We have had months of mojo mangling
Our boundaries between home and work have mingled.
Zoom has revealed our delicate underbellies, our private lives exposed:
- power suit-y clothes swapped out for shorts, because quite frankly, you just looked weird wearing a suit in your bedroom or kitchen
- carefully crafted ‘professional personal brands’ – wilted when the cat/dog/other half zoom-bombed the call
Keeping focussed on the day job while teaching the kids, or shopping for / watching out for an elderly or vulnerable relative was a challenge.
If you had a holiday, it was most likely not what you planned.
After all that …
Is your mojo all fired up and ready for the rest of the year?
… probably not
I’ve worked from my home studio for a long time, here are my tips to get your mojo on track
Get some alone time – I walk my dogs to the same spot pretty much every day, an oak tree on a bridleway. I take a picture, post it on its own Twitter & Instagram page (#treetwoproject) – I started it five years ago, the whole first year is online. While I am walking I think about the day or the week ahead, and when I get there I can have a rant at the big old oak tree if I need to. The routine helps structure the day, plus the exercise is uplifting, and some people quite like the pics I share 😉
Count your blessings – be thankful for the things that really matter, go for at least three.
Build yourself a mini-me* – it’s a brave you, the one that rocks, that knows their onions, the expert in the room, the one that stands tall, wears shoulder pads. You can get your head into gear and switch on your mini-me by getting yourself into an empowered state of mind. This is my technique:
- choose three songs that get you energised, put them on a playlist (mine are ‘Pumped up Kicks’, ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ & ‘A little less conversation’)
- visualise your best day ever, with all its little details, remember the smells, remember how you felt.
Practice that visualisation, connect with those feelings while playing the songs and you’ll soon marry up all those positive feelings with just a few notes of your playlist, a smell, or the image in your mind. This is a great technique to take with you into those Zoom meetings, or give you a bolt of confidence if you go live stream, or make videos.
Always have something on your to-do list – a book to read, a course to do – something you’ll enjoy both to do, and talk about.
Shut that door – it may not be a real door, but you need a boundary between work and home.
Share – share your thoughts, engage in conversations, comment on posts, or create your own on your favourite Social Media platform. Or, share them with yourself, just write them down the old way, on paper – thoughts always look different written down, and if they’re troublesome, they lose their power to mangle your mojo, and if you share them, someone may be able to help.
Here’s a thought for you
We didn’t have a holiday this year – but we have been to the beach a few times. One of my essential tasks at the beach is to find a ‘lucky stone’ – one with a hole right through it. I did find one, it was very small, and it got me thinking. That small stone has been around for probably millions of years, it started off – most likely – spewed from a volcano, and was slowly over millennia broken, tossed around in the sea, ground down, rounded and still has to journey on to be sand. And here I am. For just a moment in time. Make the most of it. If your mojo is feeling mangled, whip it back up into shape – Carpe diem!
* I’d say persona, but that sounds like a bigger ask, and I don’t want you to start thinking about customer journeys!