How to find your mojo 🔥🪄
Today is the last day of the first week back to work for most people, and if you’re anything like me, you are now feeling the feels about the year ahead. Specifically, for me, I’m sitting with rising anxiety as the year swings into motion and it’s time once again to start “doing the doing.”
This is like that feeling you get on Sunday night, all regretful and worried, but on an epic scale…
I’m lucky enough that I lot of what I’ve got to do this year are projects that I’ve not only chosen, but actually thrown myself forward to do.
I can imagine the Sunday night feeling sits even heavier for those tasks that you did not choose yourself, or that “past you” may have chosen, which “today you” now regrets.
Finding your own kind of magic 🪄
So this week’s Long View is a short, sweet look at how we shake off all that doubt – which can stop us in our tracks – and find our mojo, the thing that makes us, us – and that somehow miraculously keeps us going.
The magic ✨that makes you, you – that’s your mojo.
Step 1: Slow down
For me, there is no one thing, and because who I am changes every year, the things that help me slow down and get grounded, can also change.
This year, what’s working is warm and spicy flavours 🔥…
I’ve done a lot of cooking over the past few weeks, and without the weekday pressure of just having to get the food out in a hurry, I’ve really enjoyed it, remembering that spices (in particular warm Asian spices like ginger, star anise, cinnamon and cloves) bring such warmth, comfort and joy to both sweet and savoury dishes.
Step 2: Laugh (at yourself) 🎭
When’s the last time you actually laughed at yourself? I’m serious. Learning not to take yourself so seriously is a really worthwhile endeavour.
Here’s how you do it:
- Take out a piece of paper and write down this sentence: “I am really worried and anxious about the year because …. “
- Then look at what you’ve written and keep writing: “I believe the worst possible things that could happen this year are …”
- Now evaluate what you’ve done.
- Some of the things you’ve written down will be very real, possible things. For example, I worry about not making enough money this year, and about my health, and about my mother’s happiness.
- But other things (usually, your worst possible imaginings) will be totally wild – and if you are honest with yourself, totally unlikely to come to pass.
- Now get some perspective. If a friend (not you) wrote this list, what would you say? Maybe you would point out that all these worries are not for them alone? Perhaps you would gently cajole, maybe even tease your friend for some of their more outlandish fears? Might you encourage your friend to laugh a little, maybe to lighten up?
If you do this exercise, when you’re finished, tuck that list away somewhere and bring it out at the end of 2025 – I promise if you’re not laughing now, you’ll be laughing then.
Step 3: Plant a seed 🌱
Literally, or figuratively. (I don’t know why, but this year I’m also really focused on plants.)
It has been a very long time since I’ve had any new years’ resolutions, but something that I do quite consciously at the start of every year, is to try to scatter a few opportunities a few weeks or months into the year ahead.
This includes:
- getting in touch with people I like but do not see enough, and arranging coffee, or a phone call, or a walk
- planting a way marker for a work project that I will actually look forward to – for example, let’s have this fun gathering in June, so I will get something done by then but also feel happy and excited about reaching that point and sharing my work
- signing up for a lecture or a workshop, about something that sparks my curiosity, and I have never gotten around to exploring
What’s your secret sauce? 🍅🌶️🔥
On Monday evening, I found myself planting tomato and chilli pepper seeds in my home office. This may be too optimistic, given the average winter temperatures in there, but we all know that I suffer from a chronic surplus of optimism. 😂 I’ll post photos of where we get to with those plants in June – there’s my waymarker for that project.
I hope you’re finding your own way through these tricky first few weeks – and please do share any tips for how you get motivated to start the new year… or what sorts of seeds you plant 🌱 to help you on your way, down the untrodden path of 2025.
First published on LinkedIn on 10 January 2025:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-find-your-mojo-jen-ang-zvede
