Welcome to exhaustion. You have most likely been here quite a while and have not enjoyed your stay. Hopefully, you’ve had at least a little rest during your Thanksgiving break, but so often, that week fill up for us all. We end up hosting family or staying with family and as great as it is to see family, it often involves very little rest. Monday hits us hard and we secretly want a weekend to rest from the break. It can be hard to find the motivation to meet Monday with energy and enthusiasm. And we still have 3 weeks before we see Christmas break. How to find motivation to carry us through to the finish?
Guide to Exhaustion
First off, let’s not fight it. It never really works out to hide your exhuastion and keep pushing through. I am the queen of pretending to not be sick or exhausted, in hopes that perhaps I’ll fool my body. Plus, as a teacher, those two can hit nonstop. So instead of dealing with the issue, I like to pretend there is no issue so no pausing is required. Something tells me, I’m not the only one who does this. We live in a world that feeds on busy-ness and at some point, we all hit the point of sheer and pure exhaustion. Perhaps the first step is to succomb to that exhaustion.
The Art of Motivation
When you just cave and admit the exhaustion, you can begin to some steps to at least curb the exhaustion, if not allay it altogether. Well, perhaps that last part is a bit of an over reach…
- Do the obvious and get in a nap! Yup– revert back to those elementary days and schedule in a 30 minute nap everyday. I know you’re going to fight me on this, because that’s exacly what I would do in your place. But as my husband so frequently reminds me, ‘wasting’ 30 minutes on a nap now, means you can actually do something productive later.
- Learn to use pencil instead of pen. Stop thinking of every to-do item as essential to bringing life to the universe. Decide which tasks actually need to happen today and postpone things that don’t actually need to happen. Be flexible in rescheduling things for another day.
- Team up on life. We can’t always delegate our tasks, but sometimes we can partner up on projects or work on personal projects with a friend. Don’t underestimate the value of getting feedback, encouragement and if you’re lucky… some friendly nagging.
- Count the days! Create mini- countdowns for yourself. You just have to make it to your lunch break…. the end of your work day…. then Friday… Before you know it, Christmas break will be here and you can finally sleep until noon. Well, maybe for the first day. Don’t lose all control and go crazy.
Now, remember to breathe…. and hit up Netflix every once in a while.
