The Caregiver Cup Podcast

What to Do When Lack of Motivation Hits as a Caregiver

• Cathy VandenHeuvel • Episode 223

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What if you could turn those tough caregiving days around with just a few simple strategies? This episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast promises to equip you with the tools you need to combat lack of motivation and uplift your spirit. I share my own journey and coaching insights, coupled with heartwarming messages from listeners in Massachusetts and Minnesota who reveal their grounding morning routines. We'll explore how validating physical and emotional exhaustion can be a game changer, and dive into practical tips for managing feelings of being overwhelmed, unappreciated, or isolated.

Join me as we build a personalized motivation toolkit that's perfect for caregivers. Learn about my go-to techniques like motivational quotes, energizing playlists, and the healing power of humor. Discover the significance of having a supportive person to lean on, the benefits of journaling, and how simple acts of self-care can make a big difference. We'll also delve into the concept of "faking it" to boost morale and the importance of understanding the root causes of your funk. With reflective questions and small joys weaved into your routine, this episode aims to transform those challenging days into manageable, even joyful, experiences.

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Speaker 1:

Well, hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. It's Kathy here Today we're tackling a topic that hits close to home for many of us, and it's that feeling of lack of motivation or feeling like you're in a funk or just not feeling energized. It could be when you wake up in the morning as you're going about your day. Whatever it was feeling and this is something I've experienced personally myself and it's a normal. It's a normal feeling and it's a challenge I often coach other caregivers on. But before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to a couple of text messages that I got this week, and those are. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can go into my show notes and there's a link that says text Kathy. The one I received was from Massachusetts on July 16th, so it was just last Tuesday. It says Kathy, this was such a great podcast and it got me thinking right away.

Speaker 1:

My umbrella is having a morning routine that is positive and gets my day started on the right foot. I do my morning meditation with positive affirmations and then breakfast prayer and maybe go for a walk or do qigong, and I don't know what that is. So you're going to have to tell me what that is it says. Thank you again for this great podcast. Have a great day, kudos. I love this text because it's just a reminder that a morning routine can get you grounded. It can take you five minutes, it can take you 30 minutes, depending on how much time you have. And I like this text because you're using your physical movement, your mindfulness practices, you're fueling your body, you're fueling your spirituality, so it's all kind of in one and you're kind of doing all of your components, knowing that this helps you throughout the way. So I'm clapping for that one. The other one was from Minnesota on last Wednesday and it says just as an umbrella has multiple panels, I have multiple strategies, skill sets, to strengthen me during my journey of caregiving. It's been 20 years with my spouse, oh my goodness. The panel's skill sets include time in God's word, whether a verse to cling to or a longer time to study.

Speaker 1:

Journaling exercise is some form every day, a note or a phone call to encourage someone else. Spending time on my hobby watercolor painting. Listening to really good podcasts while I conquer all of the household chores, reading the positive signs we have all around the house, our favorite that we created 20 years ago when the journey began with a stem cell transplant, is always something, always. God Bless you for your encouragement. I have shared you with many. I have shared you with many. Oh, my gosh, that's so good. Let me repeat it again because I kind of botched it Always something, always. God Bless you for your encouragement. I have shared you with many. Oh, how wonderful. Hey, thank you for sharing this as well, because this is a great way to look at what you do. To go ahead and keep yourself from being overwhelmed, to keep yourself grounded, to keep yourself in a mindfulness practice is by looking at the panels of an umbrella and thinking what do you do? I love that you have time for fun, for hobby colors, hobby watercoloring. I like that you have your spirituality and your religion from sayings into your house to prayers and stuff like that, and I love that you are always kind of looking for positivity like podcasts when you're doing the chores or signs around your house. That's really good. I would love to hear from you. So thank you, my friend from Massachusetts and my friend from Minnesota, for sharing and taking the time out of your busy schedule to go ahead and text me back. If you want to share a text regarding the podcast or anything, you can go ahead and send it to me. I'll even take a question and could go ahead and share the answer on a future podcast episode as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's dive into the episode today. I wanted first things first. I know that this caregiver life is hard. I want to just set the stage here. We face new challenges, old challenges, we're constantly juggling and we may have pure exhaustion. It can feel like the same thing every day, doing hard things, the not so glamorous or sexy tasks, the unappreciated chores and those incredibly important details that we can't forget about. That seem kind of silly, like filling the medicine tray or whatever it would be, and I think that, let's face it, you and I, as caregivers, are held to the highest expectation with very little, if any, time away, and I want to set that stage. So what do we do when we wake up and just don't feel like doing the job today? What do you do when you just want to sit or do nothing? What do you do when you feel stuck? It sucks. That's exactly what we're diving into today Because, as you know, there's no such thing as calling in sick for us. One of the biggest mistakes I see caregivers make is beating ourselves up. We beat ourselves up, heck. I say it to myself. I say what the heck is wrong with you, kathy? And I say it to myself Many clients I coach come to me with their stories and when we really peel back the layers, one common thread is a lack of motivation and sheer exhaustion.

Speaker 1:

It's really so important to validate your thoughts and feelings and behaviors, especially when you feel this way. Don't forget about both the physical ones and the emotional ones. Let me share some common thoughts caregivers have and some things that I've heard from clients that I've been coaching. They may say I can't keep up with everything anymore, or no matter what I do, it's never enough. Or they may say I am so tired I don't have energy left. Why am I even trying? It doesn't seem to make a difference. A really common one I hear is I feel so alone in this and nobody understands. Or I'm not doing a good job. I should have had a better handle on this, especially if something happens with your loved one or yourself.

Speaker 1:

One that I've said is I miss my old life. I feel like I've lost myself. Actually, there's a quiz out there a caregiver quiz. You can go to kathylvancom forward slash quiz. One of the categories is nostalgia. If you miss your old life and I feel like I've lost myself, you might be a nostalgic person too. I'm constantly overwhelmed, you might say, and I don't know where to start. Or I feel guilty for wanting a break or getting away or some time for myself. And the last one you might feel is every day feels like the same and it's hard to see any progress or it's hard to even recognize what day it was. Can you relate to any or one or more of these? I bet you can.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is not to discourage you at all. I'm not trying to be a downer here, but it's important to validate where you and I are at. But then you will have days where you are back on and moments of feeling motivated and joy and ready to take on the day. So you kind of struggle with why are some days so bad and then why are some days pretty good? Well, first of all, I want you to celebrate the good days, because you're a normal human being and a normal caregiver. When you have good days and bad days. But then you might feel confused and start asking why can't I be this way in a good day, every day? Let me tell you, feeling lack of motivation and drive is something we all experience and I repeat it again, it's hard. This caregiver life is hard. Nobody's trained us for it. Nobody's taught us how to be this caregiver. Nobody's taught us the mindset, the emotional impacts, nothing. It's just we have to figure it out.

Speaker 1:

If I were sitting down with you and you were feeling this way, or you're feeling a certain way, we would dive into the root cause. Let me say that you come to me and you say I'm so overwhelmed. And you might come and say I'm so overwhelmed. The first question I'm going to ask you is why? Why do you feel overwhelmed, ask you is why? Why do you feel overwhelmed? And you might be like why do I want to answer that you might say I have so much going on. I would then ask you, explain more to me. And you might say appointments. You know all of the appointments and the running and the errands that you have. You might share the details, the not so fun details of, maybe, bathroom duty to all of the bedding, to the meal cooking. You might explain all the house chores. You might explain that you're also working your job and you have financial pressures and more. You can explain that. I might even tell you, explain a day in the life of whoever you are. Then I'd ask you what about your physical symptoms? What are you feeling physically? You might say fatigue and sluggishness and headaches. You might even say I have stomach aches or body aches. That helps me define what level of stress you're underneath.

Speaker 1:

Next, we talk about your emotional health. What are you feeling and thinking about yourself? And you might say oh boy, I feel so alone. One minute I'm crying, then the next minute I'm ready to explode. The next minute I'm sad. The next minute I'm numb. The next minute I have no hope. We would have to dig into these and really find that. I think it's really important for us. I use this term all the time. So if you work with me, we talk about unpeeling the onion To find out the root cause. We really have to peel back each layer of that onion. The why and the root cause really matter, and then we learn skills and strategies to work through them, which are really, really critical.

Speaker 1:

Now you know, lack of motivation and loss of energy and feeling stuck are signs that you need to pay attention to yourself. In one example, by asking why telling me more and describing it in detail, we discovered when I met with one client. We discovered that she had lack of motivation when she told me she just had that. Discovered that she had lack of motivation when she told me she just had that and it was due to. I had to ask her more. I have lack of motivation, I don't have any energy. I feel stuck.

Speaker 1:

And as we unpeeled the onions, we discovered that she was lonely and isolated. She didn't have lunch with a friend. She hasn't done anything outside of the home except for grocery shopping and running errands. She was ignoring her self-care, just like we talked about in the early text messages. She wasn't doing a morning routine. She wasn't going ahead and taking time for herself. She loved to read and she hasn't read in eons. Her loved one's health was declining and getting worse, and so that worry and that pressure of the declining health and what she could do and she's been doing this for five years. When we got to that point, instead of jumping into goal mode or action mode, we took a step back and celebrated these discoveries, because we now know what to work on and we can create strategies and tools and hacks to help with these. And baby steps, baby steps along the way, and baby steps, baby steps along the way.

Speaker 1:

Now, today, I want to share tools for your personalized toolkit that can help you when you feel that motivation. So let me just kind of back up a little bit. Imagine yourself, and you can go ahead and create a visual for yourself. But most of my clients imagine that they have either this tool belt around their waist or they have this toolkit in a closet or this toolbox in a closet and when something visits, they pull out that toolbox. Like I have an upcoming course called Conquering Resentment and Anger that's being advertised today. Well, there is a tool and a resource and a framework that you can use to get through anger. Well, same applies for motivation.

Speaker 1:

So when you feel lack of motivation or you're just sluggish, you want to dig into your toolbox and find that tool, that motivation tool, and it seems kind of strange. But what would that be? Would that be a fun-looking tool? What would that be? And I'm going to share with you my ways that I use when I feel like I need motivation and I just don't feel like doing anything. Or some of my clients and we call these things the shake it off thing. Now, this isn't going to solve the root cause, because when I work with clients, we dig into the root cause and the lack of motivation is less and less or it takes less time to get out of that funk because we're discovering things Like maybe we discover that you're not getting enough sleep and you could feel sluggish every day because you're not getting enough sleep, because you're taking care of your loved one throughout the night and you're not getting that quality sleep. Well, whatever the situation, we're going to figure out how can you get more sleep or how can we go ahead and make it through this season until you can get the quality sleep? But we're going to come up with some hacks or they shake it off things that are going to help you. The intent of this is, when you feel this way, you have these tools already thought through and at your fingertips, and so I want you to listen to these and think about which ones might work for you, or it might spark you with other ideas that you can do. And, hint hint, some of the things we talked about in the morning I might be hacks. Like I can't remember the Minnesota text talked about having a sign in her house and that beautiful spiritual statement and quote. That might be it. So let me share what mine are.

Speaker 1:

I have a list of motivational quotes that I keep. You want to think of quotes that you have collected that make you smile, that ground you, that remind you of your strength or your courage or your goals. They can be fun, they can be serious, they can be inappropriate, they can be whatever. If you have these, the big thing for you is to save these to your phone. Maybe you have a spot on your phone that you can save them to, or you print them up, or you have them in a spot where you can. I have mine in my nightstand by my bed because I don't want to sleep with my phone, but I also have them on my phone and so I can bring up them on my phone, have an easy access to them, so when you need them, you can do that. Now I even got to the point where I have ones where I have a bad news situation. I'm going to read quotes that like if, when my mom got her lung cancer diagnosis, when my husband's cancer comes back, when there's a bad situation, I can bring it up, and usually what I do is I start worrying or I start blaming myself, and so I can bring out those quotes. So motivational quotes are going to be important.

Speaker 1:

Another one is a music list and creating a playlist that can calm you down, a playlist that can pump you up, a playlist that can make you reflect on a memory or a fun time. I used to have a playlist when I would run my half marathons. I ran nine half marathons between the age of 50 and 55. And I was a turtle running and there were days that I just didn't want to train for these half marathons, or the day of the training I was nervous, and so I had mine. I had ones like walking on sunshine, you know that kind of stuff, and it would be things that I could just like lift me up and it would bring me joy. So think about what it is for you that could calm you down, that could pep you up, that could and spend some time. And you know, if you hear a song, write it down, and then you can. If you have an app on your phone, you can upload those, those. Or maybe you're old school and you have a record player or a cassette tape or CD that you play, or maybe it's just a radio station that you listen to in your car that you love the music. My husband is a 70s music geek. He listens to 70s music all the time and that's what he loves to do. Now, another one is if you are anywhere near my home and I just need a boost near my home and I just need a boost.

Speaker 1:

I love watching fun videos like reels on Instagram or TikTok videos, but I'm very selective about which ones I listen or watch. I love puppies. If puppies for some reason calm me down, or kiddie videos calm me down, watching little kids and all of the crazy things that they say, I can laugh or even prank ones, and I will laugh out loud. There's one point that last week that I was trying to take a nap and I couldn't sleep. I had a rough day and I wanted a five minute snooze and I laid in bed and I couldn't fall asleep in the afternoon and so instead I just laid there and I said, well, if I can't sleep, I might as well go ahead and laugh. I laughed with the videos. I was choking because I was laughing so hard. It was just a way that humor and laughter. There's that healing medicine in them.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is that you want to turn off is the negative influences, things that are going to feed your funk, things that are going to fuel your lack of motivation. So you want to avoid things that are going to do that. People places uh, the news might be something you don't want to watch today or limit your time on. If you're feeling lonely and you're looking at your friends on social media like Facebook or Instagram, well, that's going to probably bum you out. So think about what things that bring you down. You don't want to go ahead and feel that your body and mind wants to, but you don't want to do that. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Another one is moving your body. We talked about it earlier with the text message A walk can do wonders for you. I can't tell you how a simple walk around the block can make a difference in my mindset, especially when you're getting out in the sunshine, even if it's cloudy. You're getting the sun through the clouds because you're waking up your circadian rhythm and you're going ahead and waking up your body. It's my go-to when I have bad news or I need a break. I want to move my body. For others it might be meditation. You might need a mindfulness practice.

Speaker 1:

One of my clients loves to dance it out. When she is feeling frustrated or angry or guilty or worrying, she puts on her salsa dance and she starts dancing and she has a good old time dancing it out. Who cares? Who sees you Just dance it out? And for others it might be other things, but what can you do to go ahead and wake up your mind and your body and tell your body that I'm not going to let you get the best of it? Another one that I have adapted and I've only adapted this probably in the last 18 months now is finding a motivation mentor, and we talk about this in the Empowerful Caregiver School in a lot more details, and I'll probably do another episode just on this someday.

Speaker 1:

As far as different types of mentors, you need sounding boards and in this situation, you need a sounding board that can help you with motivation, and what I had to do is I have different people for different situations, but the person from a mentor perspective you want to find somebody in your life who can help you with your motivation this person is going to be your sounding board when you're stuck, you're going to have to meet with them ahead of time to say, when I feel in a funk, when I feel like I don't have anything left in me, I need somebody for motivation. I don't want somebody to solve my problem, I want you to listen to me, but then support me or pump me back up, and this might be somebody that shares a fun joke with you. This might be somebody that shares a story of their kids, and you just need to hear something else. This might be somebody to say okay, kathy, I want you to go ahead and dance it out. We're both going to get on FaceTime and we're going to dance it out for five minutes. Whatever it would be, find somebody. Now you might say I don't have anybody that I can go to. Well, you know what? Go to our Facebook group. Go to our Facebook group in Facebook and look for the podcast, the Caregiver Cup podcast I couldn't remember the name of my podcast, the Caregiver Cup podcast and tell somebody you're looking for a motivation mentor, and you too could go ahead and be each other's motivation.

Speaker 1:

Or maybe it's a friend, or maybe it's a friend, or maybe it's a spouse, maybe. Whatever it would be. But look deep and find somebody. Hopefully you find somebody that can go ahead and give you what you need. Some of us need a sense of humor, some of us need a hard talk, some of us need somebody to do something with, and you do that. Maybe you giggle and laugh about you know your complaints now and they go ahead and do that, whatever it would be.

Speaker 1:

Another hack is to sit with yourself. Sit with yourself. It doesn't have to take long, maybe it's five minutes. You journal out your thoughts and you set your timer for X amount of time and saying I'm going to just write it all down, everything that I'm feeling, and then, once the timer goes off, then you're going to say that's enough. You put a cross through the paper, you crinkle it up and you throw it away and saying I'm done with it today and you don't let it get to you. Maybe it's just taking the time to wash your face and slowly get ready and pamper yourself a little bit. Maybe it's doing deep breaths and deep breaths. We had Robin, we had Danae Robinette on a few weeks ago on the Caregiver Cup podcast and she talked about taking deep breaths. Or maybe it's you just need to take a quick nap and you can find something to do with. That could be incredibly helpful. Figure out what you need. And then the last one is controversial for me, because I toy with this one.

Speaker 1:

But sometimes you just need to fake it. You need to fake it. Let's say you have to go run errands and you don't want to do it. Well, you're going to have to fake it. And when you fake it and saying I love running errands, I love doing this, I love standing in line, you're telling your brain I'm not going to complain. And so sometimes you know, if we fake it, there's different things you can do. Maybe you dress up today, maybe you put on a better shirt or a better pair of pants, or you put your hair up.

Speaker 1:

I used to have a boss. By the way, I used to have a boss when I, years and years ago in my corporate job. There were days when she would fix her hair and put it up in a bun and it would look beautiful. She'd have a barrette in. And finally I asked her I'm like how come you don't wear your hair like this every day? And she goes when I am having a hard day, or I'm having a meeting, or I didn't get a good night's sleep or whatever. You're going to notice that I up my game and she does that and she dresses. You know kind of think when you were, if you ever worked a job.

Speaker 1:

You have your confidence suit on, or you have. You know you polish your nails or whatever it would be. You go ahead and go an extra mile so that you can fake it. Or you have your cup of coffee or an extra one today and you put a little bit of a flavor into your coffee day and you put a little bit of flavor into your coffee. Or you put on you know, your favorite lavender lotion or your thing. Now, scents too can boost your mood, like the smells can boost your mood too. Maybe if you like candles, you light a candle. Or maybe you have something that boosts your smells. If you have a diffuser, you put in a lemon scent. Or if you're having trouble with anxiety, you put in lavender today. Those are the things.

Speaker 1:

So hit that text and tell me what your go-to motivation hacks are. I would love to hear it. Maybe you're going to pick one or two of these, maybe you have something different. Maybe yours is prayer, maybe yours is going for a car ride, whatever it would be Because in your toolbox you want to have you know, a few three to five of them in your toolbox that you're going to try and experiment with. But don't forget, when you are in this state, you can't just sweep it under the rug.

Speaker 1:

You also need to ask yourself you know, get your hack through and saying why is this happening? And understanding the causes of it. It might be as simple as not getting a good night's sleep or going through a rough season, but validation is so important so that you can go ahead and do that. So I have some questions that you want to ask yourself. When you're in a funk as well, and going ahead and doing that, maybe you process it later in the day because you're going to use the hack and get out of it right away. Day, because you're going to use the hack and get out of it right away.

Speaker 1:

But then later in the day, when maybe your loved one is napping or at your quiet time of the day, you can ask yourself how do I feel today? Or how did I feel when I was in a funk? What were my feelings, what were my thoughts, kind of like when I asked my previous client what it was? What is the cause of this, figuring it out? And then another one that you might want to ask in your quiet time, if the hacks are not working, is what can I postpone today that doesn't need to be done? Maybe you're just having a rough day and you didn't have a good night's sleep. Well, does that load of laundry need to be done? Do I have to make those insurance calls today? When I'm feeling this way, maybe I wait until I'm having a good day.

Speaker 1:

And another one is to say what can I do to shift my mindset, mood or energy? And those are those hacks. Can I do one thing, too, that's fun today? Maybe you just have to get through it and you're doing your best. You're dancing to your music, you're listening to motivation on your earbuds while you're vacuuming or while you're running errands. But then what can I do to reward myself today? What can I do that's fun? Maybe you take it from the text that we had earlier today and you do your watercoloring. Or maybe you go ahead and you go out into your garden where you can escape for a little bit. Remember, these actions and these hacks don't have to take a lot of time. Dancing could take five minutes and then you're giggling up a storm. Maybe you videotape yourself while you're dancing and then you watch it afterwards and you laugh at yourself. I'm just kidding, that would be something I would do. Or you take a walk around the block to recharge and you're listening to your music and you're getting double for the money. And it took you 20 minutes and now you're better. So these are what I thought of today from a motivation perspective. Again, I would love to hear from you I sure hope this helped you today and in those days of funk Maybe you save this podcast so that when you are in those lack of funk season podcast, so that when you are in those lack of funk season, that you play this, so that you can go ahead and remember what do I have to do and put it in that beautiful toolkit that you have whether it's an imaginary toolkit or one now that you created on a piece of paper and you colored it pink and now you're putting your hacks underneath it.

Speaker 1:

So one thing that I'm going to do today is I'm going to grab some of my favorites and I'm going to put them in an email too, so that you can go ahead and see some of these, maybe some of my favorite songs, some of my favorite videos, so that you can have that, I'm going to send an email out this week, maybe two, and I'll put them in over two email sendings that I have for you. Before I end today, I wanted to go ahead and also share with you I know you've heard it a couple of times now I have today, had, or actually yesterday, I've launched now the Conquering Resentment Masterclass. It's a masterclass that's an hour long and you can take it at your own pace. It's self-paced, it's digital and it's going to go ahead and really unpack what anger and resentment is. It's going to give you some framework to help you overcome the anger and resentment. That you can put in your toolkit.

Speaker 1:

There's a very robust workbook that's attached to it, plus a few little extras, and so it's only $47. And so it's available for you. You can grab it in the next two weeks at $47, with all of the extras. After a couple of weeks, actually after August 2nd, it will still be available for $47, but you won't get all of the extras, and so if you want all the extras associated with it, there's an extra video and there's a free coaching session with me when you purchase it for 47.

Speaker 1:

It's truly valued at hundreds of dollars, but I I'm not in it to make money. I'm in it just to help you and help you build that toolkit, so that you have to go out and buy a new toolkit because your tool gets becoming so big. That's my goal. Well, I want to end today by just saying thank you for joining me on the podcast. It means the world to me that you're listening to this, and it even makes me more excited is when I get messages or email responses and things telling me how it's helping you. I hope you found the insights helpful today and encouraging. Remember, it's okay to feel unmotivated sometimes. Recognize it, understand it and then use your tools to get back on track. Until next time, my friend, take care of yourself and be kind to yourself. Bye for now.