My Current Slump and How to Get Out

In a Slump

Over the entire month of November and even spilling into December I have been in a slump. My energy levels have been extremely low, no motivation, brain fog, and just a lack of production. It has been showing in almost every facet of my life. My work, this project, my exercise, my hobbies, my diet, cleaning up the house, my finances and my relationship have been in a small slump of complacency. Even anxiety has once again started to show its ugly head. In a slump that I have been in before. In basketball, I would get into shooting slumps. In baseball, I would get into hitting slumps. In school, I was in a slump for 20 years. Slumps are just a part of life, and you can just feel it. What my slump feels like is just a cloudy mind.

That describes where I am right now. A cloudy mind, easily distracted, and just not providing enough value anywhere. Huge complacency spell. Where I feel it the most is my job right now. For the last two years, my job has gone well. I have made my deadlines; I have gone above and beyond what was asked of me. Over the last month, I have made simple mistakes, not being able to grasp concepts as quickly. It has been the complete opposite of what I really prided myself on. I was always quick and efficient in my deliverables. Responding to every email extremely quickly and helping out a majority of the bosses with basic computer questions regarding Excel or computer trouble. It has been a difference lately. I would like to get out of my work slump quickly; my work performance is something I pride myself on. I might not be the best student, but I will be the best employee I can be to make up for my lack of degrees. That wasn’t the case this month. I have taken steps to get back on top of this. Using a focus timer on my computer that limits notifications from apps so I can focus on my deliverables one at a time instead of being pulled from all different sides. My phone has been put in my car during work for the last two weeks in hopes of improving my focus.

My exercise has been down for a little while now. I got a small upswing of exercise a few weeks ago that lasted most of October and lasted about a week into November. It happened because of how heavy I got from my several vacations in the month of September. It ended in early November when I was sick for a week, and then it was a cruise. A couple of weeks of no exercise to ruin my running habit. I was training for a half marathon, and it ended at six miles. Due to the sickness running around our household we have not cooked much in the month of November, so fast food and eating out has been common. I was down five pounds during my training and exercising daily. I have now since added back on those five pounds, and I think if I don’t change, I will knock on the 220 pound door again. This weight was where I felt the most anxiety, the least amount of energy, and was just overall not a healthy guy. No endurance to do tasks, weak, and had the largest anxiety issues of my life. Running has been a huge part of my life in the last 12 months with the highest point coming in January when I ran my first marathon. It has dropped off my weekly habit list time and time again. It clears my head, and gives me a goal to chase while I am dropping weight. In the month of November, I have exercised very few times and my scale is feeling it. After my skiing trip next week, I am hoping to get back on running. Maybe even during the trip I can find time to run if the weather isn’t too bad. I ran on vacation in St. Augustine, and it was probably my favorite run to this day other than my marathon. Exploring a new city while hitting goals made me very happy. Dining out has gotten BAD. I am also hoping to decrease the amount I eat out, but with the holidays coming soon, it might be difficult. I am already filling my December with multiple events.

My finances have been bad all year. I just haven’t been able to catch up to the tax man taking my money away instead of giving it to me. This was the first year where I had to actually PAY taxes. That was a hard change, but it is also a good thing after the success of last year. Maybe the most of this issue is due to the success of last year and when I compare the two I see a huge disconnect. I was able to max out my Roth IRA fully last year, accept my 401(k) match, start a post-tax brokerage and have a fully funded emergency fund. My investments, bank accounts kept going up and my income stayed pretty close to the same with a couple of side income successes. This year, I have dove into my emergency fund, didn’t pay off my credit card fully one month, and just have been running a small deficit for some months. I also have went on SEVERAL vacations. Probably close to $2,000-$3,000 worth of vacations, added a new doggo to the household, increased my rent payments and I finally had to pay for my full college. Add taxes there and it’s easy to see that money has been shorter this year. I have had a few successes. I put $1500 in my Roth IRA. This was the first year I started a Health Savings Account that will be huge when it comes to medical bills in retirement, and can also be used as a Individual retirement account when I turn 65. Overall, that is a strong account, and I am glad that I have that diversification in my investment portfolio. Taking $3,500 out of my paycheck has made my paycheck a little smaller. My investment accounts are increasing even though it is slow. Missing out on my full Roth IRA contribution is a bitter pill.

Home life has also been in a slump. I have fallen in the habit of moving clothes from the washer to the dryer and never moving them again until the next load comes. Cooking has taken a back seat. Leaves have fallen from our huge oak trees surrounding the house that has made our yard a mess. We are in a drought, so our grass has been dying and overall the yard looks a mess. We have also received a naughtygram from our HOA in November. Which I have had the pleasure of learning about this year. When I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is turn on the lawnmower. It has been hard with our weekends being taken away for I would like to say 80% of weekends get taken away by events in the last three months. Our relationship at home has also been in a slump. Come home, eat dinner, watch TV, walk our dog, separate for the last hour, and then go to sleep. A very simple formula, but a boring formula that doesn’t always make the most out of our time together. Some nights I am just so tired that I don’t want to deal with anyone and I just want to play on my game for hours and ignore the world. Something that was unthinkable months prior.

I used to write fiction as a hobby, biked, went to Disney World, even played piano. I also played basketball, pickleball, and golf. That has all fallen away from my life. June was for pickleball, we had just moved closer to the courts, and we took full advantage of this new location to play pickleball several times a week. In July, we went bike riding, I finally had room to have our bikes in our garage, so we enjoyed the peace of a bike ride. In August, I was extremely into golf, I would golf after work, early on the weekends, and even got a membership to practice more. September was all vacations, and I just never got back in it. My net at my house was thrown away a couple of weeks ago after laying there unused for a few months. My dog peed on it a few times…. All of these hobbies have eroded as I just don’t have the energy to do them when I get home.

My venture, my travel agent business has been okay. I haven’t tried very hard to improve my grasp on social media and I just haven’t wanted to do it either. I bought a microphone in August, and I have used it zero times. I did think it would be a business expense to use it to increase my content quality, but it just hasn’t happened like that. I am doing the bare minimum.

With most things being down, the one thing that has been up is school. I was able to complete all deliverables far in advance, and coast into the end with an A and a C on the semester. I can’t help but think how much I messed up during school. Throughout my entire schooling career, it all seemed like I was pushing a rock up hill, not wanting to do it at all for as long as I can remember. I would accept zeroes on assignments, and then walk into the test, in high school, and get a very good grade. College was a wake-up call regarding that, and I just would quit, switch majors when it got tough. I never was into homework and didn’t even try. College tests were a bit harder so I would get a C or a D, and my homework grades hovered around there. Now, class assignments, quizzes, homework, anything they want to give me other than an exam are free points. A way to drag my exam grades up rather than other way around. I have learned to take full advantage of these points. I have had A’s in all other grades, and in the last class I just finished I had a 66 average on exams that got pulled up to a 73 due to other assignments. In a difficult class. It gives me confidence that I can fight through these courses and get the degree that has been eluding me for almost ten years now. I was 17 when I graduated from high school, and 17 when I walked onto college campus for the first time. I am 27 now. I finally figured out what I like to do and what I finally need to do to get the grades I need for school. If I could somehow learn how to STUDY for exams, and boost up the scores in hard classes to a 73 exam average, I could get back to being a 3.0 student.

The combination of all of these issues has collapsed into a small relapse into anxiety. This is a similar situation before I had the largest issue with anxiety a year and a half ago. I have made tremendous progress in my life between that and now. The last thing I want to do is have that be a problem again. The stage is set, my weight is climbing to the worst weight of my life, my work has been going bad, I have been eating a bad diet, on top of poor sleep. Very scary set of circumstances for me having already lowered my anxiety issues. The idea of a bounce back terrifies me.

Some few things that I am going to start doing. Exercise daily, I think this is the one aspect of my life that I can’t let go of. Moving my body is extremely important to see the number on the scale drop and just for my overall health, especially mental health. I have started to put my phone in my car to help me with my focus during work.  I am thinking about putting the phone down when I am home as well just to be present. Enjoy a TV show, enjoy playing video games, enjoy my relationship, complete my chores, exercise, STUDY and really take advantage of my off time. All of those are strong goals that I hope one day will be able to complete. Right now, I do feel like I am on autopilot just holding on from week to week in a cloudy state of mind. I believe health has a large thing to do with this fog. Health and the phone scrolling. Move my body, eat healthy-ish, sleep well and limit phone usage and I should be out of the brain fog.