If You Are Feeling Listless There May Be A Surprising Cure.

"Listless," is defined online as, "an adjective describing a person who is lacking energy or enthusiasm." Another definition adds, "...unwilling to do anything requiring effort."

We understand that, don't we? I really dislike that sense of listlessness, and I relish every opportunity to banish it to the waste-basket!

I'm making this up based on an 'Aha!' moment this morning... but it has a ring of truth about it and I'm willing to give it a go. Furthermore, I know that some of you will have already put to the test what I'm about to suggest...

What grabbed my imagination this morning was the structure of the word, "Listless." I suddenly saw it as, "List-less," or, "to be without a list." Silly, perhaps, but is there gold in that thought?

How many of us find solace in a realistic (there's another 'list') list? I know from way back that psychologists suggest a sense of well-being flows from three factors: overview, structure, and control. Without these, we can lose our sense of well-being.

A well-formed and realistically achievable list (I'm being careful here) can lead to all three. It can give us a sense of overview, as in clearly capturing everything we want to do that day. It can give us a sense of structure, as in what order and priority to do these things in. And it can give us a sense of control as we break the 'improbable' up into manageable bite-sized tasks. As we tick each bite-sized task off the list, we will get not only a sense of satisfaction and well-being, but also an awareness of increased energy – the opposite of listlessness.

This, then, is a call to all our members who live by lists. What benefits do you experience from living by lists? What suggestions would you give for creating a realistically achievable list?

Here's to the day where we can tick off everything on our list, then scrunch it up and consign it to the waste-basket along with any sense of listlessness!

Lex

A Moodscope member.