In today’s article you’re going to learn everything you need to know about how to deal with lack of motivation in life.
Let’s face it, some of us are just plain unmotivated to do things we do not really have to; and procrastinate over some of the things we should, or need to do.
It frustrates us when we hear someone say the L-word (Lazy) because that isn’t the case at all. We put in 8-10 hours of work each day, some of us go to school and quite a few of us do both.
What some of us struggle with is lack of motivation.
We want to get things done around the house, mow the lawn, plant a flower garden or start trying to exercise more regularly, however, as bad as we want to get up and get started, we just cannot seem to find the extra boost of energy needed to begin.
We keep hoping that “maybe tomorrow” or “maybe Saturday” we will wake up with the motivation to cross off a few items off the “to do list” on the refrigerator door.
Every year, just after Christmas, we seemed so determined to make New Year’s resolutions, such as losing weight, exercising, quit smoking or begin a college course after work or online.
A lot of us actually get started like we are on fire.
Go to the gym, start eating healthier, quit smoking or go as far as enrolling in classes, buying supplies and so on; then after a month, few weeks or even a couple of days, our motivation and willpower gets lost, and soon we are falling back into our typical routine.
We even feel guilty and ashamed of quitting so easily.
So where did the determination, motivation and willpower run off to? When we make out a “to do list” or even start thinking about New Year’s resolutions, most of the time we are excited, energized and vibrant right?
Few people sit in bed, depressed or sluggish feeling, and start making out lists of all the things we should be doing that requires us to muster up more energy that it is taking for them to hold their head up and write a list.
In the case of those New Year’s resolutions, most everyone begins experiencing a little boost in motivation around the holidays. Christmas has a tendency to excite us just as it did when we were kids.
The lights, decorations, vacation days from work, gift getting and giving.
Just the overall spirit and joy of Christmas, boosts our motivation.
Slowly after January and February, the reality of routines start creeping back in, drowning out the vibrant feelings and motivation just cannot seem to stay afloat.
How To Deal With Lack Of Motivation In Life:
How can we bottle the motivation we feel when our environment is so energized with excitement and the joy of life, and use it later when our normal lifestyle begins to zap all the energy from within us?
Change Your Lifestyle!
Indeed, you hear this all the time.
“Change this,” “do that,” and yet it seems as though they forget they’re talking to a person without the motivation to put the cap back on the toothpaste!
How can you find the motivation to make all these drastic changes in your entire lifestyle and environment, when it is difficult for you to choose a glass of water over a high calorie soda?
Well, it might be hard to imagine now, but if you start making subtle changes in lifestyle, environment, and people in your life, you will begin to notice little changes in your attitude as well.
Although your overall goal is to make a complete overhaul on your lifestyle, you might not have the motivation to put forth the effort to do it all at once.
Think of it like remodeling a house.
In your mind you can imagine how it will look when all the work has been completed. Yet, due to the enormous amount of time, energy and money it takes to get to that point of absolute completion, you might have to settle with a new roof, or new carpet first.
Although not even 15% complete yet, the improvements will have an immediate impact on how the house looks, as well as provide you with a sense of being proud of your accomplishment and enjoyment of what you do have done.
Same thing happens when you begin making just slight changes in your lifestyle and environment.
You do not have to do it all at once.
Just make a decision to change one thing at a time, beginning with the one that might require the most immediate attention.
Like a house needing a complete remodel; if you have to do a little at a time, fix the leaking roof, or busted plumbing first, for they are in need of immediate repair and if ignored, will create much more work for you later.
So what is your immediate lifestyle repair needs?
If you are in need of motivation, imagine your lifestyle and environment like a rent payment or utility bill; if you had rather stay in bed and not work to ensure the money is there to pay it, or choose to spend the money on new shoes or a stereo system for your car, then you will either be tossed out in the streets or sitting in the dark in a few weeks.
SEE ALSO: Why Do People Worry: [7 Reasons], and How To Overcome Worry
Attack Things That Steal Your Motivation:
If you want to truly improve your life and have the natural motivation you see other people enjoy, you really have little choice; but to start making some type of changes.
Start attacking the things that zap your motivation.
1. Overweight:
Gaining weight will demotivate anyone.
Even a few pounds can create complications with your being motivated to do things that can easily be put off.
It effects your body’s natural metabolism rate, blood flow and lung functioning.
Weight gain also turns muscle to fat, which prevents you from having the natural strength to do the things you want to do without feeling tired and weak almost immediately.
Since walking doesn’t require too much energy all at once, try to start walking more.
When given a choice between elevator and stairs; take the stairs.
Yes, you might be slightly tired the first few times but you will begin to notice less and less exhaustion from your efforts, and possibly within a week or so, you’ll feel the difference in your energy levels.
2. Negativity:
Sometimes our worse enemy in overcoming lack of motivation is ourselves.
As soon as we attempt something and it either begins to get complicated, or tiring, because we became so use to quitting, it became acceptable behavior to us, and to those around us who have also grown use to our quitting.
Because we cannot seem to hold ourselves accountable, others will not either.
Eventually, failure and quitting becomes so natural a defense mechanism to avoid putting out energy we just cannot seem to find in ourselves, it begins to be easier (and more acceptable) to just quit, or never even try.
Before long, we hardly ever fail to fail.
It is extremely difficult to change how we think (1).
Every now and then we need an outside motivational influence to force change and take our minds off all the things we cannot (or think we cannot) do.
At times it can be something extremely important or life altering that forces the determination upon us.
For instance, there are individuals that try to quit smoking every year, or multiple times without success.
Then, after becoming ill with a medical complication, they go to their doctor.
If the illness is believed to be the result of their smoking and the doctor fears it might be cancer, their will to live can suddenly override 45 years of negativity toward their quitting smoking; and they can almost immediately lose all desire for another cigarette.
Few things can flip that negative thinking switch inside our minds and motivate us to overcome the impossible quite like survival, fear, someone we love, hate and anger.
There are those that might try to push our buttons to motivate us, yet it has an opposite effect due to our either not respecting that person’s opinion, or the fact we know what their intention is and do just the opposite out of spite.
Then there are times, such as being told you might have a terminal illness that shocks or enacts such strong emotions within us that we simply cannot think of anything but our determination to focus or change.
A good example of this could be the events that took place at Ponte Verda Beach, Florida between golf superstars Sergio Garcia and Tiger Woods at the May 9th-12th, 2013 Player’s Championship.
We all know the struggles that have seemed to diminish the mental toughness and confident swagger of golf’s iconic Tiger Woods.
Once an almost unbeatable force to reckon with, as well as breaking and setting golf records along the way, Woods had personal issues that appeared to have defeated him mentally and wrecked his golfing abilities and seemed to bring him back down to (or below) the skill level of his fellow golfers.
However, Sergio Garcia made public comments in regards to Woods’ misfortunes and lack of prowess on the golf course prior to the opening round of the Player’s Championship.
Having already been noted that the two had been feuding, all eyes were on the pair throughout the 4 round event to see how Tiger would respond, and in hopes of a Woods –vs- Garcia final round battle Sunday.
The media got all they could have hoped for.
Tiger Woods responded, not by folding under pressure as he had over the last several years since his marital problems but by igniting an electrifying performance that was reminiscent of Tiger’s status as an icon of golf.
As Tiger was extending his lead over Garcia to -2 strokes, Garcia buckled under the pressure to catch Woods, and not once, not twice but three times sent his shot off the mark and into the water hazard.
Motivation can be found in many different ways, if you can focus on your determination to overcome the odds, rather than how easy it is to quit, when everyone around you expects you to fail.
Find ways to use other’s opinions to fuel your motivation.
Make everyone aware of the changes you are about to make in your life.
Hold yourself accountable for following through with these changes, by telling yourself that you will no longer allow those around you to expect so little from you.
In fact, make it a point to surround yourself with those who expect more from you.
Not letting them down, or allowing them to see you fail, will immediately create a shift in your motivational routine.
You can increase your motivation, at times, by forcing yourself to fight your way out of a corner.
SEE ALSO: How To Keep Someone Interested In a Conversation: (In-Depth Guide)
Setting Obtainable Goals:
The one thing that can drain you of motivation, determination, willpower and hope, is making that “to do list,” New Year’s resolution, or setting goals with too high of expectations.
An example of this can be found in those trying to lose weight.
Say you decide to make a New Year’s resolution to lose 35lbs in the upcoming year.
The desire and determination is so strong that you can already imagine how you will look 35lbs lighter, wearing slimmer clothing, attracting praise and congratulations everywhere you go.
You buy a home gym, or pay for a 90 day gym membership, and are so excited to finally be getting somewhere that you cannot explain why you didn’t decide to do this years ago!
Then, after coming home from the gym (half dead and on the verge of collapse) the first week or so, you crawl to the bathroom to check your weight on the new $133.72 set of digital, voice activated, Bluetooth capable scales that walk out of the closet, use the latest ‘laser body mass index scanning technology’ to scan, calculate, then send your weight via text message to your smartphone, then walk themselves back into your closet, where they double as a home security system.
“Total weight lost so far: 0.05lbs.” “A freaking ½ pound?”
The motivation, willpower and determination is sucked right out of you as fast as those ‘Super Spinach and Artichoke” shakes you have been drinking 3 times a day (in place of solid foods) for the last two weeks.
The next day, your mother comes over to see why you haven’t answered her text, to find you curled up under a blanket in bed; a blender, frozen spinach and artichokes covering the walls, your cell phone implanted into the wall, and “Weight Ray” (the walking, talking, digital robot scales) smoldering beside what looks like an improvised “Salem witch burning” pole, made from the other half of the broken broom stick used to smash all the mirrors in your home. In the way that only mom could comfort you, she says “See?
I told you that you were just wasting your money, like you do every dang New Year’s!”
Where did you go wrong?
No, you didn’t go wrong in wanting to lose weight. Nor did you go wrong thinking you could lose weight.
You didn’t even go wrong buy spending money on gym and the walking robot scales. You went wrong intending on losing 35lbs and expecting to see significant loss in first week or so.
Setting goals is fine.
Wanting to lose 35lbs is awesome! But you have got to make little ‘milestones’ of achievement along the way. Whether it is smoking, eating healthy, losing 35lbs or cleaning house.
If you let your house go and it becomes an out of hand mess, you might not overcome the overwhelming task of having to clean it all back up.
You can quickly lose motivation and become depressed.
So instead of thinking you have to clean the living room, dining room, kitchen and bedrooms.
Just tackle one room at time.
Make your milestone simply the living room first, cut down to one cigarette an hour or look to lose only 3-6 lbs through January.
Don’t set goals that are too far out of reach, or beyond your ability to meet.
Keep winning the little wars, one at a time, and you are sure to win the war.
Like football players who see themselves fighting through 104 degree heat for 4 quarters/60 minutes will struggle, while those whose coach has them winning one quarter/15 minutes at a time, rarely lose.
Same holds true with your motivation.
You cannot lay on the couch and think of how miserable it will be spending all day mowing the lawn.
Jump off that couch thinking you are going to get the front yard finished before 9am, the back and sides by 12.
You just now planned on mowing the entire yard by lunch, you just made achievable milestones (2) rather than an overwhelming goal.
Thank you for reading this article about how to deal with lack of motivation in life and I really hope that you take action my advice.
I wish you good luck and I hope its contents have been a good help to you.
