The Antidote to Languishing: Mastery, Mindfulness and Mattering

After October 7th, many of us felt fear, grief and shock. Over the months that followed, many of us felt helpless, frustrated and betrayed. When people asked how we were, we often didn’t know what to say.

As the Hebrew month of Elul now draws closer and a new Jewish year is on the horizon, many of us feel like we are simply languishing. As Wharton professor and organizational psychologist Adam Grant explained during the pandemic:

It wasn’t burnout – we still had energy. It wasn’t depression – we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing. Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.

Grant described languishing as the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing – the absence of well-being. Many of us are feeling that now as the uncertainty and the pain of the war continues.

Part of the danger when you are languishing is that you might not even notice it at first. You don’t see the gradual isolation that seems easier than reaching out. As Grant so poignantly explains: You’re indifferent to your indifference.

Through his research, Grant has found that the most powerful antidote to languishing is creating more moments of flow in your life. What is flow? Grant writes, “Flow is that elusive state of absorption in a meaningful challenge or a momentary bond, where your sense of time, place and self melts away.”

There are three things you can work on to create more flow and inspiration in your life as the month of Elul approaches. They are the 3 Ms: mastery, mindfulness and mattering.

Mastery: Set a small goal for yourself each day.

Languishing is stagnation; you need to create momentum to jumpstart flow. Begin with a manageable challenge that matters to you. Set a daily goal difficult enough that it stretches your skills and motivates you but keep it small enough that you can measure it and see your progress each day.

The Midrash on Song of Songs (5:2) says: “Open up for me an opening like the eye of a needle and in turn I will enlarge it to be an opening through which wagons can enter.” You don’t need to make big changes in order to make your life better each day. Creating and working towards a small goal for growth each day is all you need to do to open the door to mastery and growth.

Mindfulness: Focus your full attention on a single task.

Grant writes: “Fragmented attention is an enemy of engagement and excellence. There's evidence that on average, people are checking emails 74 times a day, switching tasks every 10 minutes, and that creates what's been called time confetti, where we take what could be meaningful moments of our lives and we shred them into increasingly tiny, useless pieces.”

#If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?

In order to access flow and growth in your life, you need to set boundaries around your time and attention. As the month Elul approaches, a traditional time for introspection and personal growth, you need time to pause, reflect and focus on the person you want to be in the coming year. As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov wrote: “If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?”

The more distracted you are, the more aimless you feel. And the more fragmented your attention is today, the harder it is for you to create a better tomorrow. Create boundaries for yourself so that you can focus on one meaningful task at a time. When you are languishing, you don’t know where you want to go. When you are mindful and in flow, you can envision a path forward.

Mattering: Know that you make a difference to other people.

Grant writes: “Progress without purpose is empty. Achievement without impact is fleeting. Success is most rewarding when it serves the people and principles that matter to you.”

It’s easy to forget how much of a difference we make in each other’s lives. Sometimes it is just the smile that you give to the bus driver or the grocery cashier. Or the kind word to your spouse. The encouragement you give to your child. The support and hug you offer to a friend.

When you are languishing, you feel like you don’t matter in the lives of others. Start seeing how much you are needed and how much you need others too.

An acronym for the Hebrew word Elul comes from the Song of Songs where it is written: “I am to my Beloved and my Beloved is to me.” In Hebrew, the first letter of each word spells Elul. Elul is a special time set aside in the year for coming closer to those we love and to God.

If you have felt like you are languishing lately, you are not alone. Many of us have felt a general absence of well-being and clarity in our lives this past year. But as the month of Elul approaches, you can make a small opening in your heart and God will help you find a way through.

Languishing follows in the wake of our grieving and our broken hearts. Instead of building walls of indifference around our pain, we can also open up our hearts in their brokenness.