Did the pandemic steal you passion?

Have you ever had an indulgent “lazy” weekend where you stayed in bed so long that, when you finally got up and around, you didn’t feel like you had the energy or interest in doing anything?

That’s the feeling many people are reporting experiencing as the pandemic recedes and the start of the “new normal” laps at their feet. Being cooped up mostly indoors for more than a year has left some people with a strong sense of lethargy and lack of motivation to fully re-engage “life on the run” again. In fact, there are recent news reports of many people procrastinating about going back to work, and there has even been an uptick in people quitting their jobs (for various reasons, some to pursue something different, but others not wanting to go back to the “old normal”).

If left unaddressed, this nagging sense of lethargy can:

• • Stall the start of your personal “new normal.”
  • Stall your re-establishing connections with family, friends, neighbors and others who were a regular part of your pre-pandemic life.
  • Stall the regathering and revitalizing of the church.

Let me suggest several things you can do to help you push through the haze left over from a troublesome year and prod yourself to move forward into your future:

1. Personal spiritual renewal. When you get off track with God and the purpose He created you for, you get off track with life. The most personally energizing and motivating thing you can do for yourself right now is to make personal spiritual renewal priority one. This will help sharpen your values, refresh your worldview, and renew your purpose, and that can spur you to “get living” again!

2. Dream again. A lot of people have been surprised to learn as one of many lessons from the pandemic that they really didn’t have any dreams in place for their lives, or the dream they did have long ago had stalled long ago and needs refreshing. If we can’t fully go back to the “old normal,” and if there are good reasons not to, then use this as an opportunity to dream new dreams for a fresh, better, and brighter “new normal.”

3. Be intentional about setting new goals. It’s hard to feel enthused or be motivated about moving into a “new normal” that doesn’t have any goals to pursue, so set some! Executing a plan to achieve new goals can help spur you out of any lingering sense of lethargy and get you reengaged in a fuller life.

4. Re-vision or revitalize the personal mission for your life. The pandemic may have derailed the mission you had in place for your life, or may have revealed it’s time to make some key changes in what is truly your mission for living. In that case, engage your thoughts, prayers, and energy in re-visioning and/or revitalizing your life mission for your “new normal.”

5. Purposely start expending energy on reconnecting. Those of you who are a member of a gym can probably relate to times of not wanting to go to the gym but, after forcing yourself to go get in a workout, being happy you did because you feel so much better afterward. Or maybe you’ve had Sundays where you really wanted to stay home from attending church service, but out of a sense of duty you “went to church” and later were happy you did because it was such a rich spiritual experience and joyful fellowship. The idea here is you may have developed a habit of keeping your distance from others and have gotten lazy about expending the energy necessary to connect with all the relationships in your life. Be motivated by knowing that relationships fail more often because we fail to nurture them! Now that you can fully reconnect with people again, it’s time to do so.

6. Get out of your house more. More than a year of working from home or spending more time at home can easily result in developing bad habits like sleeping late just to get up and spend your days watching Netflix marathons in your pajamas. You don’t have to stay home anymore, so get up, get a shower, put on clean clothes, and get out into the world more!

7. Get back to church. Christians have been immensely patient about not gathering in person as the family of God, but there’s no reason not to anymore. Your church needs you, and you need your church family, it’s time to go “home” and be with your faith family again. Make this a top priority.

8. Ramp up your self-discipline for a season. Let’s face it, lethargy and lack of motivation largely comes from allowing yourself to be less self-disciplined and outright lazier for a long time. To overcome that, you’ll need to purposely ramp up your level of self-discipline or, in other words, expect a little more of yourself for a season so you can shake the lethargy and reengage in fully living again.

9. Choose at least one new BIG challenge for yourself. Give yourself something big, something important, something of value to go accomplish to help jumpstart an energetic, motivated engagement in a whole “new normal” ahead of you.

Scotty