Friday, February 4, 2011

How To Beat Your Winter Funk

For weeks I’ve been completely unmotivated. It happens to me every January. The weeks of sub-zero temperatures wear me down. Eventually I find myself on the couch every night, watching way too much of my favorite programs, like TrueBlood or Dexter or Californication or whatever I can get my hands on.

I haven’t even cooked an actual dinner in weeks. I don’t feel like eating…nothing sounds good…I have no motivation to prepare anything. It is the time of year when I fall into my most unhealthy habits, and I feel like everything I love doing so much, like having a garden, canning/preserving food, cooking, eating healthy, exercising, is all so far out of reach.

How can I break out of this funk?

We all know the common things that we should be doing….exercise, get eight hours of sleep, eat vegetables, meditate, whatever. I know what I should be doing, I just don’t do it. It’s dark all the time. It’s cold. I’m always tired. And cold. I go home and put my pajamas on.

One night this week I did manage to pick up the book I’m reading, The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion (which, by the way, I am enjoying quite a bit…her story is about grief and hope and strength and reminds me of my experience with my mother and her stroke) instead of turning on the TV. I guess that is one step in the right direction.

How do you get out of your funk?

I’m reminded of a post this week on my friend’s blog, Fat Girl Fed Up, about setting goals. Maybe that is what I need to do. A weekly goal for blog posts. A weekly goal for reading. A weekly goal for the draft of my novel……I am going to start small so I don’t get overwhelmed, and then keep setting goals. Notice I am mixing business and pleasure for motivational purposes……..

Starter Goals:
  • Make healthy Pumpkin muffins for our “breakfast theme” Superbowl party
  • See a movie (I am REALLY intrigued by the preview for Sanctum)
  • Finish KSurf Fiction Writing workshop assignments by 2/14. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. This weekend, catch up on lessons
  • Finish my office…l’ll post some pictures in an upcoming post…finishing my own personal writing space is related to my writing goals!
  • Finish “The Year of Magical Thinking” by the end of February and start a new book
  • Paint my bedroom by the end of February

2 comments:

  1. I LOVE YOU!!! FINALLY!!!
    I miss reading your writing!!! MORE MORE MORE!!!!

    And, I am honored that you mentioned me. I love you. And there are OTHER reasons for the funk my dear. Make sure you are taking your Vitamins--I was going to say that VD is helping me, but then I realized that many people might question my vajajay status when really I was talking about Vitamin D...
    So, Vitamin D is helping me. But honestly, my funk is ever present as well. While I am pretending well at times, for the most part I am pretty sad. I even started crying during practice on Wednesday. Dude. I am a loser. There is no crying in football!!!!!!

    I miss you and am thinking about you and I am not as mad that you have YET to respond to my TEXT MESSAGES even though you have your new phone because I at least got a mini-blog. And I do mean mini!!!

    :D
    Love you!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad you're enjoying that book! I thought you would like it :-)

    Don't forget our goal to walk once a week :-)

    ReplyDelete

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