We’ve all had those moments. The moments when you wake up realizing that you’d rather just stay in bed then get up and get started on the to-do list. When the weekend just wasn’t long enough. When you have to pick yourself up and remind yourself that the reason behind that to-do list used to set your world aflame.

So what do you do when you feel like your fire is so low that the slightest whisper of a word could blow it out? 

You start the fire again. You come home into yourself and your reason for being in that place.

If the job isn’t your dream, but it’s allowing you to live comfortably to save for the future of your family, think of them as you dive in harder than ever before.

If the job started out as your dream, but you’ve come to a place so removed from that initial involvement that it seems worlds away, find a way to reclaim a piece of that past role each day.

If the job has become bigger than yourself and bigger than your family, fulfill your current promises, including the one to set — and KEEP — better boundaries moving forward.

If you need to rebuild that fire, find people who can help you. Go to the blogs of people who inspire you. Call the friend who knows you better than you know yourself. Look into the eyes of your children and pull that sense of wonder, that overwhelming trust and that joy from them. Look back at photos from the beginning – when you could do nothing but eat, sleep and breathe that job, that dream, that mission. Find one that pulls your heart back into that place of fire – then frame it. Put it on your desk at work. Put it on your dresser. Put it on your nightstand. Put that photo where you will see it each day, and vow to not let it become just another piece of decor, but an everlasting spark.

You know I have a deep rooted love of photos and the stories they tell, the power they hold. So of course I think a photo is a great way to keep the flames high and the embers white hot. But you need to find what works for you – a song, a quote, whatever you need. Find it, and hold it dear to you and know that you have it on your side when you feel like you need to re-ignite that fire.