Hi Steph,

It sounds like you are going through a tough time at the moment but you are definately not alone in this. Most people go through a phase in our life where we feel stuck, unmotivated and end up with a few bad habits (e.g. unhealthy eating habits or some kind of addiction). It usually happens when someone suffered a big disappointment in life and people do this to help them avoid doing things that may lead to further feelings of hurt and disappointment. The trouble is, your mind is telling you that you need to pull out of this but your heart just doesn’t feel it and when your mind is at war with your heart, you tend to end up with a lot of guilt and self criticism. This in turn feeds into the need to escape, like watching TV etc just to avoid feeling anything at all.

Things like passion and motivation are emotions that comes from our heart and a suggestion I have for you is to do something that you really love, something that you will have a good time in regardless of the results. For some peole, this can be things like travel, meditation, travel, drawing, journaling, walking….the list goes on. The important thing is that it is something that resonates with you rather than something that something that someone told you is a good idea. Also try to do this in a park if you can as the outdoors environment can do wonders for your mood even by just being there.

In regards to friends, making too much of an effort sometimes can have an adverse effect to what you want to achieve. The thing to remember here is that you are not going to like everyone you meet no matter how nice they are and the same is true on the reverse. If they don’t reciprocate your efforts, it’s better to move on than to invest energy into earning the approval of someone you don’t even like.

When meeting new people, I generally prefer someone who is genuine, comfortable in their own skin and open minded. It’s a bonus if they are intelligent and/or have common interests but they are secondary compared to the other traits, which anyone can learn.