How to Get Your Groove Back

Stella got hers back, so why can’t you get your back too?

Ok, maybe she had a little help from Taye Diggs (and who couldn’t use a little help from Taye Diggs?) but you can still find a way to get back on track even if you’re not the glamorous subject of a 90s movie.

Maybe you’re like Stella and you’re in transition- you’ve had a baby, just got married, changed jobs, moved houses, been through a divorce. Even though sometimes change can be for the better, we still face challenges when we mix up the status quo.

You’re not alone. Everyone has blips or hiccups that leave them feeling less confident about their lives, or their ability to make a change. On the other hand, giving yourself a kick in the pants may be just what you need to get your butt in gear.

What motivates you to take action? Some people respond to fear or stress, or even anger. If challenging yourself forces you to do something, do it, but leave out all of the negative self-talk. You won’t always have other people around to support you when you need it, so it’s important to learn how to be your own cheerleader.

See, it really all comes down to you. The key to challenging yourself lies in changing the behavior patterns or habits that are counter-productive to leading the life that you want to live. It’s one of the trickier emotional tasks you’ll face- it’s not easy to take a good, hard look at yourself let alone take responsibility for your own shortcomings. And, let’s face it, you’ll never be perfect. Transitions take time and you’re never going to change everything about yourself, especially not all at once.

You may not even want to change; unfortunately a lot of us are forced to once we’ve experienced an upheaval in our lives. That’s ok; we’re growing and changing all the time as we learn more, travel more, meet more people, have new experiences. It doesn’t mean you’re still not you- you’re just a newer version of yourself. If you can respect this process and respect who you once were, you’ll eventually grow to love the person you’ve become. And if you don’t, change! Humans are incredibly capable at adapting. Ironically it’s this ability that will always lead us back to ourselves- to finding our own groove, our own place in the world, wherever our lives take us.

Have you experienced a recent upheaval in your life? What was difficult about the change? How did you handle it? Let’s see if we can all get into the same groove and share each other’s stories by either commenting below or sending them to me at keepingbusyb[a]gmail.com. I may include them in an upcoming post!

I wrote about the benefits of changing up my own life here and here. Looking for more ways to makeover your life? I’ve got solutions on how to balance a busy schedule here, organizing your life here and maximizing your productivity here.

A Change Will Do You Good

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Some people can be uncomfortable with change, but sometimes (as Sheryl Crow says) a change will do you good. It’s easy to fall into the same patterns and habits and sometimes these behaviors are so ingrained into our daily routines we don’t even realize it until a change comes along and mixes everything up.

Naturally our first reaction is over-reaction. Someone pushes a meeting ahead at the last minute leaving you to wait in an unfamiliar place for half an hour. Traffic forces us to take a different route to the grocery store. It could even be something as little as Starbucks running out of your favorite latté topper. End of the world, right?

Except consider this: previous scientific studies have proved that changing up our daily routine can actually be stimulating to our brains. Forcing our brain to think beyond our normal range of daily activities can foster creative thinking and improve our problem-solving skills.

Take this as an example: try writing your name with the hand opposite to the one you normally use to write. Writing our names is something that probably most of us do on a daily basis. See how much more brain power it took to write it with your other hand? If we took the same logic and apply it to other things that we do in our lives, then you can come up with other changes in your routine that force you to think creatively and lift you out of that rut.

I recently tried this when I found myself staring at a blank Microsoft Word document for almost twenty minutes, willing words to type themselves onto the screen in a way that made sense. After my clairvoyance skills failed me, I decided that the next best thing to revive me would be to head outside with my dogs for a walk. Once we had started I decided, on a whim, to do our normal circuit backwards. Even though I have lived in the neighborhood I do for upwards of 20 years and have walked those same streets at least one hundred times, it still proved to be pretty difficult to follow the same route backwards. That time to myself, the fresh air and the increased brain power made my walk that much more invigorating. After that, I was excited to get home and finish what I had been trying to start for ages.

Try it sometime. Change the location you work, the coffee you order, what to have for lunch today. You may find yourself more energized and ready to pull yourself out of the rut you find yourself in, solve a problem you’ve been stuck on, or break through that writer’s block that’s been plaguing you for weeks.

A change really can do a world of good when it comes to being productive, but it doesn’t have to stop there. Even if it doesn’t help to jump start that project you’ve been pondering, you’re doing something exciting and new for yourself too!

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Feel like changing it up? Take a break from your business and being busy by checking out what I’ve been reading lately, or try out a new recipe from my baking section. My list of recipes I want to try and books I want to read just keeps growing!