happen to me. Very valid things to be upset about. However, it was me who chose to focus only on those few shitty things continuously and not pay much attention to the other GREAT things that happened like working at Dojo, living in a KILLER villa and eating delicious food at amazing cafes, bars and restaurants!
And when you’re in a negative frame of mind of course your creativity, inspiration, productivity and motivation goes down the toilet! You’re busy being pissed off. But if you stay there too long, it’s going to be far more detrimental more damaging in the long run and you’re not going to get what you want done.
Your attitude is YOUR responsibility. So you need to check in with yourself to make sure you’re staying on track. Sure we’re allowed to have our moments, but if those moments are replacing a more stable attitude constantly, you’re in trouble. I recommend doing daily check ins to seeing how you feel to keep yourself on track.
2. SWITCH UP YOUR ENVIRONMENT
Although you do NOT need to go to a war torn country to re-find your mojo, 😅 I would recommend getting out of your usual surroundings to shake up the stale energy you’ve got going on.
A lot of the time when we feel demotivated and we can’t get anything done it’s because we’ve gotten into some kind of habitual rut. The quickest and easiest way to overcome that is to change up your environment.
By doing something different and changing up your usual routine it stimulates your brain to “think outside the box” because you’re putting it in a new situation it’s not used to.
So go shake your shit up! Take a massive hike up in the mountains, the endorphins you’ll get from that alone can spark your motivation! Volunteer at a homeless shelter for a week to get some mega perspective or go and stay with a relative or friend who lives in another city to gain clarity! Even taking a nap can solve a lot of problems!
3. GET GRATEFUL!
Now after getting all that perspective, do you think when I got back to Bali I was still in a shitty sour mood? NOPE. I was over the moon elated to be back on this BEAUTIFUL island. It was far more stunning than I ever remembered it, and I was only there 24 hours earlier! 😂 I was SO grateful to be back! Ohhh the irony.
Gratitude has the power to completely alter our state. In fact it can overpower the dangerous emotions that sidetrack us. Tony Robbin’s says, “The two emotions that mess us up the most are fear and anger, and you can’t be grateful and fearful simultaneously. They don’t go together,” Robbins says. “And you can’t be angry and grateful simultaneously.””
So I’d recommend to follow Tony’s lead and do something similar to his 10-minute morning ritual where he spend 3.5 minutes on what he’s grateful for, 3.5 minutes thinking about three things you want to create in your life and 3.5 minutes strengthening healing.
Now it’s your turn: Have you lost your mojo before? What are your tips to getting it back?
