Let’s have a discussion about battling discouragement.
Sometimes the finish line seems so far away.
We’re not even sure if we’re heading in the right direction or not.
We start to feel discouraged. Our confidence gets low.
It can start to spiral and create this loop over and over again.
How do we battle discouragement whenever our mindsets are starting to leave the right place?
I’ll talk about four key ideas that can play into that, which I try to use myself that maybe you’ll find helpful as well.
I’m curious to hear some feedback as to what YOU use that works well for you in these situations.
First of all, we’ll break it down into two key ideas.
- Tactical or Strategic Adjustments
- Perception or Perspective Adjustments
Tactical or Strategic Adjustments
If you’re feeling discouraged, there can be a reality check that is letting you know there are things you need to address through some strategic and tactical changes to improve your situation.
I’ve talked about that a lot in past videos, how roadblocks can be indications that you’re trying to go uphill and a different path is correct and when you maybe should pivot.
Perception or Perspective Adjustments
Today though, we’re going to focus on the perception side of things.
For today’s case, “I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m going; it’s the right direction; I don’t need to change my strategy or my tactics.”
I’m just feeling in my head a little bit in my own way, a little discouraged, down on myself; a few things haven’t gone my way in a row. I don’t need to make big changes, but I’m just not feeling it.
How do we deal with life whenever that’s the case and keep that momentum and energy going forward?
Battling Discouragement
Step 1: Notice
The first step is to notice it.
Oftentimes you might have been feeling this way for a while before it actually kicks up to the top of your cognition to notice that’s happening, so you can recognize, “Hey, I’m not feeling like myself. I’m not feeling confident and encouraged. I’m feeling discouraged. I’m feeling like it’s harder to do every single thing I try to have myself do, even if it’s normally easy”
We must notice it and give some space for that experience to happen.
We’re not robots.
People do say that business and personal should be separate.
With finances, that’s true, but we are the same human being that shows up to both.
We’re not a robot. We have our own emotions and feelings that we carry into our work.
Noticing and allowing some space for that is the number one.
Step 2: Take A Step Back
Taking a step back allows us to have a much wider perception of what’s going on, a different perspective, as opposed to being in our own little cage of discouragement.
Typically, I find if I’m feeling discouraged, I mistakenly will end up trying to just keep pushing forward, pushing forward. It starts to get heavier and harder, and eventually it’ll catch up with me.
After I first noticed it, if I instead try to take a step back and see, “What internally am I looking for or needing that’s different from what I’ve been doing?”
Oftentimes it’ll be almost the polar opposite.
So maybe I’m feeling cooped up, like I’ve been in the office too much.
What I may really want to do is just take a half day off, go walk in nature, or even just walk and hop around the office, and to get my body moving before I settle into a stationary position. And doing that, I allow myself to rejuvenate and feel much better.
If I ignore that though and try to just keep doing what I was doing before, I can start to feel more and more trapped in a prison of my own making.
I love to go out to nature whenever I’m feeling a bit pent-up. I like to go walk out, and smell some air fresh out of the trees, right? Some freshly produced air. Hear some birds chirping and walk around. This is not walking for exercise to better myself.
It’s just a new perspective, a change of pace away from the go, go, go drive of my everyday existence.
Taking a step back to have some reflection time, let things settle in, and just come back much calmer to my work.
That’s one approach that I use to help get a new perspective.
Step 3: Attach Positive Imagery
Number three is to anchor our discouragement with some positive imagery.
This can show up in a lot of different forms.
I know that in the past, I have found help from certain
- movies
- songs
- music
- characters
- books
- and more.
There are many different things that we can consume at times that bring us into that state where we don’t feel discouraged.
There’s that little seed in there of hope.
If we can capture that, we can use that as a first domino to put us in the right direction.
Certain foods or meals can also have that effect. Sometimes just taking a quiet night, having some tea, or whatever it is for you can do the trick.
Knowing what that is, is very important. Then attach yourself to some of that imagery – how the song makes you feel or a movie.
A Lesson From An Inchworm
An example from my nature walk the other day is an inchworm I saw.
I had forgotten, but inchworms are always a very profoundly important insect whenever I see them. I’m just amazed by them. If you don’t know what they are, they’re this small little worm, and they are an inch long, and they basically scrunch up, and then they leap forward, crawling one inch at a time.
What’s so fascinating is that they’re so small, but they just persistently keep covering this distance. And to me, this metaphor sticks out. This inch-long worm is going to crawl miles and miles, one inch at a time, just sort of fiercely attacking that path forward.
For me, that’s a good reminder. Whenever I’m feeling like the distance is so far away, it’s just one step after the next.
That imagery stuck with me as I was thinking about all the things I need to do, all the steps ahead of me, and that I can make it one step at a time.
The other really funny thing about inchworms is that they can have like a silk string where they can dangle almost like a spider can. But you have to imagine this inch-long, you know, worm that’s six, eight feet above the ground (multiple, multiple times its body size) seems to be very fearless, very “Mission Impossible”, just dropping down like “Here I am”.
If hanging by a thread bravely isn’t a good metaphor for an entrepreneur, I don’t know what is!?!?
That imagery stuck with me and kind of fortified me for the day. I can go back to it over and over again.
Maybe it’s a passage in a book, or something else, but sometimes imagery can capture that feeling.
If we aren’t organically feeling it from inside ourselves, we can be sort of motivated from the outside and mirror that back.
Step 4: Confident Dominoes
Confidence comes not just from pretending to have a feeling.
- We have to have a little bit of confidence.
- Then take an action.
- The action goes pretty well.
- And that result then can feed back to multiply that confidence.
And so when we’re in a discouragement loop, what happens is we’re not feeling great, we do something with maybe not the greatest effort or mindset, it doesn’t go very well, and it lowers that confidence, and we keep looping that negative way.
Once you have some positive imagery that can bolster you a little bit, and you’ve taken a step away and you come back refreshed, you are ready to get dominoes falling in the right direction.
Now when you take that action, your chance of the result being better is higher. This means that feedback loop will be more positive, raising your confidence, increasing chances of a better result, and keep stacking that over and over.
Once that first domino falls in the right direction, others tend to track along with it as well.
How Do You Battle Discouragement?
Battling discouragement is a part of everyday life.
Everyone has times where we have some darkness as entrepreneurs; we’re faced with it all the time.
A lot of it’s out of our control, and so managing that’s really hard.
What is it that you use whenever you’re feeling not your best?
How do you get back to feeling hyped up, ready to go, rejuvenated?
I’m curious to know more.
Have a great rest of your day.
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