Doldrums, it’s an awful place that positions us in a non-active state tied to an emotional anchor. The causes are potentially multiple, but often: disappointment, disillusionment, and disturbance. My point being, everyone has had these moments, or days…sometimes longer.
I see doldrum-effect in my coaching clients on occasion and seek to motivate them to gain awareness and move through it. The solution doesn’t come from navigating around which never really addresses the issue, only deflects it. My job as a Coach is to bring them back to the well being point of view. Establishing the big picture again for them helps to focus on the positives and steps made in the right direction. Let’s face it; it’s a lot harder to make good choices vs. bad ones. Paying attention to one’s mistakes has value only in the sense of finding the lessons learned.
It’s good to recognize that living with integrity means remaining accountable for your bad actions. Accounting for the lessons gained from the experience implies also taking actions to mitigate the outcome from happening again. From there, you can move forward. Taking a deliberate action to ensure you do this may help by speaking a mantra to yourself. Mantras are usually short, positive and affirming statements repeated in a time of doldrums that serve as a personal intervention to stop the cascade of negative thinking. The ones I have used or heard of include: This too shall pass; I’m smart, I can handle this; My negative experiences don’t define me. There are countless others that work for people that help to re-frame a situation into a new perspective. I’ve personally found mantras to be a great tool to bring awareness of my mental state and do something to keep a bad situation from getting worse. When you are in the doldrums, this is a way to bring positive energy into a dark situation.
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