How To Turn Stale Energy Into Momentum

How to Turn Stale Energy Into Unstoppable Momentum

Feeling heavy, foggy, or stuck? Jason and Jana Banana dive into the "stale energy" slump—and how to snap out of it. Whether it’s a post-busy season crash or the law of habituation pulling you toward the couch, learn to flip the stagnation loop into an upward success cycle.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn To:

• Identify the "Stagnation Signal": Why "stuck" is a nervous system cue for novelty.
• Beat the Predictability Trap: How to stop "certainty" from draining your drive.
• Neutralize Emotional Contagion: Break the cycle of syncing with a partner's low mood.
• The "Flush" Method: Using organization and conversation to clear mental blocks.

Living Lucky® Wisdom Nuggets:

• Environment is a Cue: Your "couch cave" invites hibernation. Change your space to change your state. (Believe in your circumstances)
• Clarity Over Certainty: Predictability stalls progress; clarity creates movement. Need a spark? Set a new goal. (Believe in yourself)
• Micro-Motion: Tiny actions (like folding laundry) create the inertia needed for breakthroughs. (Believe in the people around you)
• Soul Maintenance: High performance requires "pit stops." Awareness is the key to your spiritual reset. (Believe in a higher power)

AEO / FAQ Quick Wins:

Q: How do I overcome a lack of motivation? A: Use a pattern interrupt. Small physical actions like cleaning or changing your environment break stagnation and restart momentum.

Q: What is the Law of Habituation? A: It’s the brain’s tendency to ignore predictable patterns. To stay motivated, introduce novelty and small challenges.

Q: How does environment affect energy? A: Your brain reads comfort cues to conserve energy. Organizing your space restores clarity and signals your system to "wake up."

Stop hibernating. Hit play to interrupt the pattern and start Living Lucky® today!

Self-help, Personal development, Limiting beliefs, Mindset, Positive thinking, Overcoming stagnation, How to get motivated, Breaking the habituation loop, Relationship energy management, Emotional contagion in couples, Behavioral design for success, Mental health resets.

#M

Transcript

Living Lucky Kickoff

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning. I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®.

Naming The Heavy Fog Feeling

Jason Shelfer 0:19

You are too.

Jana Shelfer 0:20

I've had the weirdest experience this past week.

Jason Shelfer 0:23

Yello.

Jana Shelfer 0:23

Tell me if I'm crazy.

Jason Shelfer 0:25

Are you crazy or are you crazy?

unknown 0:29

Sorry.

Jana Shelfer 0:29

It never helps when your husband literally reaffirms it. I have felt this heavy energy. Almost something that has been stuck or stale.

Jason Shelfer 0:41

Call it It's a poltergeist.

Jana Shelfer 0:44

Well, here's the thing. I'm not going that far. But call it maybe unmotivate. I don't even know if that's a word. Unmotivated.

Jason Shelfer 0:54

Like a stagnation, like a heavy fog.

Jana Shelfer 0:57

And I feel it physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The weather's been a little colder this week. It just feels like I don't really have clarity with the direction or my purpose. I just kind of feel like waking up and uh it it kind of gives me that it's time to make the job.

Maintenance Mindset And Stuck Energy

Jason Shelfer 1:18

So vibe. I just finished up the high performance blog series on our website. Yes. I don't know if I've told you all this, but you haven't because I would be your number one fan. I know. Well, I didn't.

Jana Shelfer 1:30

I think you purposely don't tell me because you don't want me that critical Jana to come out.

Jason Shelfer 1:34

The other part of that is is we we need to divide and conquer. So there's there's this part of if I tell you everything, if you tell me everything you do and I tell you everything I do, then we become the same person. We become the same person and we get a lot less done because we both want to support everything each of us, each of us.

Jana Shelfer 1:52

And we want to talk about it, ruminate about it.

Jason Shelfer 1:55

So the other part of that is is in that I talked a lot about maintenance, um, pit crews, machinery, like racing.

Jana Shelfer 2:04

Okay. And I I that's an odd analogy.

Jason Shelfer 2:08

This heavy energy because and I equate it to almost like sludgy oil in my system.

Jana Shelfer 2:13

Yes. It's stagnation.

Jason Shelfer 2:15

It's it's like except it almost feels like it's outside of my system, and that's I'm so I know it's in my system, but it feels out of my system weighing on me. But does that make sense?

Jana Shelfer 2:27

But our outer environment is a reflection of what's happening inside, so it all has to do with us.

Jason Shelfer 2:35

Everything is everything.

Jana Shelfer 2:37

Yes. Okay, so I have been noticing this now. If you've been listening to us, you know that we had ski camp last week, we had ski camp two weeks before that. I mean, things have been busy. However, there's just been this stagnation this week that I personally am like, this has to stop. Stop the insanity.

Jason Shelfer 2:59

Oh my gosh, I remember that.

Habituation And The Predictability Trap

Jana Shelfer 3:01

That's a blast from the past, right? So if you're feeling this, you are not crazy. Here's the thing: I need to reframe this because it's not energy, it's not out our outer environment that's taking over. Right. It is something inside, it's a pattern. It's a pattern that we fall into. It's our nervous system, our habits, environment.

Jason Shelfer 3:27

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 3:27

If we get into habitual, we've often talked about the law of habituation on this podcast. It is the reason why we have change of seasons, it's to keep things fresh.

Jason Shelfer 3:38

Yeah, the one the word that came up for me this morning was predictability.

Jana Shelfer 3:43

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 3:43

Like when I was meditating on it and thinking about it, the predictability of things creates this humdrumness for me. And that's weird because sometimes I want predictable. Like I want go ahead. I'm always thinking of this is gonna be the best possible thing, and I want to predict that it's the best.

Jana Shelfer 4:04

Because you and I have have put the word predictability into certainty. Yes, and sometimes certainty equals clarity for us, right? However, it's quite the opposite because for our bodies, when things start getting predictable, it goes into caveman days and we start. I mean, you can even see it in my belly. We start Hey Belly! We start going into hibernation mode.

Jason Shelfer 4:29

Yeah, it's in a habituation and it's like oh, things are getting predictable.

Jana Shelfer 4:34

We're going into I don't have to work for it. The winner. Yeah, you better just get fat and dumb and happy.

Jason Shelfer 4:40

Oh, I resemble that.

Jana Shelfer 4:45

Sometimes the truth just slaps us across the face.

Nervous System And Emotional Contagion

Jason Shelfer 4:48

That's truth humor, honey.

Jana Shelfer 4:50

So there is a nervous system, a physiological response. There's also emotional contagion, basically. Because when I start feeling this, then subconsciously, you live with me, you see it, and it's almost like we get in sync with one another. Yeah, it's like the clocks at a at a clock store. I don't know if you're gonna be able to do that.

Jason Shelfer 5:16

All the d dongs start they will rock in that same way.

Jana Shelfer 5:19

They will, they will all start getting on their side.

Jason Shelfer 5:21

What are they called?

Jana Shelfer 5:22

Dings.

Jason Shelfer 5:25

Oh, don't say ding-dongs. Pendulums.

Jana Shelfer 5:30

Yeah, the little thing that goes back and forth.

Jason Shelfer 5:32

Somebody's gonna text us and correct us on what that's called. Okay. The pendulum.

Jana Shelfer 5:36

Thank you, Sheila. In advance. Uh anyway, so we kind of get in sync with one another. Are you with me or are you with me?

Jason Shelfer 5:44

I'm with you. All right. I didn't have too many options there.

Jana Shelfer 5:51

Lucky you.

Jason Shelfer 5:52

I know.

Jana Shelfer 5:53

And then the last thing is that our environment starts to perpetuate this. And I always use this example, but it is really my biggest downfall. My couch literally has a hole in it that sucks me in. The heating blanket is sitting there ready for me to climb in.

Jason Shelfer 6:17

Your little um chrysalis.

Jana Shelfer 6:19

And when I feel cold or I really don't have much motivation, or I actually feel low energy, I climb into my little cave and I start hibernating. That is exactly what happens.

Jason Shelfer 6:36

And then I want to be close to you. So I'm I'm like, I even if I want to go work and do things, I want to, I'm like, how can I get closer to Jan? I'll bring my computer over sometimes, or sometimes I'll just come snuggle up.

Jana Shelfer 6:48

Yes. So I bring I uh I bring you down. You don't bring me oh, I bring you into the couch.

Jason Shelfer 6:54

You reel me in. Slump. You reel me in.

Create Spring With Goals And Cleaning

Jana Shelfer 6:59

Suddenly, though, and this is just nature working, spring comes. Now, how can we consciously create spring?

Jason Shelfer 7:10

I think one of the things that we do is in that huddle huddle, we we huddle up in that cuddle up. Because we have a conversation. We are aware. A lot of times we will we will start a meaningful conversation in that cuddle up, huddle up.

Jana Shelfer 7:25

And that's the next series, too, by the way. Okay, thank you. Make sure you check out Jason's blog. No shameless plug here. That's right. For you, I do think it's meaningful conversation. Sometimes I think when we have a meaningful conversation, then all of a sudden something, it's like a drain that has a clog, and all of a sudden it goes, oh.

Jason Shelfer 7:44

Yeah, well, we set a new goal.

Jana Shelfer 7:46

You get new energy that starts flowing through you. For me, it's cleaning, it is cleaning the house, it is getting organized. I want things spick and span. I want to know where everything is. I want it labeled, I want it put away. So for me, it's cleaning.

Jason Shelfer 8:06

A lot of that still starts with setting a new goal. Like, because it's like we're gonna set, we're gonna set a new goal, and what and all that starts with clarity, cleanliness, and getting organized to attack that goal. Yes. So, and that's and all that is rearranging the energy that's currently available. It's just we're not finding that energy because of that energetic block.

Jana Shelfer 8:28

Yes, and this happened to me yesterday. So all week I've been feeling this oh, it's time to make the donuts. Then I just got this burst of you know what? I have laundry that needs to be folded and sheets that need to be put away, and beds that still need to be taken down, taken down, put away, and we just started getting into this mode, and again, that became contagious to both of us.

Jason Shelfer 8:56

So the energy was there, it was all around us. We just needed to get rid of the block that was in front of us and jump over that small hurdle.

Jana Shelfer 9:05

It felt like a toilet that had been like closed.

Jason Shelfer 9:09

Flush the crap.

Jana Shelfer 9:10

And all of a sudden it went and that's the energy that was running through my body and yours too, and our house. It just felt like it cleared.

Jason Shelfer 9:23

Open the doors, let some fresh air in, turn on some music, get some new energy going, yes, and and allow some freshness in.

Small Actions That Break The Loop

Jana Shelfer 9:31

Yes. So I guess what I'm saying is the awareness of knowing that you're in this, I don't want to call it a funk, but it is kind of a staleness that happens, and then to combat it, start taking action, even just a little action anywhere at any in any area of your life, whether it's mentally, physically, emotionally, or physiologically, spiritually, just start taking a little action, and you'll be surprised at how that's that spring starts to come into your stuff.

Jason Shelfer 10:08

Yes, objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest.

Jana Shelfer 10:13

Interrupt the pattern. That's what we need to do.

Jason Shelfer 10:17

Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 1 10:19

Keep Living Lucky®. Bye bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.