Ep #242: When You’re Unmotivated and Have Low Energy

Hello!

I’m so excited to share with you that I’m doing a free workshop, next Wednesday, March 29^th of 2023 at 3pm ET!

If you can come live, definitely come live and if not, it will be recorded and the recording will be available for a limited time afterward.

In this workshop, you and I are going to work on making it so you stop feeling urges to binge.

How great would that be, to no longer feel urges to binge? If you didn’t feel that urge, then you wouldn’t binge so eliminating those urges is going to be key in you stopping binge eating.

The workshop is going to consist of me teaching you why you are still feeling urges to binge and what you’re going to do to stop feeling them and I’ll also teach you how to feel through an urge to binge and that is important to know how to do because for most of you, even when you learn how to stop feeling urges, you’re most likely not going to shut them off like a light switch. It will take some time and as you’re working on that, urges will probably come up and you’ll need to know what to do with them when they do.

So come spend an hour with me as we work on this together and at the end I’ll do a Q&A so you can get any questions you have answered live on the workshop.

You can register and get all the info by going to coachkir.com/workshop and if you hear about this after it’s happened, go to coachkir.com/workshop right now and if the recording is still available, register so you can get emailed a link to the recording.

This workshop could be a game changer for you.

Let’s work on getting rid of your urges so you can stop binge eating and have the binge-free life you’ve been dreaming of!

Alright, now onto the topic for today – when you’re feeling unmotivated and have low energy.

When I’m working with my group members, I give them a lot of tools to help them to stop binge eating and when they’re using them, they notice a big difference in how they’re eating and how they’re thinking.

But sometimes, they just don’t have the energy to put in that effort.

Maybe they have a lot going on and doing this work isn’t a priority even though they very much want to be working on it. Maybe they’re feeling a lot of stress at the moment or are physically or emotionally exhausted and they just don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to be doing all the things they know to to and want to do.

We all have many different things going on in our lives and sometimes our priorities have to shift and sometimes we get emotional or tired. It happens.

But what doesn’t have to happen is that we completely give up on doing any of the work to stop binge eating and to create our ideal eating habits.

I was talking with one of my group members not long ago about how she kept finding herself going all in on doing the work and would then be doing nothing at all.

Now, there’s lot of reason why this could be happening for someone but for her at this time, it was for the exact reasons I mentioned a moment ago.

It was a busy time for her at work and she also had young kids to take care of and it was difficult not only for her to make time for the work she knows helps her with her eating but she just didn’t have the energy for it.

When that would happen, she’d get into her all or nothing mindset and end up doing nothing for her eating.

She wouldn’t even try because she was focusing on all the things she didn’t have time and energy for and decided that she just couldn’t do anything.

But that wasn’t really true.

There was stuff she could do, she just didn’t see it.

Like so many other people, she was getting caught up in the idea that she needed to do all the things in order to progress.

So as soon as she didn’t have the bandwidth to do it all, she chose to do nothing.

Now, I get it. We can’t do everything all the time. We simply don’t have enough time or energy so we need to compromise with ourselves and figure out what we can do.

So that’s what she and I figured out for her.

What she could do.

I asked her what she thought was doable for her to do even when she was feeling unmotivated and had low energy.

And she found one thing that she believed she could do, that wouldn’t take a ton of energy and effort and would still be impactful for her.

And not only did we look at what she could do, but also what she could intentionally think because as I hope you know by now, your actions aren’t the only thing to be focusing on. Your thoughts are going to be hugely impactful on how you feel and act so having a useful thought or useful thoughts that you’re telling yourself will be impactful as well.

So we found an action and a thought that she was practiced enough at that it wasn’t going to take a ton of effort for her to do it and think it.

She didn’t need to do the stuff she’s less skilled at, things that were less habitual, or things that took more time.

She could do simple, doable things that make a difference for her.

So for you, even when you’re feeling unmotivated or have low energy and don’t have a lot of time, what can you still do that will be easy for you, doable, and will be impactful even if just a little bit?

Maybe for you it’s journaling for 5 minutes, making a plan for what you want to eat that day, checking in on your goals and compelling reason, finding a win from the day before and taking a moment to celebrate yourself, ensuring you have something moderately pleasurable to do that day, meditating, stretching, or resting for a short time, even if it’s just one minute, or something else that you know is helpful for you and has become easy for you to do.

I compare it to brushing my teeth before bed even when I’m really tired or it’s late.

I don’t have to really talk myself into doing it because it’s something that doesn’t take a lot of energy for me and it also isn’t going to take a lot of time.

There might be other things I skimp on when I’m tired and it’s late, like maybe I won’t do the dishes, those can wait.

But I will at least brush my teeth. I can make that happen, it’s doable, and it’s impactful for my health.

So find that thing for you with your eating.

And even when you’re feeling unmotivated or have low energy and don’t have a lot of time, what can you think, what can you tell yourself that you believe even when you feel that way, that will be impactful even if just a little bit?

Maybe it’s a body acceptance thought, a self-acceptance thought, an encouraging thought, a compassionate thought, a useful thought about urges, a useful thought about bingeing, there are so many options.

There is something you believe strongly enough that even when you’re feeling unmotivated and low, you will still believe it even if just a little bit.

Find out what the action and thought are for you so when you’re just not up for much, you can at least do those.

You don’t have to give up on everything, there is still something you can do.

There is something you have time and energy for and a useful thought that you believe even when you’re feeling this way.

You don’t have to let a lack of motivation or low energy stop you from doing everything that would be impactful and help you make progress.

You can do something.

Alright, that is it for today but before I go I just want to give you a quick reminder about the workshop next week on Wednesday March 29^th of 2023 at 3pm ET! Stop feeling urges to binge. Let’s make it happen together. Go to coachkir.com/workshop to register so you can attend live or to access the recording if it’s still available.

I’ll see you there!

Bye bye!