Feeling Meh?

We mostly focus on emotions that feel powerful and profound. Think of the raging fires of anger and the deep sorrow that comes with grief. But today, I want to address an equally difficult feeling that's in the middle. It's an emotional state we don't usually talk about partly because we don't have great words for it. But even though it's pretty nondescript, this middling listless feeling is very much worth paying attention to. It's a ‘not so nice experience' that many of us have gone through, especially in the past few years. You might even be in the grip of the sticky feeling right now. So ask yourself honestly, how are you feeling today? If your answer is meh, then you might be experiencing the feeling that behavioral scientists refer to as languishing.

What is Languishing?

According to Adam Grant an organisational psychologist at Wharton, the author of “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know” and the host of the TED podcast WorkLife:

“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It is the feeling of being stagnant or stuck, unable to move forward.”

Languishing is different from burnout. Burnout is mainly associated with exhaustion while languishing is not. You might feel perfectly energised, calm, and supported, but still feel like tomorrow doesn’t matter because it’s just another variation of today. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.

In psychology, we think about mental health on a spectrum from depression which is the feeling of despondency to flourishing which is the peak of well-being. When you are flourishing, you have a strong sense of meaning, mastery, and mattering to others. Depression is the valley of ill-being where you feel drained and worthless. Languishing is the void between depression and flourishing. It's the absence of well-being. You might not have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity. Languishing dulls your motivation and disrupts your ability to focus. It appears to be more common than major depression — and in some ways, it may be a bigger risk factor for depression.

How can I move from languishing to flourishing?

Feeling meh is something that happens to everyone at times, but there are things you can do to move from meh to inspired. People who are languishing are more likely to become depressed, so the important thing is to guide yourself toward the flourishing end of the spectrum, rather than falling to the depressed end. Here are 10 tips for getting your mojo back:

1. Assess Yourself:
   Languishing is a mental health issue that creeps in slowly over a long period of time. Day by day, you start pulling away from things that previously brought you joy. You slowly find yourself keeping more and more to yourself. Before you know it, you feel completely different and have no idea why or even how it happened. Recognising you are experiencing languishing is the first, and most important, step to working back toward a flourishing mindset. Part of the danger is that when you’re languishing, you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you’re indifferent to your indifference. When you can’t see your own suffering, you don’t seek help or even do much to help yourself.
   You can use the 10-question assessment from Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, which asks about not only overall happiness and satisfaction, but also physical health, purpose, meaning, ability to defer happiness, friendships, and intimate relationships.
   
   

2. Reflect and unload:
   Pouring your heart into a journal can give you some time to breathe. Through journaling and planning, you find clarity on your emotions as you lay out all your thoughts on paper. The act of writing what you’re thinking also gives you a chance to let go of the stress and anxiety that you feel that day. Just by journaling, your mood improves and your confidence is boosted. It also serves as a break from not feeling like yourself and energises you so that you can move away from languishing.
   
   

3. Be thankful:
   Take a moment each day, maybe first thing when you wake up, or last thing before you go to sleep, to think about something that you are grateful for, and let yourself really feel the emotion of gratitude. You don’t have to have a whole list of things, just one thing is enough—the important part is to fully experience the feeling of gratitude.
   
   

4. Practice Mindfulness:
   A lot of my clients complain that though they intend to do some mindful meditation, they never actually get around to it. But you don’t need to do meditation to practice mindfulness. You can simply pick an activity that you do regularly, and practice focusing exclusively on that activity. Brushing your teeth or washing the dishes are activities that are easy to practice doing mindfully. Leave a post-it note by your toothbrush or the kitchen sink to remind yourself.
   You can also practice mindfulness while you are walking, which for some people helps them calm their minds. A recent study shows that taking an awe walk, where you focus on feeling awe in the things you experience during your walk, can improve your mood and even your physical health (maybe without listening to a podcast/music or doing something distracting so you can be fully in the moment).
   
   

5. Say hi to a friend:
   Send a message to a friend or relative you haven’t heard from in a while - chances are that they are feeling “meh”, too! Or simply take the time to talk to the neighbor you pass by while walking the dog or the barista at your favourite coffee shop. You can also connect to groups you have missed during the pandemic. Maybe you’d like to go back to that yoga class or take that baking class you’ve been talking about. That’s also a great way to meet some new people and make some new friends.
   
   

6. Go with the flow:
   A concept called “flow” may be an antidote to languishing. Flow is a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD., Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University. It describes those moments when you are completely absorbed by a challenging but manageable task. Flow is the idea that you can lose yourself in something meaningful that brings you joy while distracting you from the world around you. Spending time in a state of flow has been shown to increase happiness and satisfaction with life and immersing yourself in a new hobby is a great way to avoid day-to-day stress.
   One of the ways to encourage flow is to minimise distractions, so next time you are working on a challenging task, turn off your cell phone, turn off notifications, and close all the extra tabs on your browser (especially email!).
   
   

7. Find purpose:
   Notice I didn’t say, “Find your passion”, as if it was just going to drop into your lap from the heavens! Finding purpose is much more practical. Look for the purpose in the everyday things you do. Don’t love your job? Well, maybe you value being responsible about paying your bills or being able to live in a safe neighborhood near your friends. Sick of cleaning the kitchen? (This is my personal kryptonite!) Remind yourself that you value having a clean and tidy home. Hate grocery shopping? Remember that you value having healthy, nutritious food in your house so that you don’t just live on pizza deliveries and fast food.
   
   

8. Take a break:
   Give yourself some uninterrupted time by setting some boundaries. Immersing yourself in work without interruption is not going to alleviate your feeling of lacking progress because it doesn’t address the source of the feeling. You might not even care about work right now, due to your languishing feeling, so work is not going to feel as meaningful as it might have felt in the past. Something meaningful you can, and should, do is give yourself the grace you need to build breaks into your daily routine. Give yourself permission to journal for a half hour every morning or let yourself take an afternoon walk to re-energise. Take an afternoon off to go to a museum or read something inspiring. With consistency, you can inspire yourself toward your goals.
   
   

9. Accomplish small wins:
   To transcend languishing, try setting some daily goals. Setting goals, even small ones you know you will accomplish can help remind you of the meaning of your effort. With an extra five minutes spent on a goal every day, you can make massive progress. Start your day by writing down a goal you want to accomplish, perhaps increasing in difficulty as the days go by. When you see yourself accomplishing your goals at the end of your day and start looking towards even more ambitious goals for the next day, you’ll start to feel your pride come back.
   
   

10. Try something new:
    Novelty primes our brains and releases chemicals that make us happier. So sign up for that language class, try that new recipe, go to that art exhibition, or maybe just try a new route on your next run or drive home from work. Amazingly, studies show that even doing something like brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand will stimulate different regions of your brain and lead to new neural pathways. Try something new together with your partner. No, I don’t mean sex— – though novelty is generally a good thing to spark libido as well! It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just go for a walk somewhere new, do a puzzle, or try a sport together.

To Sum it Up

Remember: you are not alone. Languishing is an extremely common feeling and if left unaddressed, it can lead to even more serious mental health concerns in the future. ‍"Not depressed” doesn’t mean you’re not struggling. If you are struggling with languishing, you are not stuck! There are things you can do either independently or with the help of a coach, to fight your languishing and get back to a flourishing mindset.

Getting help:

Coaching can help you move past the “meh” and get your mojo back. Connect with me at https://www.sakinanajmi.com/contact or shoot me an email at info@sakinanajmi.com to set up your free consultation. We will have a chat about what’s going on with you and how I can help. I want to help you to leave the languishing behind, and guide you toward resolving your listlessness and learning to thrive!