How to Fill Your Well when it Runs Dry

Have you felt burned out, passionless, overwhelmed, hopeless, listless, tired, and depressed? There’s a good reason. You’re well has run dry.

That’s what happens when you don’t schedule white space, or time to do nothing or whatever you want, in your week, month or year. It’s what happens when you don’t make selfcare a regular practice. And you end up feeling that way if you don’t make time for hobbies, passion projects, relationships, or creative and fun endeavors that bring you joy.

I understand. This year it became super clear to me that my well had run dry. That’s why these days I’m focused on how to fill my well…as fast as I can.

7 Ways to Fill Your Well

How can you fill your well? How do you get life-giving water flowing back into your life—and into you? Below are a few tips that have helped me thus far or that I plan to try in the coming weeks. I’m sure they will generate ideas for ways in which you can fill your well, too.

1. Get Outside—Nature is amazingly healing. Sit by a river, lake or ocean and allow the negative ions to boost your mood. Spend time in a garden, where the plants become dormant and then burst forth with growth, flowers, and fruit; enjoy the beauty and learn from them. Walk in a forest or hike up a mountain; feel grateful for the abundance around you.
2. Start a Passion Project—It’s amazing how doing something fun and exciting in your spare time can reignite your life or work. Maybe you’d like to take up photography, start a charity, begin a blog, or create a MeetUp group. Go for it! Watch how putting your passion to work ignites other areas of your life as well.
3. Become a Child—Think back to your childhood… What did you love to do? What were your obsessions? How did you spend your time? Consider starting these activities again.
4. Go Inside—Start a meditation practice or change the meditation practice you’ve been doing (if you’ve been doing it for a year or more). By getting quiet and turning off at least some of the internal chatter, you can begin to slow down, become calm, and listen to your inner wisdom. In the silence, ask, “What will fill my well?” Listen for the still small voice giving you the answer.
5. Take a Break—Get away from everything for a day, week, or month—especially work and obligations. Go on vacation! It’s best to leave home, but, if that’s impossible, create a staycation.
6. Seek Novelty—Although you may not like change, in fact, we all have a drive for novelty. And when you do something new and different, you’ll begin to feel more alive. So seek out novel things to do, eat, smell, feel, and experience.
7. Connect—Relationships can fill the well or empty it. Evaluate the affect people in your life have on you. Do they bring you joy, fulfillment, understanding, and happiness? Do they help you grow? Or do they sap your energy, cause you to focus on the negative, and hold you back? Be sure you have or create relationships that make you feel connected, loved, and supported. And take time to connect with those who do, indeed, fill your well.

Choose one or more of these seven tips to try over the next 30 days. Notice if you start feeling more enthusiastic, happy, peaceful, and energetic. If so, you know those activities are filling your well. If not, try different ones. Or trust your intuition and try something totally different.

What fills your well? Tell me in a comment. Let’s create a long list of well-filling activities.

Never miss one of my videos! Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

If you feel as if you are constantly struggling to attract what you want in life, clinging to your negative thoughts and fears, or stuck in beliefs and patterns that don’t serve you, it’s time to make a change. Step into YOUR best self and best life. Give me an hour of your time, and I’ll help you move toward fulfilling your potential and purpose by helping you see how to flow toward the results you desire. Apply for a one-hour FREE Certified High Performance Coaching strategy session. Fill out this application. Or register for my Certified High Performance Group Coaching program here.

Photo courtesy of Dan Cook on Unsplash