How To Get Yourself Out Of A Rut

"It's just one of those days."

All of us have that feeling every once in a while — defeated, tired, and unmotivated. However, life doesn't stop for us just because we're feeling down. We need to figure out a way to get past that muggy feeling and learn how to quickly get ourselves out of our mood. Although it seems impossible, there are ways to get our energy and our motivation back within a couple hours.

First, and pretty obvious, is get active. Many of us, whether we realize it or not, tend to feel a lot better after exercise. It could be as simple as going outside to go get food or something more intensive like going to the gym and having a sweat session. No matter how we do it, it's important to get our blood pumping and our bodies moving. It's extremely helpful when feeling unmotivated because it gets our energy up, therefore making us feel like we're being more productive and giving us that initial boost we need to get started with our work.

Next is making sure to eat. I know that when I'm feeling down in the dumps I tend to stay in bed and watch Netflix with no intention of getting up to eat. This is somewhat due to laziness, however, feeling upset can bring on not eating, which isn't good at all. Finding a go-to healthy snack or vowing to start the day with breakfast are small ways that we can provoke ourselves to get up and get stuff done.

Another tip is to put away social media and our phones. This can be a HUGE distraction and nowadays is a typical reason to become upset. Whether we feel like we're being ignored, we see something that makes our confidence go down, or we get FOMO, social media isn't something that we need to be focused on, especially if it has the potential to make us feel unmotivated. By leaving our phones in our rooms for a couple of hours and finishing what we need to get done, we can focus on what we need to do and get ourselves motivated without any distractions.

Finally, meeting up with good friends is a simple yet effective way to get ourselves out of a rut. Find the people who make you smile, laugh, and overall have a great time when they're around. By surrounding yourself with amazing friends and family, we can distract ourselves from what we're upset about and eventually forget about it altogether. Then, we have the ability to get our motivation back rather than sitting in our rooms alone all day moping.

All of us have those days. It's inevitable. However, we just need to learn how to deal with them and figure out what helps us get our energy up and our motivation back. In general, finding something you enjoy doing is a great way to get yourself out of a rut. Get into a good book, find an interesting TED Talk to expand your knowledge. Watch videos on YouTube about something that interests you. Spend time with people who make you feel good. Get out of the house. At the end of the day, all you have is you, so make the most of it.