I am normally a self-motivated person. I know what I want to accomplish and I get it done. All my life I have been a workhorse, churning out whatever work I needed to do—homework, work work, video production, writing. But for some reason, I have been highly unmotivated lately.
All I’ve really wanted to do is retreat into my genealogy hobby and shut out the rest of the world. Forgetting all my other responsibilities sounds good, as does sleeping for a week. I have projects I want to write, but apparently not enough to actually sit down and do them. I’ve been reading very little as well. I just feel exhausted inside and out.
Sounds a lot like burnout. Unfortunately, all of those symptoms are also signs of my anxiety. So which is it?
It could be anxiety. I have plenty of social and political stressors in my life right now—stressors I haven’t had before. My overall anxiety level has been higher than usual—I lay awake at night with crazy scenarios of catastrophe running through my head. Professionally, I am in that place where the last writing project is complete and I need to start a new one. That spot can be thrilling—but it can also be scary. Which project to pick? What if it doesn’t go well? A novel is a long-term commitment, I want to be sure I’m putting my time into the right project. I’m also querying, which in itself is not too stressful, but…what if someone actually wants to represent me? Wonderful, of course, but it would be a new chapter, a big change—and sometimes the fear of success is as paralyzing as the fear of failure.
It could be burnout. I haven’t had a real vacation in almost two years. What do you mean? I hear people saying. You’ve posted beach photos. You’ve been on vacation! I hear you. But that’s not the type of vacation I had in mind. A “real” vacation, for me, is when there’s nobody around. No husband, no child, no deadlines, no nothing. Just me. Now, I love my family, and I enjoy my work, but I am a classic textbook introvert. I need absolute solitude to truly recharge myself. My husband is wonderful and tries to get me some alone time on the weekends so I can relax, but it’s never quite enough (especially because I often spend it working, LOL). I am fast approaching the point where I have no social reserves left—and that saps energy from my creative well.
So which is it? I don’t know. The truest answer is, perhaps, both. I need to dig out of it, but am not quite sure how. I have joined a book club just to get myself reading (and reading outside my usual genres). The answer may be as simple as just making myself write. Just sit down and write something. Anything. Or maybe I need some outside accountability. After all, I submit my blogs on time.
I will slog through this morass as I have every other one, because I am nothing if not persistent. And I know all things come to an end, this slump included.
How do you re-motivate yourself when you hit a motivation desert?
Summer Reading 2018
A lot of people associate reading with summer, perhaps because we all have this vision of summer somehow being a more relaxed or leisurely time of year. Calling certain types of novels “beach reads” is a prime example of the summer reading mentality. Plus, many people have more time in summer to read, as this is traditionally a popular vacation time. People read while kicking back at their destination, and while they travel to get there. I don’t get much reading done on vacation, since my 8-year-old keeps me hopping!
It’s been an “indoor” summer here. We have had several heat waves, and now the rain greets us every day. Hot, muggy, and rainy—staying indoors is preferable. And reading is a great indoor activity, especially when you are trying to stay away from screen-time (or keep your child away from the screen).
My daughter has a summer reading contest through school (and the library). She’s coming up on 120 books read this summer. I don’t think she will match her total from last year (316), but that’s to be expected. She’s reading longer books, so it’s taking longer to finish them.
In my summer reading, I’ve actually read a lot of the books my daughter is reading, because I’m not looking for long, heavy reads right now (and I like to see what she’s reading). I did also join an online book club. Our first book was Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, a novel about a young woman coming of age during WWII. We’re now discussing our second book, Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean, a nonfiction about the death penalty in America. Quite a wide range of topics in this group! But that’s okay, I joined in part to read outside my usual genres.
On the whole, my summer reading habits don’t vary much from my regular reading habits. Do you find that you read more, less, or the same in the summer as in the rest of the year?