"Breaking Free: How to Overcome the Cycle of Doing Nothing for Good"

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Struggling with the all-too-familiar feeling of being stuck in neutral, I found myself wrestling with the daunting cycle of doing nothing. My battle with a chaotic sleep schedule and the quest for motivation had me teetering on the edge of overwhelm. But through persistence and a little ingenuity, I chanced upon a strategy that turned my life around. Now, I'm here to share how breaking ambitions into bite-sized tasks and honing in on a single goal each month became my ladder out of inertia, transforming me from a frazzled 'super mom' into a grounded, mindful achiever. 

This episode isn't just about personal revelations; it's about the collective journey we're on to cultivate a healthier lifestyle and well-being. I delve into the pivotal role of community and how connecting with others can be a game-changer in our pursuit of wellness. With upcoming opportunities for our listeners to engage and grow, I remind everyone of the power that comes from supporting each other. Whether it's through sharing experiences, offering encouragement, or seeking professional advice when needed, we're in this together. Join me as we navigate the path toward vibrant living with authenticity and shared wisdom.

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Episode Transcript

Shannon D Martin (00:00):
Hello, beautiful Welcome to today's
conversation.
We're going to talk aboutbreaking the cycle of doing
nothing.
Let's talk about it.
I'm your host, Shannon Martin,and welcome to today's episode
of This Thing Called Wellness.
Hello and welcome back.
I hope you're doing well onthis rainy Wednesday.

(00:21):
I'm not sure if it's rainingwhere you are, but it's raining
here.
I wanted to talk about findingmyself back in a repetitive
cycle of doing nothing.
I don't know why I find myselfrepeatedly in this cycle, but I
sat down and asked myself thequestions why are we back here?

(00:41):
Why can't I sit down and setgoals and write out my plans?
Why can't I get up and gooutside for a walk?
And don't use the excuse thatit's raining all the time,
because some days it's not.
I don't know about you, butit's like you're buffering again
.
Right, I'm up at midnight doingmy work on my midnight shift.

(01:02):
My insomnia has me sleeping onsuch an upside down schedule
that I am sleeping when theworld is up and buzzing.
So how can I make these smallchanges to the cycle of doing
nothing One?
We have to recognize that we'reback into this cycle of doing
nothing.
Isn't it funny how you've gonefrom being a super mom and super

(01:25):
woman and doing everything tonow you can't seem to or don't
want to do anything.
I've been feeling unmotivatedand unable to focus or
concentrate.
My sleep schedule is stillupside down and not where I'd
like it to be, and sometimes Ijust feel overwhelmed again.
And then I ask why am I feelingoverwhelmed?

(01:47):
I don't feel that I'm where I'msupposed to be.
I kept missing deadlines that Ihad set for myself and I felt
like I was failing slowly.
Then I asked myself how are youfailing?
Is this something that can bepushed back, or is it something
that God is telling you to pauseon?
Maybe there's a reason you needto pause again.

(02:09):
Remember your word for the yearis trust right?
So let's trust this process andsit ourselves down and unravel
what may be going on.
Now that I had gotten the rootof the problem of my pause and
kind of understand what I wasfeeling, how can I slowly shake
myself out of this repetitivecycle?

(02:30):
We have to shake ourselves outof it slowly.
Of course.
I believe that my issue is thatI'm not setting realistic goals
and expectations for myself.
I still find myself wanting torun when I need to walk at a
reasonable pace.
I need to be mindful of thefact that when my mental
wellness sets in and causes adelayed pause, it's for a reason

(02:54):
, and I always need to listen.
Sometimes, sitting and doingnothing is the best something
you can do.
Karen Salmansohn, once yourecognize that you are back in
this cycle, let's set some small, realistic goals.
This has been another challengefor me, so this time I bought a
planner called She Has Goals.

(03:14):
It's a very detailed goaljournal.
It breaks down your goals intothree main goals you want to
accomplish within a year andbreaks those goals down monthly
and then weekly.
Now that within itselfchallenged me to where I had to
sit down and ask to sign up forher accountability classes.
If I were in Dallas, Texas, I'dbe attending her in-person

(03:35):
classes, but you know, onlineclasses had to do right.
She said to focus on one goalfor the month Y'all.
I was like what One goal?
How is that even possible?
I have the net that I need toaccomplish at this time and she
said no, what is your one goalyou want to accomplish for this

(03:57):
month of April?
I couldn't believe it.
I was like but you don'tunderstand, I need to tweak this
and that.
And then I buffered.
I buffered for a while, for thefirst week in April, because I
was like, how can I just focuson one thing?
I couldn't wrap my mind aroundnot actually doing more than one
thing at a time.

(04:17):
I felt that that wasunproductive, right, but I'm
also buffering, so what can thishurt?
Is it such a bad thing to focuson one goal at a time?
To be honest, when overwhelmsets in and indecision, doubt
and my low self-esteem, you know, started to creep in, I usually

(04:37):
pause anyway for an undisclosedamount of time, but this time I
knew that I was in a cycle ofdoing nothing.
So I said I'm going to try thisone goal for the month.
So, no matter what else isgoing on, maybe this will help
ease my overwhelm and my calm,to help calm down my anxiety

(04:59):
that it's okay to focus on onething at a time, maybe just to
help me be more productive.
I've always been told to focuson one thing at a time.
We're not good at multitasking,but I've never actually
practiced it because I'm a workin progress.
I was a stay-at-home mom, supermom, and I always multitask

(05:20):
because there always had to besomething done.
So I'm not used to doing onething at a time.
It was always several things,several plates in the air, type
of thing.
But now I'm in a differentstage in my life and I had to
reel myself in and remind myselfthat I don't have to do that
anymore and also I'm in adifferent mental space now than
I was then.

(05:41):
So I sat down and I chose mygoal for the month and then when
I did that, guess what happened?
The whole doubt set in.
It said maybe you shouldn'tfocus on that particular goal,
maybe you should focus on thiswith this thing, right?
But I said no, let me reel mylittle wandering thoughts back
in and get off the hamster wheel, because that first thought

(06:01):
that I had and what I needed toaccomplish was what I needed to
accomplish.
So I said this month of AprilI'm going to focus on this
because evidently that's whatGod has intended for me to focus
on.
So I had one professional goal,which is to focus on my podcast,
and my personal goal is tofocus on me moving, so podcast

(06:23):
and walking.
I love to walk, so walking itis whenever it's not raining.
So I have 21 days left in thismonth, no pressure, right?
So I'm going to do it.
I'm going to set this time for21 days to finish what I started
for the goal of April.

(06:44):
And I want you to ask yourselfwhat goal do you want to
complete by the end of thismonth?
And let's do that.
If you can't fly, run.
If you can't run, walk.
If you can't walk, crawl.
By all means, keep moving,Martin Luther King Jr.
Now I need to find my sense ofharmony, because balance is kind

(07:07):
of fleeting.
You know, we've always tried tobe balanced but you're never
really balanced.
So let's just find some harmonyand kind of harmonize our lives
.
So in our lives I have toremember to be kind.
Let's remember to be kind toourselves and give ourselves
what?
Some more grace.
You've heard me repeat myselfmany times saying this, because

(07:28):
when we're in this cyclicalstate of what we think is doing
nothing, we are the hardest onourselves.
I have been saying to myself Iknow you could do better than
this.
Why can't you focus?
Why can't you hash this out?
Or I never took this longbefore and I had to stop, I had
to pause.
That was my negative thoughtpatterns and self-criticism at

(07:48):
work.
I had to practiceself-compassion and give myself
permission to reset and rechargebecause evidently this was the
pause that was needed.
At this time again, I needed tojournal.
I picked my journal back up andjournaled my thoughts away.
I prayed, I found my prayerdevotionals and I read my verses

(08:08):
for the day to get me back ontrack with the time I promised
I'd spend with the Lord.
Another thing I had to givemyself grace on is my sleep
routine.
I know that this is extremelyimportant to get proper sleep.
I just can't sleep what othersconsider to be a normal sleep
pattern.
I have been giving myself griefabout it because I've become a

(08:32):
night owl.
I've kind of always been anight owl being a mom.
You know you can when you findyour time is either in between,
when everybody's doing something, or at one time a night time.
So it kind of fell later, laterand later.
And then, when my anxiety anddepression set in, it became
later and later, and then theinsomnia set in with the

(08:52):
menopause.
So I had all these things justsetting in.
So now I'm later in my sleepand maybe now these are just the
hours that work best for me.
Maybe this is my zone.
I know that my therapist and myhusband want me to be up and
about with everyone else,because night sleep is the best
sleep to reset our bodies, right, that's when you get your REM

(09:13):
sleep, when you get your deepsleep.
But right now my body justisn't there.
So I have to give myself a hardpass on this for now, until I
can reset my internal clock.
And what is everyone thinkingabout that?
This schedule that you have tobe on has really been giving me
more stress than stress itself.

(09:35):
It's one thing for me to sithere and try to go to sleep and
try to be on a schedule, butwhen you have someone constantly
telling you that we can't dothis or that because you're
always sleeping I'm not alwayssleeping, that's just the time
that I'm asleep.
We can't make this and thatwith you because you're sleeping

(09:58):
that made me begin to feel um,bothersome and it became
cumbersome.
So, like now, I'm up at twoo'clock in the morning recording
this.
This is my jam, this is mycreative zone, this is my time
that I function creatively, andit usually stops about seven
o'clock in the morning, right,so this is my time.

(10:22):
Can I explain it?
Don't know why it is, but I amon the graveyard shift, the
midnight shift, whatever youwant to call it.
This is my time that I'musually up, but if you need me
to be somewhere, I can be there.
I'll take a little nap and befine, ready to go, because my
sleep is jagged.
It doesn't bother me.

(10:42):
So what I've had to do is I'vehad to set up a boundary around
that and I'm learning that nowthat was part of the pause.
I was being really hurt by allof that.
So here's the boundary wall.
I need to put the boundary backup around my sleep routine.

(11:03):
It's hindering me because allof this and I can't keep it up.
So I keep reminding myself todo a regular check-in before I
hit this low point right andremember to practice my
self-care, to nourish my mind,body and spirit, to create
harmony in my life so that I canbe flexible.

(11:25):
But also setting theseboundaries when I find myself
off track, we can always pause,reset and begin where we are.
Mindful moment.
When you find yourself back in acycle of doing nothing first, I
want you to flip that thought.
It's not a cycle of doingnothing, it's a cycle of

(11:46):
self-restoration.
We live in a world that says wehave to grind.
Whether we grind, pretty or not, we are taught we have to be
doing something or we're doingnothing worthwhile.
Let's turn an idea into a needfor rest and restoration.
Sometimes our environmentsaren't healthy and it drains our
energy to the point where wecan't focus or function daily.

(12:07):
We are constantly reminded ofwho we are not, where we're not
going or who we are not becoming, and it's hard on our mental
well-being, especially whenwe're just trying to make it
through yet another challengingday.
Get away from the negativeenvironment.
And if you can't try to createa space of positivity let's find

(12:30):
a space you can go to when youneed to recharge, even if it's
for 10 to 15 minutes, if it's inyour car, a closet or an empty
room.
Let's create this space of calm.
First, we recognize the cycleand we realize we were buffering
, maybe having headaches,feeling tired or having tense
muscles.
So we walk, listen to ourpraise music or do something we

(12:51):
enjoy Burn your candles, read agood book or watch something
funny to make you laugh out loud.
Should we set realistic smallgoals that are bite-sized chunks
that we can accomplish in amonth, to feel good about what
we're doing in our daily lives,be it work, personal or
entrepreneurial.
Then we continue to createwonderful harmony in our mental

(13:13):
spaces as best we can by rinsingand repeating spending time
with God.
Journaling and using any toolthat will get those negative
thoughts out of your head willhelp us feel ourselves back up
with positivity.
Open up that box ofaffirmations that you have
stashed in your drawer I'mtalking to me too.

(13:33):
Pin them up where you can seethem.
Talk to yourself lovingly dailyand become your own cheerleader
.
This is going to be a continuousjourney to healing.
I've never thought it wouldtake this long, to be honest, to
get well, but it is.
And I have to continue topractice love and
self-compassion and give myselfa whole lot of grace and

(13:55):
remember to smile.
That's half the battle.
Love you, girl.
Thank you for joining me.
I hope you found value intoday's conversation where we
talked about breaking the cycleof doing nothing.
I'm your host, Shannon Martin.
Be sure to join us nextWednesday when we discuss
Self-Restoration.
Until then, stay healthy andwell, take care.

(14:18):
If you enjoyed today's episode,please take a moment to rate and
review the show on ApplePodcasts or wherever you listen.
It helps listeners find us andjoin our wellness community.
And don't forget to stayconnected with us across all our
social platforms.
At Shannon D Wellness, we'vegot plenty of exciting things in
store.
Make sure to join us on thisjourney towards a more

(14:40):
healthier, more vibrant you.
Thanks for tuning in.
Disclaimer I am not a licensedmental health professional.
The information provided hereis for general informational
purposes only.
It should not be considered asubstitute for professional
mental health advice, diagnosisor treatment.

(15:03):
If you need help, pleaseconsult a qualified mental
health professional.