I used to be a really hard worker. In my early twenties, I worked three jobs at one time, adding up to long twelve-hour days almost seven days a week.

After my first daughter was born, I went back to work and then after my second daughter was born, just two years later, I started a home daycare in order to be able to stay home with my girls.

Everyday, surrounded by toddlers, I would clean the house, bake cookies and make crafts, all while singing “The wheels on the bus” and taking endless trips to the park.  Seriously, I was that Mom.

Fast forward a few years and now, I barely have the energy to get dressed for the day. What the heck happened? While I would love to blame some invisible illness or even old age, I think the truth is more upsetting than I would like to admit.

I have no energy because I have trained myself to have no energy.

Laziness is like a virus, growing and spreading through your body and even through your entire household. The more I laid around watching television, the more tired I became.  Laziness is a vicious cycle.

After my third child was born, I stopped running a home daycare. Instead, I snuggled my baby on the sofa all day and watched endless amounts of Netflix. As he grew, my ambition, sadly, did not. After an entire year of naps and television, I found it hard to motivate myself to do anything else.

Sure, I cleaned the house and made weekly videos for my YouTube channel, but gone were the days of getting up early and seizing the day. Now, it is almost always noon before I even get dressed (if I even do at all). By the time I do muster up some motivation to tackle a project or go for a walk, it is usually right around the time my girls get home from school and my motivation is sidetracked by homework and making dinner.

I used to be a morning person. I used to be super productive. I used to fill my days doing things that made me really happy, like crafts and DIY projects.

Now? I just don’t have it anymore. They say children “suck the life” out of you and maybe they are right. I think, for me, it is more likely that I have allowed that “zest” to fade away because I had no one to hold me accountable. No boss looming over my shoulder, no deadlines to keep my moving, no reason to get dressed everyday.

Starting my engines again is proving more difficult than I thought it would be.   I can only assume though, that just as my ambition slowly faded away, I need to slowly build it back up again. Start small, baby steps. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll get dressed before lunch. No promises. 😉