Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:13] Welcome to Imagine the Possibilities. My name is Skip Pogue, and I'm really glad you're here today.
[00:00:20] If you've been following along on recent episodes, you probably noticed I've been diving deep, talking about things like forgiveness, judgment, emotional well being, and all that's important stuff.
[00:00:32] But I had a moment not too long ago where I stopped and I thought, wait a minute.
[00:00:39] This podcast started at a place to inspire, I would say people, but it's designed to inspire me too. So inspire all of us.
[00:00:51] I wanted to be able to motivate people and to lift our spirits and hopefully allow us to dream again.
[00:01:00] This episode is about something that I think we all go through at some point and maybe more than once. I'm sure I have, and I'm sure most of you have, and that one thing is losing our motivation, losing that inner fire. We have that spark, we lose it. But how can we get it back?
[00:01:23] I tried to think of a good name for this, and I don't think this is the one I want to use. But right now I'm calling it when the Fire Fades. But We Still Believe.
[00:01:37] I think in my case, I need to be real about this.
[00:01:41] Even the most driven people that I know sometimes lose their motivation.
[00:01:48] The fire fades, life gets heavy, and suddenly we're doing things out of habit instead of with purpose.
[00:01:59] Now, I've felt that way lately. Not in a big, I don't know, what's the word, dramatic way, but like I was in a slow drift, not riding the waves on a surfboard.
[00:02:13] I'm just laying down in the boat, drifting around, not doing what I should be doing. It's like, can't remember the word.
[00:02:24] It's like my mojo just slipped out the back door, just gone. And I don't know what to do.
[00:02:34] I've been busy with other things, and maybe that's part of the problem. I wasn't. I wasn't completely focused when I needed to be, and I didn't even realize that that was happening to me. At first, I just thought everything was okay. I was still hitting the record button. I was still creating stuff.
[00:02:56] For some reason, the excitement that I normally experience when I was recording a podcast.
[00:03:02] Each podcast I've recorded, I felt would benefit somebody, hopefully more than one person. But I felt like there was somebody out there that needed to hear what I was saying, and I was excited about that.
[00:03:17] But I realized a few days ago that that excitement wasn't there anymore. And to be honest, it scared me.
[00:03:28] You know, I want to do this. I need to do it, and I want to help people.
[00:03:34] But when I started realizing that I was not truly excited, it really did scare me because I want to keep doing this, and I don't want to stop. And I don't want people to listen to a podcast and say, well, that's it. He's lost his. You know, he's lost his mind or something.
[00:03:54] And I think part of it was that all of a sudden, I started really covering a lot of stuff that was pretty deep, I guess, as I touched on those subjects, which I really like doing, felt like I wasn't connected to why I started this podcast.
[00:04:15] Now, maybe you all. Maybe you felt something like that yourself at times that you're not connected to what you're really trying to do or what you need to be doing.
[00:04:26] You know, I kind of felt like. And this has been over the last, I don't know, month, let's say, but I kind of felt like I was showing up and even doing the work, but inside I just felt like I was disconnected.
[00:04:50] Now, here's the thing I realized feeling that way doesn't mean we're broken.
[00:04:58] It just means we're human.
[00:05:01] I think even good routines can wear thin if we don't stop and refill our own cup, if we don't stop and take care of ourselves, what we need and what we feel like we're doing.
[00:05:18] The thing is, it's kind of like a pothole.
[00:05:21] Pothole doesn't get formed in a day.
[00:05:24] It gets formed over a period of time.
[00:05:28] Things that happen, the pressure creates the pothole.
[00:05:32] And it's like with us, the fire doesn't vanish overnight.
[00:05:38] Our desire to accomplish what we're doing and what we believe in doesn't just gone.
[00:05:46] It dims slowly until we realize that there's something missing, something that we were doing or a feeling we did have. And all of a sudden, we're not feeling that anymore.
[00:06:05] So what I did was I went back to the beginning, and it wasn't like I started over with the first podcast. I did listen to a couple of them, and I noticed certain things about them. And I feel like that as I've gotten more used to recording and editing and all the stuff that goes along with publishing a podcast that I had gotten better.
[00:06:28] But that's not what I was looking at.
[00:06:31] I asked myself, why did I start this podcast to. To begin with? I mean, why?
[00:06:41] I realized that my answer was simple, but it also was kind of powerful.
[00:06:48] See, I started imagining possibilities to encourage people to be a voice, someone that would Remind others, and therefore remind myself that we're all capable of a lot more than we think we are.
[00:07:07] That success, happiness, fulfillment, whatever name you want to give it.
[00:07:13] They're not reserved just for the lucky people.
[00:07:17] They're available to all of us.
[00:07:20] But we've got to be willing to take the first step.
[00:07:25] I wanted to lift people up.
[00:07:28] I wanted to help someone feel like they were seen, like they were recognized.
[00:07:35] And I wanted to share that whatever is facing us today, it doesn't have to define our tomorrows.
[00:07:44] That message, I believe it still matters. It still lights me up. I just need to remember it. And maybe, I don't know, maybe you do too.
[00:07:55] We just need to remember it. How's that?
[00:07:58] Let me ask you something, and if you're like me, you might even want to jot this down.
[00:08:07] What made you excited to wake up and chase something before this world got so heavy?
[00:08:14] Before your job, before your life, before everything was piled on you a little bit at a time?
[00:08:24] What was it that excited you when you got up? You know, was it your family? Was it your wife? Was it your spouse? Was it, you know, was it your job?
[00:08:35] Was it something you were accomplishing?
[00:08:38] Your bank account? New car? What was it?
[00:08:43] We all chase something that I believe makes us happy, makes us feel fulfilled.
[00:08:51] That question, asking yourself that question can point you in the right direction.
[00:08:59] It can be like a compass.
[00:09:02] It really brings us back to the why that we do something.
[00:09:08] And sometimes when we get back and we start looking at it and ask that question, for us, motivation feels like it's not gone so much, but it's just sad. I guess I'm not sure what the word is.
[00:09:27] We're still hearing the words and we're seeing people and we're hearing things and all that stuff, but it doesn't really do the same thing it did to us a month ago before. This thing hit us without us knowing just kind of flattens out. And it doesn't have that same feel or excitement. And we've got to figure out why we don't have that same excitement.
[00:09:59] I don't know who the quote is by, but one of my favorite quotes is, when you feel like giving up, remember why you started.
[00:10:08] Sometimes, like I said, sometimes just thinking about that will re energize us.
[00:10:13] We all of a sudden feel a bit more motivated, even if it's just for the day.
[00:10:19] We feel better and we become a bit more focused.
[00:10:24] We start looking at our purpose again.
[00:10:28] And things get better.
[00:10:30] Now, not necessarily we're not fixed, but we do see a bit more of the light?
[00:10:38] How do we truly reignite the fire? How do we bring our level of excitement back and things like that, I guess it would be how do we shake off how we're feeling and reconnect with what makes us come alive? How do we do that?
[00:11:02] Here's a couple things that helped me.
[00:11:06] I said something about it a few minutes ago, but reconnect to your why?
[00:11:10] We need to reconnect to our why.
[00:11:14] Why did we do this? Why did we start? Why are we doing what we're doing?
[00:11:19] Because having a purpose fuels passion in us.
[00:11:25] Whatever the reason, write it down, say it out loud, stick it on your refrigerator or your mirror in the bathroom.
[00:11:34] We need to remind ourselves regularly why we're doing what we're doing.
[00:11:40] I said in the last podcast about purpose.
[00:11:44] If your purpose is to provide for your family and your children and make sure they have a, and I'm putting this in air quotes, a better life than you had, that's a great purpose.
[00:12:00] It's a terrific purpose.
[00:12:03] So keep that in mind.
[00:12:06] You know, I talk a lot about baby steps and I believe baby steps are really important.
[00:12:11] Sometimes we.
[00:12:14] I'll draw an analogy. Have you ever your wife fixed something that you really, really like? One of your favorite dishes?
[00:12:23] My case, one of them is homemade chili.
[00:12:28] So she fixes homemade chili and ours is hot and spicy. I mean, it is spicy. It makes you sweat spicy, but it's really good.
[00:12:40] So when she fixes it, instead of taking a normal sized bowl, I take a bigger bowl and I can't eat it all. And I eat enough, that makes me miserable.
[00:12:53] And that's why I believe that baby steps are important.
[00:12:59] Because sometimes we'll see something happening and we think, oh, this is great. And instead of taking baby steps and being able to walk with our eyes closed in the right direction, we break into a dead room with our eyes wide open and run off the cliff.
[00:13:17] Here's what I want us to do.
[00:13:20] Not just you, but me too. And I've done some of this.
[00:13:24] Do one small thing that lights you up, that makes you happy, that makes you feel good. One small thing.
[00:13:32] We can't overhaul everything in an instant. It's going to take. It took a while to get into the shape we're in and it's going to take a while to get out of the shape.
[00:13:45] It's not an overnight, I can't tell you. And I've been through it more than once. There's no.
[00:13:52] It's not instant pudding. How's that you can't just mix some milk or water with it and 10 seconds later you got pudding you can eat. It's gonna take some work.
[00:14:04] Whatever makes you the one thing every day, I don't care how big it is. It can be really something tiny, but it's got to be something. Brings you joy.
[00:14:18] Go for a walk. Not talking about a mile. Go walk down your driveway and back.
[00:14:24] Read a couple pages in one of your favorite books or a new book you've bought, and you've been kind of not into it, so you have been reading it. Just sit down and read a couple pages.
[00:14:37] And if that makes you feel better, then that's a good thing, right?
[00:14:42] Sometimes we get so busy we forget about others.
[00:14:47] But if you've been meaning, oh, I need to call Bob.
[00:14:52] Oh, I don't have time right now, but I need to call Bob. I haven't talked to him in a week.
[00:14:58] And you always enjoy talking with Bob is a fun thing. So instead of continuing to put it off, pick the phone up and call Bob.
[00:15:09] Message a friend that you've been thinking about and just tell them, hey, I've been thinking about you, Joe. And I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your friendship.
[00:15:21] There's nothing wrong with it. Tell Joe you love him.
[00:15:25] It's okay.
[00:15:27] I mean, I have a lot of friends that have been my friends for a long, long time.
[00:15:33] And I don't have a problem telling them that I love them because it's true.
[00:15:39] I don't love them like I love my wife, but I love them like God expects me to love someone.
[00:15:45] And that's great.
[00:15:47] But just start with something small.
[00:15:52] Think about this.
[00:15:54] Have you ever thrown a rock in a pond or a lake when it's real still? Like, early in the morning when it looks like a mirror, it's just perfectly flat. And you pick up a rock and you throw it out, and when it hits, it goes bloop.
[00:16:09] And these ripples spread out from it.
[00:16:13] And whatever you do, whatever the small thing that really lights you up that you do is, like, those ripples, it's not just one single splash of water. It'll continue to move out and you'll feel better for a longer period of time than you thought you would.
[00:16:34] Another thing, dreams are important.
[00:16:37] And I would never tell somebody not to dream or to not dream big.
[00:16:44] If your dream. If you don't think you're working toward your dream or towards success.
[00:16:53] And I've struggled with this.
[00:16:55] Change the setting.
[00:16:57] We don't always need to change our dream.
[00:17:01] But sometimes we might need to change our view.
[00:17:06] It can be as simple as I've got a bunch of playlists and some of them I have listened to forever and I like the music, I like the songs, I like the words.
[00:17:17] But every once in a while I'll realize that particular day that playlist is not doing anything for me.
[00:17:26] So I'll change it.
[00:17:29] I'll create a new routine.
[00:17:32] Just little things again.
[00:17:35] Little shifts with your energy and your desire will change things more than you expect.
[00:17:44] And sometimes it's just enough to get us moving forward again.
[00:17:52] Offer encouragement to someone else.
[00:17:56] In my case, I do that a lot. And I realize that every time I do that it's not something I expect, but at the same time it's something that happens almost every time I do it.
[00:18:11] And that is lifting someone else up lifts me up too.
[00:18:17] I believe motivation is contagious.
[00:18:21] Be the one that helps somebody else and watch it light you up too.
[00:18:30] In today's world, things are not always easy and they're not always what we expect.
[00:18:37] So just take and say something encouraging. Or better yet, try to make it a habit that when you run into somebody you know or somebody you don't know, wish them a good day.
[00:18:54] If they open a door for you, thank them.
[00:18:57] If you're able to open door for them, do it. If they thank you, that's great. If they don't, you still accomplish that. You still should feel better about opening the door.
[00:19:07] Don't worry or internalize or be aggravated by the fact they didn't say anything.
[00:19:14] You did the right thing.
[00:19:17] You and God know you did the right thing. So it's all good.
[00:19:23] Create a fresh vision.
[00:19:26] Whatever your vision is moving forward, maybe you want to set a new goal.
[00:19:36] You want to focus on some particular thing that you feel like you could improve on and that would benefit you in your personal, professional or spiritual life. So do that.
[00:19:49] Your vision could be a paragraph written on something, or it can be a single word. Doesn't matter.
[00:19:56] It needs to be something that will re energize and reignite your hope.
[00:20:03] Now, none of these things are magic tricks. They won't change something that you're working through overnight.
[00:20:12] They're a simple shift that starts to reawaken that fire that we all have in us.
[00:20:19] And it goes out sometimes and we've got to get it started again.
[00:20:24] I think anybody that's listened to my podcast knows how much I love words that encourage people.
[00:20:34] I want to touch on a few things that always seem to help me.
[00:20:40] You don't always have to feel ready. You just have to show up.
[00:20:46] You're not starting over when something blocks your way.
[00:20:52] When that happens, you're not going to go back to the start and start over. But from that point forward, you're going to be wiser.
[00:20:59] You're going to learn from that and be better.
[00:21:02] I guess the last one is progress begins again. The moment you say, I'm not done yet. You got to a point, but you realize you're not done.
[00:21:12] So progress begins again at that moment in your mind or actually out loud that you say, hey, I'm not done yet, Skip. You're not done yet.
[00:21:23] I'm not done yet. I've got to do better. I got more I can do and I need to do that.
[00:21:29] Here's something that I guess I'm not sure if mantra is the right word, but sometimes when I feel stuck on something, I think about this. That I don't have to figure it all out.
[00:21:47] I just need to keep moving forward.
[00:21:50] Whatever needs to be figured out, it will come to us. We may have to take five steps forward and a step back, but it will come to us and we'll be better for it.
[00:22:03] I don't know if that one means anything to you.
[00:22:06] It does to me. But figure out a mantra or a saying or a motivational word or something that impacts you.
[00:22:18] Create one that speaks directly to you.
[00:22:22] Write it down, say it out loud. When your energy dips a little bit, it can be something as simple as, I'm still becoming whatever it is you're still becoming, or one step is still moving forward.
[00:22:43] Make it yours.
[00:22:45] It's that simple.
[00:22:47] Not sure simple is the right word, but that works. It's a good thing. How's that? Just figure out something that motivates you, that's simple enough. Or you can think about it and it will make you feel better. And it's true, especially the one step is still forward. But because baby steps, I talk about it all the time and I just think we miss a lot of stuff.
[00:23:15] We need to take steps and we need to be moving forward.
[00:23:21] But there are gonna be times that we are stopped, or there may be times that we have to take a step back and maybe change our direction a little bit.
[00:23:32] But that's life. That's okay. And we need to figure out how. In our mind, we need to figure out how not to dwell on it and how to accept it as part of our journey and part of our process and part of the things that drive us and motivate us we can't let that hurt our self esteem.
[00:23:56] I think it's time that I wrap this up.
[00:23:59] If I were sitting with you, I would tell you as a friend that if your fire has faded even a little bit lately, if that spark that ignites you is not as strong, I would tell you that the belief is still in you, the purpose you have is still there, and even a small flame can light your way forward.
[00:24:21] We need to come back to what matters. We need to find joy in the things we do, including our work. And we need to accept the fact that every step counts.
[00:24:35] We need to do this together because nobody finds their motivation or their fire or whatever we want to call it, whatever it is to you in isolation.
[00:24:49] We just don't.
[00:24:51] We find it together.
[00:24:52] We fuel each other.
[00:24:56] I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.
[00:25:01] I do want to say, if you're a person of faith, if you have a personal relationship with God, keep it up.
[00:25:10] And some of the pain and aggravation and not feeling motivated or that maybe you don't have the right purpose or the right focus or whatever, talk to him about it. He can help you.
[00:25:26] I do that all the time and he does help me tremendously, sometimes more than I expected.
[00:25:34] So just think about that.
[00:25:37] In closing, I want to wish each of you, and I'm going to say, myself included, I want to wish all of us much success.
[00:25:48] And we need to remember that our future belongs to us, each of us individually, our future belongs to us.
[00:25:58] Stay humble, be kind, love unconditionally, and laugh often.
[00:26:05] I hope you have a super day and I pray that God blesses you in a super way.
[00:26:12] Until next time, more power to you.
[00:26:17] Thanks again and God bless.
