758. The Energy to Hit Start Is the Missing Piece

00:00
14:53

Some seasons ask more of you than you have left to give. Lesley Logan opens Part 1 of the Finding Joy in Gloomy Months series by naming that heavy, weighted feeling of knowing what helps you feel better but not being able to make yourself do it. She gets honest about her own stuck days, from the to-do list she couldn’t touch to the self-talk that followed. Knowing what helps is only half the equation. Discover why she holds firm to the belief that initiation, not motivation, is what keeps you consistent.


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In this episode you will learn about:

  • A surprise mountain trip from Brad that shifted a draining workday.
  • Why initiation, not motivation, is the real reason you feel stuck.
  • What happens when professional initiators struggle to ask for support.
  • Getting back into the habit of what already makes you feel good.
  • How Lesley changed her running-day mornings to stop negotiating with herself.


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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

If we know what we're supposed to do to feel good, why aren't we doing any of it? And it's not a rhetorical question. It's not a setup that I'm going to say you should just try harder. I don't think it's a motivation problem.


Lesley Logan 0:14  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.


Lesley Logan 0:57  

Hey, Be It babe. So, okay, here's the deal. You know when you're not doing the thing that you want to be doing, and so you know you're supposed to be doing something right now, and you're you're not doing it, and then you know if I'm feeling stuck, I should just go get outside. They say get some vitamin D. I should move my body. I should call a friend. You know all the things. You have probably given this exact advice to a friend yesterday, today, and then you'll probably do it in an hour. But the actual question for today: If we know what we're supposed to do to feel good, why aren't we doing any of it? And it's not a rhetorical question. It's not a setup. There, I'm going to say you should just try harder. I don't think it's a motivation problem. We've talked about motivation before and things like that. I don't think it's that. I think it's something else going on, and I think we should kind of talk about it.


Lesley Logan 1:48  

So, first of all, the seasons that I am in, this is the gloomy winter seasons, right? So, for my southern hemisphere people, I'm jealous of you because I do want to chase summer, not summer, but that summer into fall, where the sun is still out, but it's got a little Christmas in the air. That's my favorite. So I have been there. I am not gonna lie. I have had the to-do list ready. I have known I'm okay. I'm gonna do this thing. I want to do this thing. I want to work on this project. I want to take some action on it. And it just feels like your legs have weights in them. You know, when you're walking in shallow water, it feels hard to pick up your feet. That kind of a thing. And so I found that it was really easy to know I was supposed to do something, get out and do a walk, and not have the ability to stand up and go do that. I remember being really overworked a couple of years ago. My own doing, just a lot of saying yes to things that we thought would be good ideas, and but not at the same time getting rid of things that were no longer serving us. And I remember wrapping up a whole day, and Brad going, "I'm taking you out," and I'm, "I don't want to do anything." He's going on a surprise, and it was such. It wasn't even that much effort, but I had to go change my clothes. I got in the car, and he drove me to the mountain near us. And the sun was sort of out, but it had snowed last the night, the night before. And so the mountain was covered in snow, and we just pulled out our chairs, and we sat there looking at this beautiful postcard mountain with snow covered in it. And the truth is, is even though it wasn't my idea and it was a little too chilly, and we only sat there for about 20 minutes, I did feel better when it was over. And so, what I would have done is scroll to my phone, watched a shitty Netflix special and kind of felt a little bit not sorry for myself, but hard on myself. Why did I let myself do this again? So I think what we need to talk about is it's not a motivation problem.


Lesley Logan 3:52  

If you listen to the Habit series from December last year, we talked about how motivation is so fickle, anyways, and motivation is really good when you need to get started at something, but really, motivation is quite hard if it needs to be something that's consistent. So if it's not motivation, what is it? It's initiation. So lack of motivation makes you feel like you don't want to feel better. You don't want to do the thing. You don't want to feel joy. But that's not what's happening. Wanting to feel better isn't the missing piece. The energy to hit start is the missing piece. The energy to be there, and it can be so hard, especially when there is gray clouds out all the time, and it's cold, and there seems to be so many things that we're supposed to be going and doing and wrapping up for the year and getting ready for next year. And it can feel everyone's doing stuff, and we're going backward, but the truth is, starting anything is going to cost something. If you want to start a new course, that costs money and time. If you want to start the engine of the car, it's going to take more gas than when you're running it. If you want to start, everything has a start cost. Sending the text means you have to think about it, right? Changing all the clothes that you are wearing. That I had to do with my story earlier. I had to get out of the leggings and get into some actual winter clothes. Oh my God! You know, starting to make a good meal for yourself when I'm feeling low and not feeling the joy. Making food is you'd think you'd ask me to go save the village. It feels like the hardest task, and I'm going to go to battle. So, all these small decisions, all these small starts in our day, they add up. So, of course, it's hard, right? Of course, it's hard to feel joy, an energy to start an initiation readiness when you just got a lot, lot going on, and not not enough ease, right? There doesn't feel like a lot of ease right now, and so I want to just talk about it is okay to know all the things that make you feel good, and not feel like you have the energy to bridge the gap to feeling good, and this is not the same as a depression thing. That is a different story. And if that's where you're at, please, please talk to an actual mental health professional, not just some AI bot. This is more, you're just feeling that meh, little meh going on, right? And I think the hardest thing with meh is just to know that the walk around the block is going to feel good, unless you always walk around the block. And so, where we live, you know, in the summertime we get out of the habit of it because you cannot walk around the block in the middle of the day. But in the fall, in the winter, and the spring, after I eat my lunch, I can go take a walk around the block. And when I do that, oh my God, no, I don't ever want to do it. I don't want to do it. Thank God the dogs are trained to go do it. But somewhere between my front door and the corner of the block, I start to go. Oh, thank God I'm doing this for myself. And so I share that with you because it may be that we just have to get into the habit of doing something that does feel good, so that we just always do the thing that feels good. When we get out of the habit of doing that, it just feels like a bigger leap to start. And I just want to say, if you feel that way, you're not alone. You know, I think there's something really toxic about all the mental health support that every Jane, Julie, Barbara has shared on the internet. It's oh wow, all these amazing tips are here, and there's this pressure that we have to be doing all of them all of the time. And really, it's good to know all these different things because maybe the things you're doing no longer work. But we have to have some sort of balance.


Lesley Logan 7:34  

And so sometimes I think we just get overwhelmed, right? So the thing about initiation and getting started. If you are, let's say, I'm an initiation problem. I am the person who actually starts everything. I reach out to my friends first. I I plan the girls' night out. I plan date night. I plan this. I remember everyone's birthday, and so that is great. I'm so glad that you are a professional initiator. But all of those things are kind of being the hostess of the mostest, not reaching out in need of, "Hey, want to meet me for a walk? I could really use one." Right? Those are different. It's almost like you have to ask for support and receive. I can tell you right now, I am not good at this. I'm not good at this at all. My husband's always Lesley, you should reach out to this friend or this friend. You haven't hung out with a friend in a while, and I'm like, oh, I just talked to them yesterday. He's thinking you didn't make plans, and I was like, no, I was talking to them about their things. Oh, I was celebrating what they're doing. I was, we were celebrating what what I have done, you know. But sometimes it's so much easier to be there for other people and not be, oh, it would be really great if we could go do this thing together, so you be part of the initiation. I need over here, or the in the initiating support of I just need a friend to be there for me, right? When we are always planning the things and doing the reach outs and leading the groups, that is wonderful. But it's also just energy output without having anything left for yourself about the things you want to do for you, maybe you want to do them with with people, you know. But still, do you understand what I'm saying? We're not really receiving. You're really good at starting things for others, but not really receiving. So, I think that when I say that kind of stuff, it puts people on like they they can start to feel guilty because well, I'm not doing the thing that I know I should be doing, and my friends are just going to tell me to do the thing if I tell them what's really going on. I don't really want to waste their time, and you know, oh my gosh, I know they've got a lot going on. So if I ask them to meet me for a walk so I can get outside and start doing the thing to help me make this, not be so hung up on small decisions and just feeling good, you just all of that guilt is more energy, and then you start to feel more guilty and also more bad because now you have less of all of it, less energy, and you just keep running the loop because you still don't call the friend, and then you feel like a bad friend because you have not actually told your friend what's going on, and you feel like you're keeping things from them, and then you know. And it just becomes a spiral that I think we can avoid.


Lesley Logan 10:04  

So when it is hard to just make the small decisions, there needs to be some easy, go back to my Habits workshop series from last year, easy small things that we could just put in place so that we do them. So meaning, I do not, I have not, I run twice a week at home, and I never want to do it. I'm always glad when it's over. The build up of I gotta do this run is so annoying. So what I've had to do is actually when I come home from the dog walk, I leave my running shoes on, so that I can just go from the dog walk to the treadmill, I just had to do that because what I used to do is come in, take the shoes off, make a cup of coffee, you know, play with the dogs, get on my shake plate, and then go run. And the reality is, is that I was doing that, made it that I had to put the shoes back on, made it so hard. Oh, maybe I'll just run later. Maybe I'll just do this.


Lesley Logan 11:01  

And by the way, that negotiating is just more energy and more drain, and then you feel more let down, right? So I had to just make a switch in how I do my mornings on my running days, so it could just be easier to do the thing that I said I was going to do, that I wanted to do. And you know what? When you do the thing that you said you were going to do, that little tiny thing, even as just going for a run, when you said you're going to do it, you start to get your confidence back. You start to get your joy back. Things start to feel a little bit easier. So, loves. If the real problem isn't that initiating takes more than you have left by this time of the year, right? Because we can. You are an initiator. You are someone who does the things you say you're going to do, and we can make some things a little easier because the answer is not a longer to-do list of self-care, but rather finding things that still work when you have nothing left to give. Then that's what I want to talk about next. So this whole entire episode was set up for you to see if if it's not depression, if it's a lack of joy and overwhelm, and you are someone who can initiate, and it's not that you're lacking motivation, and you don't need more reminders on the cold plunge and the this and the red light and the da da da. If you have all the tools, so then what is it that we need to be doing? Well, that's going to talk about in the next episode, and that's why I have this episode airing in December because this is a time of year when we are drained, when we have given all that we can give, and we are just, you know, have you ever seen those Ironman people where they're women and men are getting to the end of the marathon, they're crawling across the finish line, and they all look like they're going to die. That's where I think many of us get in December, and so I want to set you up with an episode where it's a zero-planned program where joy that asks nothing of you, and I'm hoping it's smaller than you expect. And I hope, I hope you know that that's that's the point. So, all I need you to do your journal prompt today is checking in with yourself is what I need more initiation and motivation, or is it simply that I just need things to be a little bit easier? So that's your journal prompt. Journal on that. I'll see you in our next episode to help you not only get across this finish line of December, but get some joy that asks nothing of you, and hopefully it means we can set ourselves up better for the next December. Thanks so much for listening to our podcast. I'm so grateful for you. Do me a favor, share this with a friend who needs to hear it. Our podcast grows because of you, and so we need more listeners like you who are so dedicated. So send this to your friends, and until next time, Be It Till You See It.


Lesley Logan 13:38  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read in another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 14:20  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 14:25  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 14:29  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 14:36  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 14:40  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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