Have you found yourself staying up late bingeing TV series? Have you spent more time playing games on your phone or scrolling aimlessly through social media than connecting with others? Do you find yourself lacking excitement about the things that you used to look forward to? Could your emotional state (on most days) best be described as “meh” or “blah?”
If you have found yourself feeling somewhat joyless and aimless over the last year, you are not alone, and there is a name for it: languishing.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant describes languishing as “a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as though you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” He refers to languishing as “the neglected middle child of mental health. The void between depression and flourishing—the absence of well-being.”
And it may just be the most prominent emotional side-effect of the pandemic.
The effects of languishing:
- Dulls your motivation
- Disrupts your ability to focus
- Substantially decreases productivity at work
- Over time (if left unaddressed) can lead to depression or other mental health issues
The challenge of languishing:
Often, we don’t consciously notice when we are languishing because we are (ironically) “indifferent to our own indifference.” We can go an extended period of time without noticing that our happiness is depleting or our motivation is dwindling. As Grant says, “you don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude” and “when you can’t see your own suffering, you don’t seek help or even do much to help yourself.”
The cure to languishing:
Thankfully there is one! It’s called “flow,” which is something that we talk about often here at team Elite. Flow is defined as a mental state in which we are performing an activity and are fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and pure enjoyment of the process. We lose track of time and are “in the zone.”
At Team Elite, we have educated many clients on how to access flow state in order to maximize their potential, and would be happy to do the same for you!
If you’re ready (and willing) to trade in languishing for a return to engagement and fulfillment, set up a free consultation with myself or one of our other high performance coaches.
Your highest potential is our passion, and we look forward to helping you along your growth journey.
Stay safe, and happy holidays!
-Coach MJ