Image source: Jon Oliver and Funk Inc.
The entrepreneur journey is not all gumdrops and rainbows. Some times you get tired, frustrated, impatient and downright sad while trying to convince the world your product is the greatest thing since John Travolta met Saturday Night Fever.
If you find yourself in a bit of a funk, here are some ways out:
- Be grateful.
OK, so your business may not be taking off the way that you want it to just yet. But is that the only thing going on in your life? Maybe you have great kids. Maybe you chose the perfect paint color for your guest bathroom. Maybe people say you look just like James Dean, when the light hits you right and you are having a good hair day. - Be bitter and inappropriate.
All that gratitude stuff can be just a little too life-coachy, can’t it? Time to drink up a bit of snark, like Go Fug Yourself or The Bloggess. - Watch shoot em up movies.
I realize that fashion snark may be a bit weighted towards the ladies. Gentlemen, what do you prescribe, a really good slasher movie or a few rounds of Grand Theft Auto? - Laugh.
I can’t get enough of Rhett and Link‘s zaniness. You may like highbrow English humor, or YouTube videos of people falling down. If it makes you laugh, it is fair game. - Watch television on Hulu.
Glee’s episode on Funk got this whole blog post started for me. Maybe for you it is House or Saturday Night Live. - Read stories of successes who were once failures
Do we ever tire of quoting that Edison took 10,000 tries to get the light bulb right? That makes our fifteen tries to sell one seat on a teleclass sound downright anemic. - Call your best friend and moan and complain. Tell him the only things he is allowed to say are “Seriously? I can’t believe that! That is NOT fair!”
Sure, he may have his phone on mute while you ramble on like Charlie Brown’s teacher, but you WILL feel better after having explained your entire theory of the Conspiracy by The Man to Keep You Down. - Walk down old school road.
There is a good reason why high school reunions make the most staid person bust a move on the dance floor . Who doesn’t perk up when hearing the tunes of your youth? I am a child of the 70s, so no dour mood can resist the healing power of Donna Summer or The Commodores. - Ice cream.
Ben and Jerry should call their product “pint-sized therapy.” - Call your mother and tell her to remind you once again why you are the cutest, smartest and most likely to succeed child in the history of planet earth. Then ask her to send some pie.
It must not be healthy to feel cheery all the time.
So if you get down deep in a funk, may I suggest you get all the way down to the funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk?
Enjoy your weekend. 🙂
I like number 8. It is always a mood changer to listen to the songs of your youth. I also like to do some kind of activity to release endorphins. It always heps to get the body moving.
http://www.sales-training-for-business.com/self-motivation-tips.html
I get in a funk perhaps once a year so I consider myself very lucky and I’ve been in one over this weekend, partly due to getting sick (which also only happens every 2 years).
I love your suggestions Pam and the timeliness of this post – you must have been hearing my inner thoughts 😉
Exercise is a biggy, so is a great book totally unrelated to business as are funny movies and more importantly animals. I’ve been dogsitting two loveable pooches who have given me a ton of love and attention when I needed it most.
Thanks Pam
Nat
I do one of two things that usually helps:
1.) Go for a run at the Rosebowl (I run through the trails) – this feels damn good! I just keep going and pushing through until I can’t any more.
2.) I completely disconnect from everything and go to the beach. Just to sit there and watch the waves and the sunset. It’s the most relaxing, refreshing thing ever sometimes.
Either of those two usually works for me 🙂
I’m considering a theory that fear is a trained response… Let me try to explain as brief as possible. Why do some love roller coasters and others are absolutely terrified (like myself). My thought is that I made the mental attachment that the feeling I was experience was scary, bad, not pleasant. What if I made a conscious decision to tell myself that the feeling I am experiencing, while riding the roller coaster, was actually “excitement!”
Would it be possible that I could change my own perception?
I’ve heard others use more of a brute force method such as “attack it” – I see this in corporate America a lot when VP’s get to talking with their peers and program management teams – They ask… “what do we have in front of us”? As they take in the information you can see them categorizing and responding to the input with “I’ll attack that next week” or “I’ll take care of that one today” (as if they are ripping off the band-aid to just get it over with).
For those of you that are out there and still have their jobs, do the right thing by heading off the potentially scary possibility of losing your income by beginning to replace it slowly over time, through investments, a home business, something – but whatever it is, make sure it’s your passion.
The above article outlines great suggestions for you to re-associate your thoughts from “funky-ness” to something more positive so you can move forward.
Stick with it.
Steve Collins
[…] Image source: Jon Oliver and Funk Inc.The entrepreneur journey is not all gumdrops and rainbows. Some times you get tired, frustrated, impatient and downright sad while trying to convince the world your product is the greatest thing since John Travolta met Saturday Night Fever.If you find yourself in a bit of a funk, here are […] Original post […]
amen on this one. I especially agree with #8—I was just listening to I wanna put on my my my my my boogie shoes!
[…] Enjoy your weekend. via escapefromcubiclenation.com […]
Honest. Funny. Perfect.
Thanks!
Some of us girls vastly prefer explodey movies or FPS video games to fashion snark. =) My crack is Left 4 Dead 1 & 2…very satisfying levels of destruction and unlike GTA, you can indulge gleefully in monster-killing without wondering if you’re a bad person for playing a game in which you slap a hooker.
#5 is great– I keep a little roster of shows that I consider brain-candy viewing; enjoyable, entertaining, don’t require a lot of thinking, and if I doze off during an episode because the couch is too comfy, it’s ok. Crime shows like the Law & Order franchises are great for this…and yeah, House and Glee and Dead Zone and a few others. They just have to be plentiful and formulaic.
#7 is great too. My guy and I call this “poor-babying”. The rule is that you tell the person you need to be poor-babied, and they know that their job is to listen to you rant and say nothing more productive than “Poor baby!” They may NOT offer advice or try to fix things. More often than not, someone melodramatically exclaiming “Poor baby!” is enough to crack you both up and relieve some of the stress.
I also have “power songs” that I play if I need to be boosted out of a bad mood, and “mad music” that’s loud and harsh and lets me scream along with the lyrics if I need to purge it instead.
Nice post, Pam! Comedy is my favorite pick-me-up. There are a lot of great stand-up comedy videos at comedycentral.com, and some truly hilarious satirical gems found at the mcsweeneys.org site. Enjoy!
You really can’t beat a bit of snark! And ice cream? That’s a dangerous path to tread…
The truth, and nothing but the truth. You are so on it.
One of the insidious results of so much success literature is that it makes people wrong for human ups and downs. In Shaboom County we have two threads that are coach-free zones, where no one (including me) is allowed to help, fix, or coach. Crowing and venting are encouraged.
I watch Hugh Laurie in House; works every time!
[…] What do you do when you have the funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk at Escape From Cubicle Nation […]
Happens to everyone. I wholeheartedly agree with point #8 – try lisenting to George Clinton’s “We want the Funk” – an old song revived on Glee – it works!
I am SOOO there right now. I’m stuck in a funky lull this week.
I think I might grab a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, turn on my TV and call my mom. 😉
Thanks Pam!
so appreciate the Hulu advice. barney miller, after a frustrating day, is good for the soul…
it’s such a relieve to hear these suggestions. I’m use to reading self-dev books and motivation….
They all prescribe the same ideas
But I love what you’ve gave us, I guess 3 and 4 are my favorite next time I have the funk I’ll remember these.
I particularly love this funkbusting method: bitching to my husband, crying a bit, eating cake, and then staying up late watching something brainless on television or Hulu.
Funk therapy FTW!
Re No.9 – I can think of plenty pint sized therapies, none come in a cardboard tub. (Heineken, Stella, Fosters, Carlsberg, Guinness…)
I have two main ways of dealing with bad moods. Either I go crazy exaggerating to myself about how atrocious and miserable everything is until I start laughing at the absurdity, or I exercise. Nothing clears the grumpies out like a run in the woods.
When all else fails, clean. Something about taking control of my living space helps me feel more in control of other things.
I particularly like #8. For me it’s more 80s music, but anything that gets me moving is good.