101. What do you do if you aren't feeling motivated?
When you're not in the mood to work, is doing something better than doing nothing? 😖 In this very short episode of Brand Therapy, exhausted hosts Phil and Lauren have a discussion about energy management, taking work breaks, and communicating with clients. If you're feeling zapped from current events, this low-energy episode is the perfect listen.
Episode transcription
Phil
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Phil
Hello, hello. Hello and welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. Welcome. Let me just say something right off the bat, you can probably tell from the intro that I am feeling low energy today. Are you Lauren Moore?
Lauren
Me too. I'm exhausted. The past few weeks have been non stop.
Phil
Non stop for lots of reasons. At the time of recording this, you know, we record the podcast close to the day that we publish but obviously not the same day because that would be impossible. But at the time we're recording, the election is non stop in our ears. And even if you're not a political person that still has a trickle down effect. It's impossible to ignore the stress and anxiety that's being hurled at everyone's heads. And I'm just saying right off the top that I'm feeling that physically today, you know. And now it's like, you start to feel under the weather, and then you immediately can't just go “oh, I have a cold, I have the flu”, you immediately jump to this place of oh my god, I'm fearing that I have Coronavirus. Everything is so complicated and stressful right now. That's where I'm at today.
Lauren
Yeah, me too. And you know, we've got client commitments. And sometimes you just don't feel like working because your brains not in it. And that adds some additional pressure that I'm feeling. So we thought for today's episode, we would talk through what to do when you're not feeling motivated. And as I guess a symbol of what to do, we are recording this podcast that we put off yesterday that we wanted to put off today, but we decided to hop on and make this short episode instead.
Phil
We did because no one wants to hear about how to stay motivated from someone who's motivated. I don't want to hear it. Like turn that off. I don't want to hear from someone who's peppy, and in the mood, and telling me all the things I need to do with my day to be productive. Oh, not interested. It is true, we put recording this off. And we were going to tackle a pretty heavy topic, fitness programs. But we're gonna put that off and do a future episode for a day where we can really focus and give important information. I think that this is still a really good topic, I think that we are allowed to have an episode that's shorter than what it normally is. I think that right now people can relate to feeling this kind of stress, for whatever reason. I think this year has put a lot of stress on people. But to the point that you just made entrepreneurs, people that are in business for themselves could be a startup, it could be a small team, like you don't get to just have a sick day. Or you don't get to just call in sick for a week or you don't get to just disappear. I'm not saying anyone does. But I think especially stress on those solopreneurs or small businesses or personal brands, where there's an expectation that you're going to deliver something by a certain day and we often don't factor our energy levels we don't factor in if something goes wrong. I think about Shark Tank, right? Kevin always says to an entrepreneur that he's interrogating, he says if you walked out into the street and got hit by a car tomorrow, this business would be gone. And whenever I hear that I always have this pinging of “oh god, that's me”. And you, it's me and you. It's both of us. Hopefully, we're not walking across the street together.
Lauren
Yeah, I know. I know. It's tough. So I don't know. I'm not gonna lie. I don't know how to build the infrastructure, so that your business can thrive without you. I don't, that's not my skill. Maybe you need to hire someone to do that because you’ve asked thousand times-neither of our skills.
And so this episode is not about structuring your work so that someone else so that you can take a day off. But I think this episode is more about sort of what the tools that we've learned to use when things just aren't going the way that you expected when you have commitments. So I will say, the first thing that I always try to do when making commitments to clients, that I've learned over the years is that I really, really try to avoid promising something on a certain day. I really, really try instead of saying, I'll get this to Monday morning, I say, I'll get this too early next week. Or instead of saying, I'll get this to today, I'll say I'll work on it and send it over as soon as it's ready.
Phil
Yes, sometimes I say I'm working on this, and I'll have something for you to see shortly. Yeah, it's almost guaranteed that if I say today that it's not going to be today, Murphy's Law. It is just that if I promise it, there's going to be something that gets in my way from actually delivering it, or it's going to be a source of unnecessary stress. Mm hmm. Yeah, I put so much self imposed stress, deadlines, what have it. And it's like if you actually stop and think, hmm, does this really matter? This has come up on the podcast before but one of my coping mechanisms is if I'm in a tizzy, which to be honest, isn't that often, but I'm certainly low energy today. Because physically, I'm just not feeling great. But I, I have moments where I will stop and go, am I going to remember this one year from now? Am I going to remember this thing that is stressful? I'm going to remember the fact that I use an extra day or two to deliver something to a client, because I wasn't feeling well, you know, anything that's stressing you out? Ask yourself, Am I gonna remember this a year from now? And the answer is no, then you're giving it too much weight. It's just a good little reminder. I use that often.
Lauren
Yeah, I think that's great, too, I always try to remind myself, I'm doing the best that I can. And another thing that I remind myself to, particularly in the kind of client facing business is that clients are hiring you because they're expecting a certain quality of work. And if you mentally are just not able to deliver something that's up to your standards, you are doing the client a favor, by kind of letting them know as well. Like, hey, it's been a really busy week, I haven't been able to give this the amount of focus that it deserves. I need another few business days, I'll send it to you. As soon as I've got an update. I feel like that kind of reminds the client that they're not buying a whopper at Burger King. They're investing in something creative. And you can't always force creativity.
Phil
Good point. When I think about conversations we've had with guests on the podcast, normally the solution to problems that exist is communication. And that's an example of that. You actually just need to communicate, even if it's uncomfortable, or you feel some discomfort in the delivery of something, for fear that you're letting someone down. Actually, normally, it's better to communicate than to not. The worst thing you can do is not to let it fester and build up and explode. And so okay, I have one more idea to contribute to this. focus on the things that you can control. In this podcast episode, guess what is something we can control five minutes before we hit record? I had said to you, well, maybe half an hour before that. I had said come on. Let's just do it. Let's pump it out. It's not that we don't love you the listener, it's just uh, we literally weren't in the mood on a Friday afternoon.
And then I came back and said, I really am not in the mood for this. And you said, why don't we do a really short episode to make this the shortest episode we've ever done. And guess what? That is highlighting something you can control and rejoice in the things that you can control. Right. I mean, that's kind of cool. hadn't thought of doing that before. But why don't we make a shorter episode, get it done. Be honest. Talk about the things we're thinking about. And peace out.
Lauren
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Often, I also find that doing something is better. Well, actually, I don't always want to say that. But for me, most of the time, doing something is better than doing nothing. A lot of times people will be like, just take the afternoon off. But it's really hard for me to disengage and truly take the afternoon off. I'm going to be thinking about what needs to be done the whole time and then I'm stuck in this stupid self imposed Limbo, where I'm like, not in the mood to work, but I'm not thinking about anything but work. And so for me, I find that generally when I'm feeling mentally overwhelmed, I don't know where to start, don't want to start, for me, it all comes down to prioritizing my to do list and getting a handle on just everything that needs to be done so that I can tackle it with energy the next day. For me, it's always that my inbox is a mess, or that my Asana is disorganized, or that I have tasks where it's like, process notes from call and create next steps, and no next steps have been created. As soon as I start turning my to do list into action. So I know exactly what needs to be done when I always feel better. And I can finally disengage when that's done, and felt. So I want to know, when you're feeling mentally overwhelmed, what do you usually do?
Phil
Um, well, how's that for an answer? Mentally overwhelmed. I do accept that sometimes things just aren't gonna get done that day. Or I mean, you remind me to think about my energy levels, and don't half ass it, either do it or don't do it. If you don't do it today, then do it tomorrow. And normally, that alone helps me just to give myself space to not deliver something. I don't know. You have to listen to yourself and your body.
Lauren
Yeah, that's true.
Phil
I think there's also an advantage to having two of us because if I can't do something, you can jump in and do it. I think for business owners, even if it's just you at the helm, you might want to think about maybe a contractor that you work with, or maybe someone that's also in the position where they're doing business independently, maybe to be an accountability partner. You don't necessarily have to work in the same business to be an accountability partner for that other person. You know, that's one thought.
Lauren
Yeah, it's a good one.
Phil
I'm done with thoughts. Are you done with thoughts?
Lauren
Yeah, I want this to end. Let's wrap.
Phil
We're gonna wrap it in a short episode. But you know, we keep it real around here. The final thing I want to mention, which is not related to what we've discussed, is that I want people to go check out our brand new website, philpallen.co with over 50 client projects detailed. I'm so,so proud of this website, it took us over 300 hours as a team to build and it is now live for you to go and see. Take the time to go check it out and let us know what you think. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil
#brandtherapy is where we can continue the conversation. You know, we didn't give you full energy today, but hopefully we still gave you some ideas to think about as you're building your business. And you know, we'll be back next week with a guest and with lots of energy right here on Brand Therapy. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us today. We'll see you next time.
Lauren
Bye bye.
