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Confidence, Mojo

7 Ways To Get Your Mojo Back

Mojo isn’t purely about physical fitness, energy, appearance and high levels of testosterone. Although it has a lot to do with that! You can’t have max mojo if you’re low on energy and out of shape. However, this is a refreshing approach from Forbes, about making changes in your life to get your mojo back, revealing your creative self, undertaking new experiences, changing things up, shifting your focus, making new friends. An interesting one is changing your priorities. This stuck out to me as I recently read a book called Flow – Living at the Peak Of Your Abilities. Over 30 years the author studied the concept of Flow – which is can also be described as ‘getting in the zone’ when all concept of time is forgotten and you’re fully engaged in an activity.  This is normally associated with sports and fun activities like playing a musical instrument, but there are ways of establishing flow in other areas of your life that are often regarded as boring.  He interviewed a few people at the ends of their lives and the most popular regret people made a point about, was not prioritising properly. For example, work over family. As an entrepreneur it’s easy to fall into the trap of working around the clock – but then you miss out on the most important things in life. Check out these 7 wasy to get your mojo back from Forbes:

Embarking on something new is the most exciting, energizing feeling in the world. We get fired up and can’t stop talking about it, at least for a while. Then, inevitably, we hit a plateau. Stagnation sets in and we lose our mojo.  For the purposes here, I’m assuming mojo refers to desire, passion, or motivation.  Here are what the best of the best entrepreneurs and venture-backed CEOs do when they’ve lost theirs.

Change Your View: It’s time to leave the uninspiring, gray-walled cubicle farm and get some work done from the park, art museum, or college campus. Environment matters. We encourage our kids to play outside, so why not take our own advice? Challenge yourself to the 5% dare: switch it up for just 5% of your work week (only 2 hours out of a 40-hour period). Take calls while on a walk through the zoo, analyze a summary from a picnic blanket in the botanical garden. You’re bound to think differently than when staring at Excel from your desk.

Change Your Attitude: As Wayne Dyer pointed out and my colleague Dan Gilbert lives by, “You’ll see it when you believe it.” Envision your “finish line” – signature from a new client, 15 pounds lighter, or PTA’s parent of the year award – and feel what it’s like to have attained your goal. Work backward to determine what it takes to reach that point. Setting small, incremental goals for each stage of the process will help keep you focused and your mind alert; before you know it, you’ll see the manifested outcome of all that you believed.

Change Your Patterns: Tuli Kupferberg wisely noted, “When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.” Be brave! Buy that Groupon for the weird class around the corner – give it a whirl. Go to the gym after work? Try pumping some iron before you get to the office. If you eat at the same restaurant for lunch all the time, walk one block farther to check out a new spot. See what happens by just sitting on the other side of your desk, looking at a different wall or window. It’s a variety of small improvements that will increase your batting average dramatically.

Change Your Priorities: If you tell me that writing, raising capital, and spending time with your daughter are the most important things to you, that’s wonderful. However, if your calendar lists none of those activities and is instead filled with meetings for all kinds of other things, you are living a fantasy. Your calendar does not lie about where your focus and priorities are, so make it clear that you value your own time for the categories upon which you want to focus. Block out time for activities requiring your attention and adjust the rest of your day accordingly. Need to leave at 4:00 to make it to soccer practice for your daughter? Bring work home or get in earlier to make it happen. The only way to accomplish goals is to force them to the top of your to-do list. Robin Sharma phrases this perfectly: “Your daily schedule reflects your deepest values.”

Change Your Mentor: Whom do you look up to? The best of the best have the best of the best of the best as mentors. Learn as much as you possibly can from experts who want to share their wisdom, imparting helpful lessons to impact your success. The ball is in your court: Make the effort to keep a relationship active by scheduling a standing get-together or call, without being pushy. For example, one of the companies in our portfolio at DVP was founded by a young man in his early 20s, named Shawn Geller. He reached out to me and asked to have a monthly, one-on-one lunch to talk about leadership. Done. No-brainer. The hour spent together is always productive and lessons learned (hopefully) have a tremendous impact on Quikkly, the fledgling company he’s growing readily.

Change Your Friends: The people with whom you surround yourself heavily influence you. If you’re lacking motivation and feeling down on everything, it might be time to upgrade your sphere of influence. Negativity breeds negativity, but likewise with positivity, which is the good news. Those closest to you should be the same people who bring out your best qualities, including your mojo for life’s adventures. If family improvement is important to you, offer to host the moms from your gym for the next play date. Let all the kids have a great time together and you’ll have a chance to bond with likeminded women about a shared value – your children. Similarly, grab drinks and watch the game with your old college roommate, or take up the neighbor on his kind offer for a round of golf at the nearby course. Friends aren’t meant to be taken advantage of, but these connections’ values are sure to rub off on you. That’s great, but it’s not just values. I’ve heard it’s likely that your net worth is the average of that of your five closest friends. When you hang out with successful people, you elevate your own game, so choose wisely.

Change Your Thoughts: One of my favorite pearls of wisdom is that, “You are what you think about.” Instead of thinking you “can’t do X” or “won’t be able to do Y,” think about your ability to do them: you could do X if… Fill in the blank and then make it actionable. For example, thinking you’re “fat” doesn’t accomplish anything – even if it’s true. Instead, think, “my ideal body image would be…” and fill in the blank. Make that your mantra and kick your tush into high gear to get there. Hire a trainer, catch up on those Men’s Health issues gathering dust, and opt for oatmeal in lieu of junior’s PopTarts. By the end of the day, think, “I’m making a conscious effort toward my ideal body image.” Same goes for pitching a VC, rocking the bar exam, scoring a date with your dream woman. It can be done, so make it happen.

Not all of these changes are easy. In fact, none of them are. They all require a forced change of habit, which can be a seemingly insurmountable challenge. If this challenge seems too daunting, you can keep doing what you’re doing and just expect a different result. And we all know what Einstein said about that. Getting your mojo back is critical for your quality of life so it’s cause for some radical changes and the outright shattering of your own conventional wisdom. Face it – feeling passionate and motivated every day for your work, family and self is a win for yourself and those that depend on you.

Yeah, baby!

Check out the original post on Forbes

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    7 Ways To Get Your Mojo Back

    Mojo isn’t purely about physical fitness, energy, appearance and high levels of testosterone. Although it has a lot to do with ...
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