7 Things to Do When You Aren’t Feeling Like Yourself
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I don’t know about you, but I go through periods when I don’t feel like myself.
I like to think of myself as a happy, bubbly, and energetic person. But sometimes, I go weeks or months feeling so far from that.
Over the years, I’ve learned the things that help me return to feeling like myself again. Since I know this is something many of you experience, I thought I would share my secrets.
Because let’s be real, if we don’t feel like ourselves, we aren’t going to feel like honoring our body with movement, nourishing our body with what it needs, and embracing our true authentic self. We need to feel like ourselves to successfully do those things.
Alright, sister, are you ready to dive into the 7 steps it takes to feel like yourself again?!
If you loved this episode, I know you will also love…
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it, let's go.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real Podcast. I don't know about you, but I do go through periods where I simply just don't feel like myself. I think of myself as a fairly happy, bubbly, energetic person. I mean, after all my name, Julie, literally means youthful one, but sometimes I go weeks or months without feeling like that. Honestly, I feel far from that. Over the years I have learned that there are certain things that really help me to return to feeling like myself. So if this is something that you are experiencing right now, I just want to share kind of what has worked for me, because let's be real. If we don't feel like ourselves, it's going to be a lot harder to honor our body with movement, to nourish our body with what it needs and to embrace our true, authentic self and live out the life that God has called us to live.
So before I dive into the seven things to do when you aren't feeling like yourself, I wanted to share this super sweet review. It comes from threat level midnight. They say, "Great practical podcast. Love your podcast. I've been following you on Insta for a few years, but just jumped on the podcast recently. I love how practical it is, especially the bonus episode that you talked about secondary protein source. keep it up. Punching emoji." Love this so much. Thank you so much for the review. I appreciate all of your guys' reviews. They truly do help us grow this podcast on Apple Podcast and on Spotify. So if you haven't already left a rating and review, if you could scooch over to Apple Podcast, all you got to do is type in Embrace Your Real. First, make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an episode. It's just that plus sign in the top right corner. Then all you got to do once you're on the podcast page is scroll down and you'll see the rating and review section. Literally it takes less than 30 seconds.
But like I said, it really does help us out and I appreciate you in advance. Okay. Let's dive into the seven things to do when you aren't feeling like yourself. Number one, I need you to reflect on a time when you felt most like yourself. So look back on the last month, six months, one year, five years, and really try to recall a time that you felt most like yourself. Think about that time when you felt most energized or most happy or confident in your skin, most motivated. When was that time? When you recall that, think about what you were doing, where were you? Who were your friends? What were your hobbies? What did your nutrition look like? What did your daily routine look like? What about your daily habits?
Literally, I want you to dig deep and pull up everything that may have contributed to you feeling most like yourself. I want to add a disclaimer here. I'm not talking about reflecting on a time where you looked your best or you thought you looked your best, or you weighed the least. I am talking about the time that you felt most alive in your body. The time that you felt most 100% like yourself. Once you discover what those things are, write them down, whether it's on your phone or pen to paper. We will come back to them shortly later in this episode. Number two, figure out why you don't feel like yourself. Many times we just live day to day knowing that we feel off, but we never really stop to address why we are feeling off.
Why don't we feel like ourselves? What is contributing to us not feeling like ourselves? What feelings are we exactly feeling right now, and when did we start to feel this way, and where do we feel least like ourselves? You got to keep asking those questions, figure out when it started, what it stemmed from and why you're continuing to feel this way. We can't get back to feeling like ourselves if we don't even know why we don't feel like ourselves in the first place. So here are some questions to kind of ask yourself and now is a great time to press pause and grab a pen to paper or get your phone out so you can type these down. Because these questions are really going to help you dig deeper.
Do you have strong enough boundaries right now in your life? Are you pushing yourself to do too much? Is your daily food intake or your fitness routine not currently working out for you or not giving you joy? Are the people you are spending time with most associated with how you are feeling? Do you need to have more open communication with someone in particular in your life? Are you holding on to any resentment? Whether that's with a person, a situation? Do you need to change your mindset? Is there negativity in your life that you feel like you really need to just create more optimism and you need to look at whatever it is that's going on, whether it's a problem or it's something that kind of came up unexpectedly, are you looking at that? Is that stressing you out? Is it bringing a lot of negativity into your life? Is it something that you need to try to shift your perspective around? I could literally keep listing more and more things because the list honestly is endless.
However, the reason that you don't feel like yourself is going to be completely unique to you and that's why you need to do your own digging and find out what it is. When I'm kind of in this stage of asking myself why don't I feel like myself, I always first come to God in prayer. I come to God in my quiet time, in my journaling, and I want to write out my feelings. I've said this before in a few podcasts, but I have found that when I quiet myself in the morning, even if it's for five or 10 minutes, I feel like I have so much more clarity because I am allowing myself to slow down and I'm quieting myself before God and I'm asking God to reveal things to me, whether it's through his scriptures as I open his word or his Holy Spirit is speaking something into my life or maybe someone, divine intervention, comes in, whether it's a friend, a family member or a complete stranger comes into your life and just kind of shares some insight that will give you that aha moment.
But really just surrender and ask yourself what is it? What are the things that are making or attributing to me not feeling like myself? Number three, once you have kind of those things in your mind, whether it's written down or in your head, swap the things that are making you not feel like yourself for the things that do make you feel like yourself. So kind of look at those two lists. How can you start to incorporate more things into your life that make you feel great and remove the things in your life that are kind of bringing you down? The more swaps that we can make, the closer we become to feeling like ourselves again. For example, sometimes I don't feel like myself if my nutrition is all over the place. I know if I'm traveling or if I'm just not prioritizing especially my protein intake, if I was lazy that week and I didn't prep chicken or I didn't prep a protein batch that I could use in multiple different meals and snacks, I feel off. It's a simple thing like that can make you feel off.
I know that when I personally prioritize nourishing my body with what it needs, I feel so much more like myself. I feel energized. I feel good. I feel confident. I feel rest assured knowing that I am giving my body and fueling my body what it needs instead of just having my nutrition all over the place. Thus, I make it a priority to properly nourish my body week in and week out. Of course, I'm not perfect, but it is something that I've identified to allow me to get back to that. The moment that I start filling off, that is one of the first things I ask myself, is, "Am I properly nourishing and hydrating my body with what it needs?"
Another example of this is maybe you're feeling lonely. When you feel most like yourself, you are likely surrounded by great community. So figure out how you can swap out your loneliness with community. Maybe you have loved ones in your life that you can prioritize pending more time with, or perhaps you lack community where you are and instead of wallowing in that, you can actively go search for a community. It's not easy, but I know that neither is feeling lonely and neither is not feeling like yourself. So really kind of weigh those things and you never know the people that God's going to bring into your life, you never know the community that God wants you to be a part of, how rich and how beautiful that can be. I know for me, I've really taken 2022 to invest in my relationships a lot more and I have a few friendships in particular that just bring me so much life week in and week out. It's because we are investing time into that relationship.
Of course, it's easy. It's going to take you sacrificing things in your schedule, but the payoff of not feeling lonely and feeling like you have a legit community is priceless. I know for me, another community that I love and I look to on a daily basis is the Movement with Julie community, my app, my weekly workout app community. I love this community so much because we are sweating together. We are doing similar workouts, whether it's the glutes and shoulders on Thursdays or we're doing full body on Fridays. Knowing that there are hundreds, literally hundreds, of women all across the world that are doing the same workouts and showing up for ourselves and then posting about it in the community group, there's something so special about that. So I want to encourage you to invest in community. For example, if you are feeling lonely, do the thing. Even if it's hard, you don't know how big of a payoff it could actually yield you.
Number four, get into a routine. There is so much power in a routine, even if you are not a routine person. I am a perfect example of this. I am a type B personality through and through, but I thrive in a routine. A routine really forces you to get into a good rhythm into your life. When you feel like you have a good rhythm, it's easier to start feeling like yourselves. Take the time to do the things that make you feel most like yourself and make it into a daily or weekly routine. Maybe you incorporate things like journaling and prayer or yoga or stretching or hanging out with friends, or meal prep, grocery, shopping, workouts, cleaning. Whatever it is, make a routine and stick to it for a few months and see how you start to feel. Because I know for me, when my life and my house is organized, my mind is organized. When my house is cluttery, my mind is cluttery.
There are so many different areas of our life, whether that is ... I know for me, another kind of silly example, but I'm sure we can all relate, is the digital clutterness that I have on my phone and my laptop up can really impact me. I know that sounds very silly, but we live on our phones. We live on our devices. So trying to make sure that you clean up those screenshots that you have 20,000 of, or maybe that's just me, or the extra additional documents that you have on your computer that's just all spread out. Just remember that when you have less clutter around you, whether that is digitally or physically in your house, you will feel less cluttered in your mind. Once you can establish a kind of routine that allows you to stay organized, you can always then have that routine to fall back on and then when you don't feel like yourself in a different season, you'll always have that routine to kind of go back to. It's always available to you whenever you need it.
Number five, do the little things that make you happy. Sometimes changing the circumstances that are triggering us to not feel like ourselves are just simply out of our control. However, there are always things inside of our control, even if they're small. So maybe, like I said, it is getting up in the morning and having a quiet time. Whether that is reading your Bible, that's journaling, that's listening to a podcast, that's stretching, that's doing yoga, whatever it is, really taking those five, 10 minutes pockets that you have and being intentional about that. Maybe you have a favorite coffee shop that makes you happy. Why not try to make that a routine to go to that a few times during the week? Or maybe you waking up in the morning and taking a walk. Those are the times that you feel most alive, whether it's by yourself or with your dog or with your kids or whatever, really try to make time in that morning.
Do the small things throughout your day that make you happy. Just remember that the small things that make you happy from day to day are actually big things when you add them up. They can honestly help you transform the way that you're feeling and help you bring you back to you again. Just because they're small doesn't mean that they aren't powerful.
Number six, address the burnout. Oftentimes we don't don't feel like ourselves simply because we feel burnt out. This is a valid feeling and also very common. Perhaps you have a career or a business or a family or whatever it may be and you just feel buried in the responsibilities of to-do lists. Sometimes we just need to slow down. Simply slowing down is all we really need to do to feel like ourselves again, and to come back to ourselves again. Can you dedicate the next few months to simply slowing down? Even if that's one day a week. Can you say no to travel? To new responsibilities? To current responsibilities that don't necessarily need to be done by you? Or to social engagements that don't excite you or doing things in general, that don't bring you joy? Address your burnout and then make a game plan for avoiding the burnout in the future.
You don't want it to become a cycle of you feeling burned out and then not feeling like yourself, and then addressing the burnout. If you just address the core root of your burnout, you likely won't have to experience that again. Or if you start to experience it in the future, you will already have had to address it previously and came up with kind of a game plan so that you don't have to go through that whole cycle again and again. Number seven, remind yourself that this is temporary. Remind yourself that you won't feel like this forever. If you address how you are feeling, then each day you actually are getting closer and closer to shedding the feeling of you not feeling like yourself. Have faith that one day you will feel like yourself again. You will, I promise, but you need to take action and you need to take control.
If you sit there and do nothing and not address how you're feeling, then yes, you're going to continue to feel this way. You aren't just going to wake up one day and magically feel like yourself again. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, but if you take control, then you are in control of them. The more and more that you address the core root of the situations that are going on in your life, the better off you're going to be in the future, because you're going to have learned from this season of life. Trust me, seasons in life ebb and flow and it's important that we take every single season, even if it's a hard season, even if it's a season where we don't feel like we're doing our best, or we're showing up as our best, try to look at that season and ask yourself, "How can I learn from this? How can I grow in this? What can I take from this season into the next season that I know I will go into?"
Because like I said, seasons will come and go, but it's up to us to take control and take actions so that we can start feeling like ourself and most importantly, learn from why we didn't start feeling like ourselves in the first place so that it will prevent us from feeling that same way in the future.
So there you have it. Those are the seven things to do when you aren't feeling like yourself. Let me just recap them for those list-lovers like myself. Number one, reflect on a time when you felt most like yourself. Number two, figure out why you don't feel like yourself. Number three, swap the things that are making you not feel like yourselves for the things that do make you feel like yourself. Number four, get into a routine. Number five, do the little things that make you happy. Number six, address your burnout, and number seven, remind yourself that this is only temporary. If you love this episode, I know you'll also love episode 157. Want to be happier? Avoid these five mistakes. I will go ahead and link that in the show notes that you can easily go listen to that episode next.
I appreciate you so much and if you are in a season of just not feeling like yourself, please, please, please take some time to prioritize this. If you need to re-listen to this episode when you have a time where you are maybe by a pen to paper and you can start writing things out. Or just plan something in your calendar right now, commit to it whether that's in a day, a few days or a week, and just put on the calendar, "I'm going to address why I'm feeling like this." Literally block out 20, 30 minutes so that you can get real with yourself and you can come down to the core of the issue so that you can start feeling like yourself again. If you have a friend, a sister, a coworker, or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can copy the link and send it to them in a text message. You can also screenshot this posted up on your stories.
Be sure to tag me, Julie Ledbetter, and embrace your real account. I love you so much. I hope that this episode was helpful and I'll talk to you in the next one.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the 'gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter, yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.