“If you look at the world one way what, it takes from you – it’s a thief of time, energy and your creative mojo. But if you look at the world another way, it gives you an endless supply of motivation” Julianna Baggott
When you have your mojo, your view of the world is positive, optimistic and hopeful. You are full of energy and have an endless supply of motivation. You have your spark in life and people feel it and are attracted to you.
The reality however is, at some point in your life, you will lose your mojo. How long you lose your mojo for depends on how long it takes you to figure out how to get it back. For some of us, it can be a matter of a few days and for others, it can be months or years.
The reason why it takes so long for many of us to get our mojo back is because we don’t know how to or even where to start.
To get your mojo back into your life, you have to be prepared to change the way you think and the way you do things. This all takes energy and motivation and you don’t have much of either when your spark in life has gone out.
I know this to be true because this was how I felt when I lost my mojo about three years ago. When I lost my job for the 3rd time in 18 months, I lost my mojo big time – no energy, no self-belief, and no self-confidence. For about 6 months I was miserable and I shut myself away from the world. I was still functioning in life but my “spark’ had gone. I did not feel alive inside.
I like to think I am an optimist and I like the feeling of being energised and hopeful about life. After spending six months of my life feeling the opposite, I realised that if I didn’t get my mojo back, my quality of life would be bleak.
I decided to take action to get my mojo back in my life. I knew it was going to be hard work because the biggest obstacle I had to overcome on this journey was going to be me.
I have a record of giving up when the going gets tough, so I decided that I would focus on bringing back into my life six positive feelings that I had lost along with my mojo. These five actions below brought back into my life, energy, a positive attitude, hope, optimism, a sense of purpose and joy. This is what I did to get my mojo back.
1. I Got Active – This Creates Energy
I have always been an active person and attended the gym regularly. I gave up all physical activity when I lost my mojo.
I once read an article that said that the key to sustaining motivation with any type of physical activity is to focus on doing an activity that you enjoy. The article then went on to say that once you identify that activity you enjoy, write down and memorise the 5 benefits/feelings you get when you do the activity or exercise.
The next thing you do is: when you are about to start this particular activity you say “I am going to____ and I feel_______________” Name five feelings/benefits.
When you finish the activity, recite the same 5 benefits/feelings starting with “ I have completed my ______ and I feel_______.” I look forward to doing ________ on_____” (you name the specific day and time you will do the activity).
This is what I did to help me get back to the gym and yoga. I needed a strategy to help me get started and this worked. I have never looked back and yoga definitely was a huge help in getting my mojo back.
2. I Changed My Thoughts – This Creates A Positive Attitude
The conscious and subconscious minds operate at different levels. The conscious mind is your logic and reasoning. It controls your actions and intentions of the present moment. Your subconscious mind, however, controls your emotions and it is also where all your beliefs and memories are stored.
My conscious mind knew I had to get my mojo back but my subconscious mind stored the beliefs and emotions that supported the fact that I had lost my mojo. For me, to get my mojo back, I had to get my conscious and subconscious mind aligned because if I didn’t, my mojo was never coming back.
Again, I decided not to over-complicate things and so I came up with a practical way where I could start to work toward having alignment with my thinking and my actions.
Every time I had to choose between doing or thinking something that would help me get my mojo back or something that would block me from getting my mojo back, I would ask myself this one question;
“Is this decision/choice/action/thought/attitude going to get me closer to my goal of getting my mojo back or further away?”
I found this to be a powerful question that helped me to align my conscious and subconscious minds so that they were on the same page. As a result, I felt more positive about life and my thinking and attitude reflected this as well. This, without a doubt, was key to me believing that I could get my mojo back and sustain it in my life forever.
3. I Connected With People Who Had Mojo –This Creates Hope and Optimism
I am very lucky in my life as I have wonderful friends and family who I know love and support me. I realised however that for me to get my mojo back I needed to be with people who lived their lives embracing their mojo.
I set myself a challenge that twice a week, I would engage with someone who I didn’t know but felt they had mojo. The mojo qualities I looked for in people were those such as energy, enthusiasm, positivity, and motivation and had a joyful attitude about life.
This was an amazing experience. I met some incredible people who truly lived inspiring lives. They came from all walks of life. I learnt about gratitude and the gift of life. The more contact I had with people who embraced their mojo, the more energised, optimistic and hopeful I felt about my future.
4. I Clarified My Life Priorities – This Creates A Sense Of Purpose
Writing down what is important to you in your life helps you get clarity about how you want to live your life. When I wrote down my life priorities, next to each one I wrote down one feeling that I felt belonged with that life priority. For example, one of my life priorities that comes at the top of the list is FAMILY and the feeling I put next to it is LOVE.
I looked at my list every day and, over time, I began to realise that the more I focused on what was important in my life, the easier it was for me to commit to getting my mojo – my spark back in my life. This action was so important when taking up the challenge to get my mojo back, as it gave me with a sense of purpose in my life and also clarity and focus.
5. I Went And Had Fun – This Creates Feelings of Joy and Happiness
When you have lost your mojo, it is so easy to spend days in the doldrums feeling miserable for yourself. Doing any kind of activity, even if you like doing it, is often too hard. All elements of laughter and fun soon disappear from your life.
I certainly felt like this when I lost my mojo. Even though I didn’t like living my life this way, for a long time, I had no energy to do anything about it. One morning, out of the blue, it hit me. I realised that if I didn’t do something about changing my life for the better, I had to accept that living a joyful and happy life was not going happen. At that moment, I decided to do an activity that brought me joy – having a coffee with my best friend. I rang her up and went to have coffee that afternoon.
When I got home, I wrote a list of 30 activities that I loved doing and brought me joy. Every day for the next 30 days, I worked my way through my list and guess what came back into my life? The feelings of joy and happiness. Over the month, I learnt how to appreciate the gift of joy and happiness in the present moment. The more aware I became of the joyful, fun and happy moments, the more joy and happiness came into my life. That was when I felt my mojo was back!
Getting your mojo back is critical for your quality of life. Your physical health and emotional well-being are under threat if you don’t start to take action to get your mojo back into your life. These 5 actions helped me get my mojo back and I hope in a small way, they help you to take action to get your mojo back into your life forever.
