How do you feel as we head Into Spring? What word comes to your mind? For me, Spring feels like it’s all about energy, new life and hope; it has such positivity attached to it. However, there’s quite a lot of pressure on Spring this year because after the year that we’ve had everyone’s got such high hopes for this new season.

So, how can we make sure that Spring is energising and propels us forward, just like a real, coiled metal spring? In the audio and blog below, I work through the word ‘Spring’ letter by letter, to give you some ideas. 

S is for Sleep: It may be stating the obvious, but if you’re not getting enough good quality sleep, you’re not going to feel positive about lots of areas of life. If you’re tired, it can feel as if there’s a kind of fog over everything. You won’t be showing up as your best self and you might make decisions that aren’t really you, which are detrimental to the path that you should be taking.

So, if sleep is a bit of a problem for you, then why not make a promise to yourself that this is the year you sort it out, so that you can spring forward and be energised in that area. 

P is for Positivity: We can choose to think positive or negative thoughts about any situation, that’s completely up to us. And of course, there are lots of things that have happened recently which are anything but positive; it has been really hard. Without downplaying the difficulties people have faced this last year, it is still possible to dwell and chew on what is right, what is noble and what is praiseworthy in a situation, and to push other thoughts out.

Because positivity breeds positivity. The more positive you are about things, the more positive things happen to you; we can all start with our thoughts and thinking the best of situations.

R is for Relaxation and energisation: in my last video, I talked about the difference between these two things. Relaxation is not the same as rest; relaxation is feeling free from stress and tension and energisation is where things make you feel energetic and alive. We all need to find things in our life that can do that for us. They might be the same thing; you might feel that you don’t have stress and tension hanging over you when you’re out for a walk and that might also really energise you.

It might be different; you might feel free from stress and tension when you’re having a massage but actually that leaves you quite sleepy, and you do other things like see people and chat to people when you want to feel energised. So make sure that you’ve got those two things covered in your life because they are some of the roots that enable us to move forward. 

I is for Intrinsic motivation: There are two different kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic is when you are motivated by things inside of you, like feeling better, feeling healthier, less aches and pains, more energy, knowing that it’s the best for you and what God wants. So we need to make sure that we have intrinsic motivations.

If we just exist on extrinsic motivations, like wanting to look good in the mirror, or going off someone’s compliment or someone telling us we should do something, these are unlikely to last when we are on life’s roller coaster with big dips. So, a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are really helpful. You can use the boost of Spring as a bit of an extrinsic motivation, but it is worth thinking about what your deep-down intrinsic motivation really is; why do you really want to be healthy?  

N is for New things: What do you need to let go of and release in your life so that you can make way for new things? We’ve only got a certain capacity, a finite amount of  money, time and headspace. So what needs to go to make way for new things, new mindsets, new schedules, new habits and new attitudes?

G is for God:  although G comes last in this acronym, God should, of course, be first! God should be at the centre and He is the reason that we have continued new hope and new mercies every morning. We really need to tune into that and get closer to God, to open up our communication with Him so that we can move forward into Spring with a real spring in our step.

We have an online event coming up on the 9th of April, when Dr Kate Middleton will be talking about coming out of the pandemic. If you would like to join us, head over to our event page to find out more. And if you are not already in our Facebook Group ‘Motivationfish’ you are welcome to come and join us there too!