Over the years, I've lost my mojo quite a number of times. Usually, it was in the aftermath of tragedy and my mojo slowly crept away from me, its absence unnoticed until I suddenly, sickly realized I was almost completely without motivation and and certainly without joy.
In every instance, it took making a conscious decision to make a change to get it back. It took deciding that I was worth being and then realizing that I had to know what I was in order to know how to be me.
How to get your mojo (motivation tangled up with joy) back:
Step 1. Make a kindly assessment of yourself and ask yourself what you'd like to change about yourself, not as a way to fix a flawed personality or body, but to give yourself the treat of being closer to the person you desire to be.
Step 2. Figure out what actions would best nurture and support that change or changes.
Step 3. Take some of those actions and see how they make you feel.
I've never needed anything more than those three steps because my mojo starts creeping back all hesitant and scrawny about the time I remember I deserve to be the person I want to be. I immediately feel happier and ready for challenge once I decide what I need to do to make the changes I want. By the time I start actually taking actions, my mojo is sitting on my lap staring up at me with adoring eyes, begging me to take it out for a run.
A few years ago, I suffered a loss of mojo after my dad passed away. Our relationship had been weird and his death left me not knowing how to feel about it, coming as it did after a few years wherein he'd cut off contact with all family. The grief and confusion did it that time; my mojo hates them both, I think. I still wrote and drew and did other creative things but I closed into myself and couldn't bring myself to submit any of them for publication or even post them online.
Then I saw my bulging folders of complete articles, stories, and artwork on my desktop, realizing that not a single file of the lot had been shared with any other being. I don't want to be alone with my words, brush strokes, and colors so I knew I needed to do something. I decided to give myself permission to write just what I wanted to for a week, working only on labors of love. By the second day I was online, feeling like my voice, my thoughts, and my feelings were worth sharing again.
