The Holiday Hangover Cure – Add Some Excitement to Your Life!

When was the last time you woke up really, really excited about getting up and going to work? If your answer is “a long time ago,” or, “I can’t ever remember waking up really, really excited to go to work,” then keep reading…

I’ll admit it, On Saturday, January 1^st, I felt a twinge of sadness. I had a holiday hangover. (No, this had nothing to do with the party the night before).

Why? Because the holidays were over, and in two days it was “back to work.” After a week off, and a month of anticipation, preparation, parties, gift giving, and general mirth, it was back to the grind, as they say.

I was very sad to leave behind the relaxation and fun of the previous two weeks.

For example, over the holiday, I did something I had not done in a few years: I let myself get immersed in a computer game (Half-Life 2, if you’re curious. Yes, I’m a nerd). I played that game every day for a week until it was done. It was awesome!

There were times during that week where I would go to bed excited about waking up the next morning to play Half Life. I would wake up in the morning, lie in bed for a few minutes, then think to myself, “Oooh, if I get out of bed now I can play an extra 30 minutes of Half-Life!”

That feeling really struck a chord in me, because I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I went to bed excited about waking up the next morning to “go to work.” I couldn’t tell you a time I woke up in the morning and thought, “Oooh, if I get out of bed now, I can get 30 extra minutes of work done! Whoo-hoo!”

This was a scary revelation for me. What if it turns out that I wasn’t excited by my business? What if I was doing the wrong thing? What if, what if, what if…

I have invested a lot of time, energy, and money – in short, a lot of my life – in this endeavor. It would be one hell of a wake up call to realize that, “oh, you’re doing the wrong thing!”

However, just because the truth may hurt doesn’t mean that we should avoid it. I didn’t want to be a person that “merely existed” for most days of the year, and only “came alive” during vacations, holidays, and the occasional fun weekend.

So I thought…

I analyzed…

I researched…

I wrote…

And eventually, I figured some things out.

It turns out I do love what I do.  I think I am incredibly lucky to be able to do it. And I do have days where I am excited about work – specifically the nights before and mornings of my speaking gigs.

But on most “office days,” when I am working from the home office writing and doing business development, the feeling was more, “back to the grind,” than, “YIPPEE!”

This obviously wasn’t an “optimal situation.” I was running my own business. I was my own boss. How on earth could I be in a situation where I didn’t enjoy what I did?? Could I “blame the boss”? Hang around the water cooler (I would first have to buy a water cooler) and complain about how “the old man is really riding my ass today”? Would I then have to reprimand myself? Give myself a bad evaluation?? Eventually let myself go???

I didn’t have to do anything so drastic. I realized I just needed tom make some changes, to reignite that “fire in the belly” when it came to my own work. Along the way I learned some things that may be helpful to you.

This isn’t just about finding a “good job” that you like; it’s about making the most of your life. Years ago, I had a very nice corporate job I liked very much. But rare was the day that I would wake up and say, “Yes! I get to go write Visual Basic computer code today!” (Ok, I’ll admit, there were a couple of days where I said that. But only a couple. I told you I was a nerd…)

It’s easy to know it’s time for a change when you hate what you do. It’s much harder to figure out if you’re whiling time away, settling for far less than you deserve.

If you are not, at least on a semi-regular basis, waking up excited about going to (or “doing your”) work, let me suggest six strategies:

1) Revisit What You Do and Why You Do It

It’s easy to fall into a routine and take things for granted. You may not need a major change in your work; maybe you just need to reconnect with what you do, and remind yourself why you do it.

This is what worked for me. After my “I’m obsessed with Half-Life 2” revelation and ensuing analysis, I am happy to say that I realized, “no, I don’t need to make a big change. I just need to get back in touch with what I love about my work and why I love doing it.”

In short, I had let my work become my “job.” It was just something I did.

Taking a little time to reflect on why I loved what I loved made a huge difference for me. The focus shifted off of “what I had to do” to “the reason I do it.”

The reasons for me were altruistic (I get to help people), financial (I get to make money that lets me do things and buy stuff I want), selfish (this work gives me tremendous freedom, control, and flexibility) and personal (there is nothing I like as much as being creative, and speaking and writing let me do that).

If you’ve been waking up with the “blahs” and feeling uninspired, maybe you just need to remind yourself why you are a lucky S.O.B. because you get to do what you do.

2) Eliminate the Crap

Every job, every career, every business, every endeavor, has some level of crap associated with it. It’s not all going to be ponies and rainbows (or beer and wings, or whatever metaphor you’d like to use for “fun and games.” I suppose you could just go with “fun and games.” Whatever floats your boat.)

Sometimes though, the reason you are not feeling excited is that you are too overloaded with crap. The crap parts of your work can overshadow the good fun stuff.

The solution? Eliminate the crap.

Of course you can’t eliminate all of it, but you can probably get rid of a lot of it, using the Four D approach organizers and productivity experts recommend:

1. Delete – Can you just not deal with it? Your initial impulse may be to say no, but you’d be surprised how many things you can safely eliminate.
2. Delegate – Can someone else do it? Whether it’s someone on your staff, someone you hire, a volunteer, a “forced volunteer,” or someone you trade tasks with,  see if you can find someone to take some of the crap off your plate.
3. Do – Just do it. Yes, it’s crap. But the longer you wait to get to it, the more it will weigh on your mind. Get it out of the way and move on to the fun stuff.
4. Defer – Put it off. Be careful with this one! As mentioned above, putting something off doesn’t remove it from your mind. It can still depress you. If you do defer things, put them off for a specific reason and until a specific time.

Get rid of as much crap as you can, and you’ll open up space for more and more excitement.

3) Prioritize by Excitement

This goes hand in hand with “eliminating the crap.”

You probably have a lot of items you could be working on, and a lot of items you should be working on. How do you decide which one to do first?

Try this approach: pick the one you are most excited about. It may not be the biggest or most critical, but if you make that one your top priority it will get you energized, and that will spill over into the rest of your tasks.

For example, “writing fiction” is one of my top priorities for this year. Every day, that is the first thing I do. Fiction writing has nothing to do with my business and won’t make me any money (not any time soon, certainly), but I want to do it, and I am excited about it. The second thing I do is writing material for this blog and a new book, and that also excites me (and is relevant to my business).

Interesting note: Often, the items that excite you the most won’t be the most important. If you don’t make them a priority, you’ll never get around to them. In short, you’ll be putting off your fun forever…

4) Change Your Language

This is a technique I came across many years ago, but was never able to make work for myself until recently.

In short, this involves using different words than you normally use to describe your situation.

I would suggest one simple change:

Stop saying, “I have to…” and switch to “I get to…”

• “I have to go to work,” becomes, “I get to go to work.”
• “I have to work on my side business,” becomes, “I get to work on my side business.”
• “I have to attend this meeting,” becomes, “I get to attend this meeting.”
• “I have to go to the gym,” becomes, “I get to go to the gym.”
• And so on, and so on…

(Note: I usually see this technique taught as “replace ‘have to’ which ‘choose to.’” Using “choose to” never resonated with me the way, “get to” does. Try both (or a different, better one) and see which works for you)

To be honest with you, I was skeptical that this would have any impact for me, but it has made a huge difference. It will probably seem a little goofy and fake at first.

Saying, “I get to attend this meeting”?? But I hate these boring meetings!

I know. But you still get to attend them. In the U.S., the unemployment rate is something like 9%. There are people everywhere who are impoverished who would just love to get to go to your meeting, if it meant having your job (and income).

For just about everything you hate that you feel you have to do, there is some person out there who would kill for the chance to get to do it.

Life may not be perfect, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. When you say, “I get to,” especially with things that you don’t like, it forces your mind to remind yourself how lucky you are to be where you are right now.

Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. It made a big difference for me.

5) Make a Big Change

I had a job about 12 years ago that I hated. I loathed it. I detested it. I would not only wake up depressed about having to go, I would go to sleep depressed about it. In fact, I hit a point where I would wake up Saturday morning depressed that I had to go back to work Monday morning.

This, my friends, was a telltale sign that I needed a wholesale change.

Sure, I could use some of the techniques in this article, along with other strategies involving “positive thinking” and “reframing,” etc. But at the end of the day, I needed to completely change jobs.

I originally took the job because it paid more than double what my previous job paid (where I was woefully underpaid). But I soon discovered that it was not a good fit at all. I tried for about four months before I started looking for another job, and it took me about five months to find one. Ten months after I started, I left. To this day, I am still happy about that decision and still thankful I will never have to go back to that job.

Sometimes your best strategy will be to change your job, or even your industry. This could be because:

• You hate what you do
• You are bored and not going anywhere
• You honestly realized there is something else you would rather do

This is not a decision to enter into lightly. However, don’t run away from making this decision simply because it is a big one. .I know people who have done that, and they have universally been miserable with their lives.

6) Add Something Else that Energizes You

This method is my least favorite, but it is the easiest approach, and probably the most common one.

If you are in a job that you like, but that doesn’t energize you, then at least consider adding something else into you life that does.

This could be a hobby. It could be your family. It could be a side business.

So you may not wake up excited to go to work, but you can focus on how excited you are to come home from work and tackle that fun project you have. And you may appreciate the fact that your job gives you the income and stability to enjoy and explore your passion.

Having an outside passion can make your work more exciting too. Have you ever planned a big, fun vacation? You now how that whole week before you go into work with a bounce in your step as you anticipate the trip? Imagine being able to feel that way year round.

I still think that life is too short to spend 40+ hours a week on something that doesn’t particularly excite you, but this is a good short term solution. Or, if for whatever reason you truly feel you can’t apply one of the other three strategies, this may be the way to go.

Going into this year, I applied strategies 1, 3, and 4. It’s only been about two weeks, but so far, my excitement level has been high. Much higher than it’s been in a while. As a result, my productivity and fun have both been higher too.

If you accomplish nothing else this year but find a reason to excitedly wake up in the morning, you will be well on your way to making 2011 the best year ever!

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