This Saturday, I woke up in what could best be described as a “funk.” It had started sometime during the week as a kind of low-grade irritability. But by Saturday, I was in deep. I felt tired, unmotivated, and somewhat unhappy, and for seemingly no reason.
We’ve all been there at some point. When you’re in this situation, you have two choices:
- Stay there and go down that spiral
- Pull yourself out of it
The first option is easy. And yes, sometimes we need to sit and be with our feelings, without judging them. Toxic positivity — that gaslighting “Ignore your problems and just be happy!” mindset — never helps anyone. (And I don’t mean this about dealing with the big things — grief, depression, or trauma. This is the inexplicable bad mood that hits you out of nowhere. If it does persist, it’s important to speak to someone about it.)
But as creatives, we can’t stay in this state forever. So the second path to change our mood is far more difficult. And it was what I proceeded to work through the rest of the weekend.
How did I manage to get through it? I wondered the same thing and began to examine my weekend. I then realized that if I could turn things around for myself that quickly, there had to be something I could share with others to help them do the same.
So here’s my list of the action steps I took this weekend. I hope that if you find yourself having an “off” day, you can use these tips to get back on track:
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