I Lost My Spark

I’ve been hinting at this for weeks, and this week, I’m finally sharing my story of losing my spark and what it took to reignite it.

​​ As you’re reading this, ask yourself,

• “Where is this true in my life?” 
• “Where have I or am I or will I feel this way?” 
• “Who in my life feels this way?” ​

Because I'll tell you, the strongest people in your life, the ones who outwardly are doing really well, who are super confident, successful, driven, connected and have lots going on (have a really full life) could be the ones struggling, are depressed, the ones who have lost their spark.

This story, I’d say, is the first major time because anytime I’ve lost my spark since, I’ve been able to catch it. I've been able to know what it is. I'll explain a little bit why I didn't know I had lost my spark and the reasons why I didn't want to acknowledge it.

How I lost my spark

I'm now 45, and this was when I was about 28 years old. For years, I was in a constant cycle of checking boxes. I got the job I wanted, the home, the life, and success in all these different areas. On paper, everything looked great, so I had a good job, and I was engaged to be married, and we were planning on buying a home, and I was staying fit, had friends, and a loving family, and I was ticking off all the success boxes, but deep down, I felt empty.

I was showing up every day. I was doing what was expected, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. I'd worked so hard to build this really successful life, a life that was supposed to feel fulfilling. I was doing everything right, but instead of feeling accomplished, I felt drained. I felt disconnected. I was really depressed, and I thought this is just maybe what life was to be like, "Oh, this is just how it is." Maybe there are not as many daily exciting things, or I'm not traveling, or whatever it was, but at the core of it, I felt unfulfilled and exhausted.

I was hiding my true feelings just about how crummy I felt, and I was juggling everything. It's not that I necessarily was overworked or overwhelmed, but I was juggling everything, keeping up appearances. But inside, I felt like I was fading. It was like my spark had disappeared. I didn't know how to explain it. But no matter what I achieved, I couldn't bring it back.

When I was little, I did well in school. I was the president of the clubs, the captain of sports teams. I knew a lot of people. I wasn't necessarily friends with everyone, but I knew a lot of people, and I knew how to perform at a high level. I knew how to be driven, how to achieve, how to get things done. ​

I was independent, self-reliable, all these great qualities, which I'm sure a lot of other successful women who feel this way have also been in that situation, but I couldn't bring the good feelings back. No matter what I tried, I couldn't bring back that spark. I was pouring all of my energy into things that truly didn't fulfill me. I didn't know at the time. 

What would I do? I would work harder. I would try to be everything to everyone. I was numbing that emptiness, that void that I just couldn't fill. I was numbing it with distractions, things like wine, snacks. I kept thinking, 

• "Okay, maybe if I just accomplish one more thing.” 
• “Maybe if I just got one more promotion.”
• “Maybe now it's time to get married, get the house, and then I'm going to feel great." ​

I thought the happiness “would come when”, and the problem with "would come when" is that the goalposts just kept moving. I’d say, “I got there,” and then I would feel empty and would set my focus on the next goal, "Okay, well, now it's when I achieve that, or when I get this."

I actually thought I could figure it out on my own. I was doing all the things and keeping up appearances, as I said, but it wasn't until my friend pulled me aside at work and said, "Diane, you've lost your spark." I was like, "What?" ​

"Yeah, you've lost your spark." I said to her, "You can see that?" She said, "Yeah, what's going on with you?" Then I started bawling because I was like, "Ah, the cat's out of the bag. I'm not hiding it as well as I thought."

But I felt wrong for being unhappy, like I was super ungrateful for the life that I had at that time, for all the things I had succeeded at. I thought, "How dare I say that I'm not happy? How dare I say that I'm struggling with all the success I had?" 

Some of you might think, "Oh, first world problems, Diane.” But when we have our basic needs met, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and then we have even our wants met, none of it matters if, at the core, we are feeling off.

From her pointing this out, realizing at that point that I couldn't do it all on my own, I decided to do something completely out of my comfort zone. I hired a coach. Now, when you think, 

• “Well, if Diane, you did well in school, you probably looked to teachers for help.” 
• “If you were president of clubs, you probably had some mentor or someone.” 
• “If you were in sports teams, especially highly competitive sports teams, you have a high level coach, and then all the people that support the team.”

But the thing was, I wasn't good at being vulnerable because I was always in these leadership positions. It's true. It's lonely at the top because I didn't feel like I had people that I could open up to and confide in and speak my truth about how I was really feeling.

It was super strange at first sharing with my life coach, and I was in my pragmatic, analytical brain focusing on solutions, "Okay, so we're going to do this and this and this and this." I thought it was all about goal setting and such, but it wasn't. I wasn't used to being vulnerable like that. I wasn't used to admitting that I needed help, beyond the help that everyone would need. But inside, something told me that this was what I needed, and that decision changed everything.

How coaching helped me

Working with my coach gave me a perspective that I could not see for myself. It was like someone held up the mirror to my face and said, "This is exactly what's holding you back, and here's how we're going to move forward." That's what you need in these times when you've lost your spark where you're like, "Where am I? Who am I? What do I like anymore?" That's the time when I started reconnecting with the person I used to be.

That vibrant, passionate version of me that I thought I'd lost because I looked back and said, "Wow, who is that person that did that? Who is that person that just said, 'Oh, I'm going to go live and work in Japan, and I'm going to go travel here. I'm going to jump out of a plane.'” Who is that wild, carefree, life-loving person? I understand that every day is not travel and moving to another country and jumping out of a plane. But I didn't want to feel stuck anymore, and so coaching helped me to stop feeling bad.

For the first time in a long time I actually felt alive again because it seemed to go over probably a couple of years. I've had this happen to me, a bunch of times throughout my career, where I've had these moments of like, "Where did my spark go?" I start to feel like it's Groundhog Day and so disconnected.

From that, I've been able to create a life that feels aligned with who I really am, not just what looks good on paper. I've learned how to prioritize myself, set boundaries and focus on what truly brings joy to my life. 

If you're like, "Oh, I know those things. I know about setting boundaries, prioritizing myself and focusing on what brings me joy," but you're not implementing them - that's the thing. I knew a lot of things, as do you, but they’re no good, if you're not implementing them. 

There were a lot of things I didn't know. I didn't know about balancing your life in all 10 areas. I didn't know about measuring your life according to satisfaction. I didn't know about living more in alignment with my values, not my morals, but my values, the things that energetically are powerful for me and have resonance.

Now, because of those things, my relationships are deeper, my energy is brighter, and I finally feel like I'm living more authentically. Then if you're like, "Well, but Diane, if you realized all of this at that point, then how do you keep losing your spark?" Well, what I see is there's a progression to who we are and what we do and how we develop. My goal is to be 1% better than the day before. When you keep moving up in your success levels, it's like new level, new devil. There are new challenges and new negatives and new feelings of pressure and responsibility and new titles you have to live up to, and new rules where you have to be not only the super woman, but the superhero where you do well in every area, plus you need to save everyone in every area that you're doing well.

As you move up, there are new pressures, so you develop differently, and then you fill your time with different things. There are times when I've needed to reset, or there have been times, like after both kids, I had postpartum depression. During COVID, my father died. My whole business model changed from live events to online. After building my online business, my Facebook account was deactivated, so I lost all my Facebook ads, everything I was doing there, every picture I'd ever taken and posted on Facebook. My kids were at home during COVID, and I had long COVID. One of the times, I coughed for eight months straight. That's another period of time where I lost my spark. ​

Another time is when I filled my calendar with more analytical things, things around strategy and figuring things out. My coach called me out and said, "Diane, you are in the work boots, and you need to be back into the sparkly shoes." That rings true for our lives. It's about getting back into the joy and out of the dissonance, the things that are creating friction and sucking your energy.

People have commented at different points in my life. Yes, my friend commented, "You've lost your spark," or "Something's off," or "Are you okay?" Then later they'll comment, "Wow, you have this special glow, this new energy about you. You seem to be doing exceptionally well." These sort of comments will come. Some of those comments still came when I had the mask on and was pretending everything was good. But when I've been able to flip it, there has been a glow. I'm in one of those glowy times right now. I am. Because I feel alive. I feel confident. I feel light again, like I'm not carrying the weight of the world anymore.

In the no spark times, I felt like I was just surviving, like "I just had to get through the next day, and then I had to do it all over again." You've heard this before, go from surviving to thriving, but I did it in a way that feels true to me. I think that's most important. I see now that the spark actually was never fully gone. That's why I'm doing the ReIGNITE program because the spark is still in there. It's gone from a blaze to this tiny, little ember, and it's just buried under things like expectations, responsibilities, distractions, titles, lack of space, and overwhelm.

What I needed wasn't more achievement or more things or more tasks or more material items, but I needed more alignment with what truly mattered to me, every single time. What got me here to where I am today, after each of these times, and what got me out of each of these sparks was just deciding that I was totally done with feeling empty and burnt out, that I made the decision to invest in myself by hiring a coach and take the steps to ReIGNITE that spark and rediscover the joy I had lost and the joy in the new version of me. 

The joy of a 25-year-old Diane to a 45-year-old Diane is very different. Before it was things like jumping out of a plane, bungee jumping, canyon swings, water rafting. These wild things. Now for me, it's different. It's African drumming, it's stand-up comedy, it's glassblowing, massages, time with friends, church. Totally different.

What worked for me

It’s really recognizing that something needs to change. Awareness is the first step, and I had to admit to myself that the way I was living wasn't working. Then I needed to reclaim my identity, not from this identity of what others put on me, or society put on me, or that I have just sort of ended up in, and I started focusing on who I really was and allowing that to come out.

I am a little bit feisty. I am a little bit edgy, but often when I can get into these places, I'm playing the perfectionist. I'm playing the goody-goody. I'm playing the person who doesn't make mistakes, and not because I'm hiding my mistakes, but because of the pressure. I get to not focus on these roles but instead focus on me and not just check the boxes. It's important that I really continue to make prioritizing myself so crucial.

I learned how to say no, to set boundaries, to make space for things that bring me joy and energy, not just space for things that I've been requested to do, and it's so important for me to connect deeply with others. Just yesterday, I had what was to be an hour or two with one of my VA clients, and it ended up being like four hours of us connecting deeply. But that means that I need to always remember, don't hide behind that polished facade. I had to start building authentic, supportive relationships by being vulnerable.

As I let go of perfectionism, I had to stop trying to do it all and instead focus on what truly aligned with my values and my desires. Also, stop measuring life according to success and instead focus on what brought me more satisfaction, which sometimes then doesn't bring accolades.

If you’re reading this and feel like this is true for you, then let's talk. Because I believe you can do this, too. You can come out of that place where you've had a lack of spark.

A short story about my client

I should share a little story with you about one of my clients, who I'm going to call Jane. She really felt like she had lost herself, and she wanted to get her vibrant self back again. She came to me, super confused because, like me, she had a great partner, she was raising her kids, she was building a business, and yet she felt like something was missing. She said, "I don't know what it is," so similar situation to me, and she felt like something was off, like she lost herself in all the titles that she had, and she didn't feel anything lit her up anymore. Like, "What makes me happy? I have no idea."

Basically, she was living in black and white, and she also seemed very flat. There was a heaviness, flatness to her. She definitely had lost her spark, but thankfully, through some coaching, we were able to uncover her spark again. We were able to get her back to her best self, not just herself, but to her best self, in under six weeks.

This is why I created ReIGNITE, by the way, doors closed last Friday, depending on when you're reading this. Doors are closed. However, if you email me [email protected], I could open a spot for you, depending on where you're at. Share with me what’s going on for you. That's how I started with my coach. I poured my heart and soul into an email to her, and she was like, "I'm taking you on for sure."

Anyway, let's go back to Jane. She was so much happier after, and it made her marriage improve. She showed up as a more engaged parent. She was more confident, so her business did better. The best part of all of that is when she said, "Diane, I feel like I'm living in colour again," and that's how it feels when you lose your spark. You're in black and white, and when it comes back, you're in colour.

Wrapping Up

That spark is there, right? It's still waiting for you to uncover it. If you have a friend in this situation, send them this blog for sure, and they can reach out to me as well. The key thing is to shift from that feeling of being unfulfilled or burnt out to a feeling of being alive and aligned. That's how you're going to have more success in life. You don't have to become someone new. You don't have to change everything about your life. You just really need to reconnect with who you are, and take the steps to bring your spark back.

I know it's possible. I did it with the help of a coach, once, twice, three, four times over the years. It's a lot of years. 20 years that I have been losing my spark and then getting it back, and I continue to increase my success along the way.

Share this blog with a friend who you think, "Yeah, maybe, she has lost her spark, and she needs to hear your message." If this resonates with you, reach out [email protected], no matter when you read this, I don't want you living in black and white anymore. 

Until next time, get your spark back and stay dynamic. 

Read my other blogs:

1. Building My VA Business: What to Delegate and Why it Matters for Success
2. Why Every Year Feels the Same and How to Break the Cycle
3. “What Tasks Can a Virtual Assistant Handle for Me?”