At some point in life, you realise the person you miss most is actually you.
You are not comparing yourself to someone else, but you are comparing yourself to a previous version of yourself. And it’s a different kind of sadness and also guilt in it.
You remember a time when you were cheerful, fun, vibrant, passionate about something, excited about life, and ready to take on the world.
And then, somewhere along the way, something changed.
I know that feeling because I felt like this for a long time.
It felt like I was losing myself quite literally and slowly forgetting who I was.
Where did my passion go? My discipline? My focus? My excitement? Why did I stop caring about things I once cared so much about?
I would think about these things, and they made me both scared and sad.
It made me feel stuck in a loop. And stuck I was.
Maybe you feel the same way.
You hardly care anymore. You remain mostly unbothered. You think:
“Why does it even matter?”
“What difference does it even make?”
And now you feel mostly dull and not particularly excited about anything.
The days keep passing by without you doing much, and somewhere in the back of your mind, it scares you that you are wasting your life instead of actually living it.
I want to tell you something:
It happens. Life happens, and occasionally, we lose our spark.
But you can always light it back.
You can get your spark back.
But you have to promise yourself that you’ll put in the effort.
Getting your spark back isn’t about completely changing your life or becoming a different person.
It is about slowly returning to yourself, taking care of yourself, finding pleasure in little things again, and remembering that this life is meant to be enjoyed.
Here are some things that have helped me get my spark back.
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1. Sweat every day
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I used to be someone who enjoyed working out, but skipping for one day turned into two, and then two turned into a week, and then I lost track of when I last exercised.
Slowly, as I stopped working out, I became less and less motivated to do other things for myself as well.
Yes, it’s a spiral.
Now it’s been almost three months of returning to exercise again, and it has made me feel so much better.
So I want to ask you: how long has it been since you neglected your body? Since you last did a proper workout or went for a good walk?
I always say that exercise is self-love in action. It is a verb for self-love and self-care.
If you want to get your spark back, this is the first thing I have to say: Workout. Move your body. Exercise every day, even if it’s only stretching.
Exercise is often the starting point of giving your attention back to yourself. It is how you reclaim yourself.
Exercise not to lose weight or gain weight, not for any particular motive, but simply because you love yourself and want to pay attention to your body.
When you stop treating exercise as something you have to do and start seeing it as something you do because you love yourself, it becomes much easier to make it consistent.
That is how I made myself love working out too.
Take a walk, do yoga, do Pilates (I love Move with Nicole; her pace really matches my style), Zumba, dance in your room, go to the gym.
Do whatever makes you feel connected to yourself again. The most important thing is to move your body and get it shaking.
2. Pay attention to how you look
When we lose interest in life, we can become really bad at taking care of ourselves.
We stop dressing up nicely. We stop doing our hair. We stop caring about our appearance.
We don’t even care if anybody sees us looking like a homeless person.
But you only get one life, and if you don’t take care of yourself, then who will?
This isn’t about impressing other people or making yourself look a certain way for someone else, but about how you feel seen by You.
When you don’t take care of your clothes, your hair, your skin, or your appearance, how do you feel? I bet you don’t feel particularly wonderful.
So make an effort to start dressing nicely again.
For yourself.
Wear those dresses. Don’t save them for later. Buy the pretty heels. Wear the perfume. Put on the lipstick. Do your hair.
Enjoy your life.
When you dress nice, you feel nice, and when you feel nice, you automatically look beautiful.
3. Get a haircut
Never underestimate the power of a good haircut.
Get a haircut. Colour your hair. Try something a little different.
Sometimes a small change in your appearance can make you feel like something has shifted inside you too.
You don’t need to wait for a major life transformation to feel different.
Sometimes, a fresh haircut is enough to give you that little feeling of something new is beginning.
Enjoy that little change.
4. Have hobbies
What did you enjoy doing that you left along the way?
Don’t worry if it’s been five years, ten years, or even longer since you last touched it.
Recently, I started doing embroidery again—something I realised I enjoyed as a kid during my arts and crafts classes.
I bought one for myself again, and I’m enjoying it just as much now while learning how to embroider properly.
It made me realise how many things we leave behind as we grow older.
Hobbies are how you get your spark back, and I can’t recommend them enough.
You need to do things just for the fun of it.
You need to do things just because.
You need to do unproductive things as well, solely for yourself.
Not everything you do needs to become a skill, a business, a side hustle, or something you can put on your résumé.
Sometimes you can simply make something because it makes you happy.
5. Go Outside
Seriously.
Sometimes when we lose our spark, we also start spending far too much time indoors, in our rooms, on our phones, on our laptops, in our own heads.
And the more time we spend there, the smaller our world begins to feel.
Get outside.
Go for a walk without having to accomplish anything. Sit in a park. Go to a café.
Take yourself out for breakfast. Walk around your neighbourhood. Go somewhere you’ve never been before.
Sit somewhere and watch people go by.
Get some sunlight. We’re actually human plants. We need that sunlight. We need fresh air.
Look at the trees.
Notice the sky.
Feel the air.
You don’t always need to do something.
Sometimes you simply need to leave the four walls of your home and let the world remind you that there is a whole life happening outside your own thoughts.
I think we underestimate how much a change of scenery can do for us.
Sometimes you don’t need a solution.
You just need to get out to get your spark back.
6. Make your home feel nice
Yes, your home too can play a huge role in getting your spark back.
If your home is messy, full of clutter, dull, or damp and joyless, how will you ever feel nice and get your spark back?
Make little changes to your home.
I bet you already have a vision of your dream home.
It’s okay if you can’t buy or build your dream home yet.
You can still make changes to the home you’re living in right now.
Make your room feel nice so that you actually love entering it.
Add plants. Add photo frames. Change the lighting. Put up pictures.
Maybe make a canopy bed or do anything else that makes the space feel more like you.
Turn your home into an abode—a cozy, cute little place that feels like yours, no matter what your age is.
You deserve to live in a home that makes you feel good and instantly lifts your spirits.
When I moved into my rented apartment, these were some of the first changes I made.
I redid my balcony and kept many plants, and I started taking care of plants even though I had absolutely no knowledge about them before.
I redid the walls by putting up wallpaper all by myself one evening, and then slowly started buying things that made my rented apartment feel like a cozy home.
Now, whenever people enter it, they always say that it feels so nice and Pinteresty.
It was years after this that I was finally in a position to redo my old native house in my hometown and turn it into a cute cottage-style home.
You don’t have to wait for your dream house to start creating a home you love.
Start where you are.
7. Don’t be afraid to walk away
From things, habits, situations, and people who drain your energy.
It takes immense courage to break free from things that are no longer good for you, so if you’ve decided to walk away, don’t keep going back.
How can you get your spark back when you’re surrounded by people who constantly dampen your spirit?
How can you feel alive when you’re constantly anxious about what someone said, what you did, what happened, what they might think, or what you should have done differently?
How can you get your spark back when all your energy is spent waiting for that call, message, or thinking about where you stand in someone’s life, so that you have very little energy left for yourself
Walk away from people who cost you your peace.
It’s too expensive.
- P.S. Powerful Self-Love Habits to Change Your Life
- 100 Self-Love Affirmations to Change Your Life
- 10 Signs You’re Healing Even if it feels Like You’re Breaking Apart
8. Stop complaining
Nothing dampens our spirit more than constant complaining.
When you complain all the time, you will always have something to criticise and something negative to say.
And don’t forget, the Universe always makes sure that you always find what you’re looking for!!
For some of us, as we grow older, we start seeing other grown-ups complain and quickly get into the habit ourselves—as if this is simply what grown-ups do.
We look at what’s not working.
We look at what might go wrong.
We look at the problems we are having.
But you have to get rid of this habit as fast as you can.
This doesn’t mean pretending that everything is perfect or ignoring genuine problems. It simply means not making negativity your default way of looking at life.
Start intentionally looking for the good side. Look for what’s working. Notice what is beautiful.
And the moment you catch yourself slipping into unnecessary complaining, stop.
If you want to get your spark back, constantly complaining won’t work.
You have to teach yourself to notice the good again.
9. Create an unhurried morning ritual
Start seeing your mornings as an appointment with yourself.
A well that keeps filling up magically every day.
Give yourself the first 60–90 minutes of your day without scrolling or staying in bed.
Journal for 20 minutes or write two or three pages. Notice how you feel and write it down. Write whatever comes to your mind at that moment. Dump it all out.
There is no right way to do it.
Create a morning ritual that you actually enjoy and can stick to.
Include two or three things in your morning that bring you back to yourself.
For me, it’s journaling, reading, and exercise, and sometimes it is whatever I wish to do.
Slowly, you will find yourself becoming excited to wake up and do these things.
And perhaps that’s one of the simplest ways to enjoy life more.
This life is a big school, and perhaps the main lesson we need to learn is how to enjoy life more.
10. Stop rushing and slow down your pace
Walk slowly.
Talk slowly.
Take your time.
Become a calm, gentle woman.
You don’t have to rush through everything.
Take time when you’re speaking. Take time to learn things.
Take time to eat your food. Take time to get ready. Take time to sit and do nothing.
Perhaps getting your spark back also means learning how to experience your own life again.
Slow down enough to actually notice it.
11. Create something badly
Stop over-consuming.
We spend so much of our time consuming other people’s lives, ideas, opinions, photographs, videos, st,ories and creations that we sometimes forget to create anything ourselves.
Make something badly.
Write badly. Paint badly. Embroider badly. Cook something new.
Take photographs. Make a collage. Draw.
Create something that nobody else ever needs to see.
You don’t need to be good at it. You don’t even need to finish it.
Create simply because you want to.
There is something incredibly freeing about doing something without worrying whether it is good enough.
Your spark doesn’t come from consuming more.
It comes from creating more.
P.S. Creativity affirmations to Enjoy Creating again
12. Give yourself something to look forward to
Give yourself little things to anticipate.
Have something on your calendar that makes you think:
“I can’t wait for that.”
Something like:
Wednesday: café + book
Friday: movie night
Saturday: flowers + skincare
Sunday: long walk + favourite breakfast
Once a month: solo date
Every season: a small trip or new experience
You don’t need a huge life.
You need little pockets of excitement inside your ordinary life.
13. Sleep well
Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of good sleep.
When you’re constantly tired, underslept, everything feels harder, and even a minor thing can become a major trigger.
You have less patience, less energy, less motivation, and less capacity to enjoy anything.
Sometimes getting your spark back doesn’t require another self-improvement project.
Sometimes you simply need to stop scrolling and go to bed earlier.
Give your body the rest it needs.
Your spark needs energy too.
P.s. How to Sleep Well with Anxiety
Your spark isn’t gone
You don’t get your spark back by waiting for motivation to suddenly return.
You get it back by slowly turning your attention towards yourself again.
You move your body.
You dress up.
You make your home beautiful.
You pick up an old hobby.
You protect your peace.
You wake up slowly.
You stop rushing through your days.
You make things just because you enjoy them.
You give yourself little things to look forward to.
And somewhere along the way, you realise that the woman you thought you’d lost was never really gone.
She was simply waiting for you to start paying attention to her again.
Your spark is still there.
Go find her.
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