This might be a familiar scenario: You kicked off the new year with some goals set for yourself, and for a while, you’ve been making good progress. You’ve been putting in your all, clearing tasks left and right, and generally just doing well at your job.

But as the year picks up, so does your workload, and now it’s getting to you. Your initial enthusiasm has long fizzled out, and you’re feeling decidedly less than motivated. and procrastination has become your new best friend. To put it simply, your productivity has screeched to a halt. So, what’s changed?

Losing your stride

Once the ‘newness’ of the year wears off and you get used to your daily routine, it can be difficult to maintain enthusiasm as time passes. As a result, it’s unfortunately normal for people to start things out with a sense of motivation and enthusiasm, before eventually feeling tired and worn out.

How and why this slump happens can vary from person to person. For example, you might be drained after dealing with a big project early this year, or you might’ve been saddled with more work than usual. After months of hard work, the lack of energy and dwindling motivation can make it hard to stay engaged and motivated, especially if you haven’t had the chance to get some proper rest.

Either way, the outcome is still the same: You feel frazzled, overwhelmed, and on the verge of a full-blown burnout. Fortunately, there’s a way to help ‘reset’ yourself and recharge for what lies ahead.

Breaking out of it

Dealing with a slump like this can feel like an uphill battle, but the good news is that there are steps you can take to help you get motivated again:

Accept the slump

One of the hardest parts of being in a slump is accepting the fact that it’s happening in the first place, especially when it seems like everyone else is doing just fine. In fact, denying or even fighting against it can often leave you feeling worse since you’ll be spending time and energy judging yourself for something may not be under your control.

Instead, accept that this mid-year slump (and any other slumps in the future) is a part of your career journey, part of your life, and part of being human.

Check on (and reassess) your goals

Now that you’ve hit the halfway point, it’s as good a time as any to check on the goals you’ve set at the start of the year and see whether you’re still on track. If you’ve managed to achieve them, great! But if you find that you haven’t met many of those goals, you may want to give them a review.

For one, it’s possible that you’ve set goals that were too broad or ambitious, which can be fixed by either further breaking them down into smaller tasks or being more explicit about your strategy for achieving them.

On the other hand, you might’ve lost interest in them, in which case there’s nothing wrong with removing them from the list. If this is the case, don’t feel guilty; these goals should be about you, so don’t feel bad about making changes.

Rest up

If you find yourself in a slump, it’s a good idea to take care of yourself during this period. Taking the time to step away from your workload is your best bet to clear your mind and re-energise yourself.

Ideally, it’s best to take some time off from work entirely, but if that isn’t possible, find little pockets of your day where you can take it easy for a little while. For example, you can consider utilising the Pomodoro method, which not only allocates time for breaks, but has been proven to help improve productivity, too.

Shake things up a little

One way to break yourself out of it is to rekindle your motivation and get excited about something, especially after having to go through the same routine every day. One way to do just that is to find something that inspires or at least intrigues you.

This could be anything, and doesn’t necessarily have to be work-related, such as picking up a hobby you’ve wanted to try, or making changes to your existing work routine. It might be tough to fall out of habit, but it’s been proven that this can help induce a ‘fresh start effect’, which can lead to being more motivated.

We can’t always be 100% productive and high-energy all the time, so if you’re in a slump at this point of the year, don’t feel guilty about it. But at the same time, while it isn’t the best feeling in the world, it’s important to know that this feeling is temporary. What’s important now is knowing how we get through it and eventually find our groove again.