Why Does Motivation Go? And How Can You Get It Back?
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest post by Ali Hale of Aliventures.com.
You’re right at the start of a new project, or you’ve just set yourself a particular goal. You’re feeling energized and fired up. You get going, and it’s great: you’re in the flow, you’re enjoying yourself, and you’re certain you’re going to succeed.
The problem is, that level of motivation isn’t permanent. Pretty soon, you find that your motivation’s clocked out and gone home. Your project or goal doesn’t seem quite so thrilling any more. In fact, it’s beginning to feel like a bit of a drag.
All too often, this is the point at which people give up. They start smoking again. They ditch the diet. They skip the gym. They abandon their book, two chapters in. They stop blogging.
Which is a shame, because motivation isn’t a one-shot deal. It might feel like it’s gone, but it’s not irrecoverable. You can get it back.
Why Does Motivation Go?
Have you ever woken up in the morning and realized that your initial enthusiasm for your new diet, your meditation routine or your small business has simply … gone?
I think that motivation is a bit like heat energy: it dissipates over time. You boil the kettle and make a coffee – the water’s nice and hot. Boil the kettle and leave it for five hours, though … and it’s going to go cold.
If you took that just-boiled kettle and dunked it in a bathtub of ice, it’d go cold a lot faster. Motivation’s a bit like that too: you can be feeling really keen on something, then a friend or relative scoffs about it, laughs as you, or just doesn’t get it … and wham. Your motivation’s gone.
To get yourself re-motivated, you need to do things to maintain or ramp up the heat.
Get Fired Up Again
We’re all unique. What works to motivate one person won’t necessarily work for you. But these are some general ways of rekindling that motivating fire inside: in each, you’ll need to figure out what tone or style works best for you. (A good place to start might be learning how to motivate yourself.)
It’s not quite as easy as switching a kettle back on … but there are some specific things you can do:
1. Daydream and Visualize
Our motivation can start to ebb fast when we feel that there’s a long hard slog ahead with no end in sight. A great way to turn that around is to focus on what you’re going to get at the end of the journey. Is it:
- A healthy, fit body that you’re proud of?
- A completed book?
- A successful business – which will allow you to quit your day job?
- A degree or qualification?
Imagine how you’ll feel when you’ve accomplished your goal. Think about how you’ll look and stand and walk. Will you have more confidence? Will you be proud of yourself?
2. Read Motivating Materials
When I’m feeling low, discouraged or apathetic, I find that reading something inspiring and encouraging is a great pick-me-up. Find a few blogs, magazines or books which never fail to put a smile on your face, or which make you want to take action towards your goals.
It’s not necessarily the content that matters, but the tone. Reading something that’s written by someone who’s impassioned, enthusiastic and generous will help you to get into that mindset too – even if the actual material isn’t directly related to your project or goal.
Some of the motivating blogs on my list (for their style more than their content) are:
- ProBlogger (Darren Rowse)
- The Simple Dollar (Trent Hamm)
- IttyBiz (Naomi Dunford)
The current books I dip into when I’m feeling demotivated are:
- Career Renegade (Jonathan Fields)
- 4 Hour Workweek (Timothy Ferriss)
- Personal Development for Smart People (Steve Pavlina)
- The Success Principles (Jack Canfield)
Try out some of my recommendations – or ask others for theirs – and figure out a few blogs and books which work for you.
3. Talk to Someone Energizing
Have you ever talked to someone about your big goal or project, and found that they lit up with enthusiasm? Did they eagerly ask you for details, offer their encouragement, or simply convey an infectious sense of enthusiasm?
Just as there are “energy vampires” out there who seem to suck out your motivation, leaving you cold, there are also “energy donors” who get you fired up and ready to go.
Some great sources of these folk are:
- Seminars and conferences in your field
- Clubs or groups of people who share your interest or goal (make sure the feeling is one of enthusiasm and encouragement; some groups are full of people who’re just there to complain…)
- Friends and family who are always supportive of your plans
- Life coaches – it’s their job to keep you motivated, and accountable!
Motivation comes and goes – but you’re the one in control. Just like putting the kettle back on when it’s cooled, you can take action to get your motivation levels up again.
Has your motivation gone cold recently? What’re you going to do to get the temperature back up?
Ali Hale blogs about getting more from life at Aliventures. (Click here to grab the RSS feed.) She’s a freelance writer, a part-time student of creative writing, and – being English – isn’t a big coffee drinker but is very partial to a nice warm mug of tea.
15 Responses to “Why Does Motivation Go? And How Can You Get It Back?”
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I think that we are evolutionary programmed to cool our motivation after few days because when every day your life is threatened with so may dangers as was just before few thousands of years, it was crucial to think of today not about something that will be finished next month.
So we must renew our motivation every few day.
Great thought there! Yes, we do seem good at reacting to immediate things (like sabre-tooth tigers) — we have to work harder to maintain motivation on the long-term stuff.
Great article Ali. I definitely needed this. All week my energy was amped-up, then suddenly Thursday evening hit and wham! …this sucks. All are excellent tips, currently I’m reading ‘Four-Hour Work Week’ (again) as it does wonders towards motivation.
Another suggestion for motivation is watching an inspiring film filled with the things you want in life (world travel, nice cars, relationships, etc.). Jason Bourne, Indiana Jones, and James Bond films usually get me off my behind.
Keep up the great content, stay encouraged.
Yes, I find 4HWW a great one to dip into for a quick motivational boost! I’d not thought of trying films – I’m more a words person than an audiovisual one – but I can definitely see how that might work.
The point on “Speaking with Energizing People” made me remember the part in 4HWW where Tim shared about his friend and him constantly reminding each other if they are on-track to their goal — which motivates each other to focus again (found in the section called “Fat Man in Red BWM”).
I too have a friend who would never fail to show up on my IM and prod something similar, keeping each other motivated again and keeping us focused on our targets!
Great post here Ali!
Thanks – and thanks for sharing about you & your friend: I think the combination of encouragement and accountability makes for a great motivational jump-start!
Thanks for yet another remarkable guest article, Eric!
I do agree that motivation lasts for a short time unless you make an effort to keep it going. One of my basic ways to get motivated that I apply is to simply think of the good reasons to do what you have to. No matter if it will same me some time the next day or impact my future, the “reasons way” always works for me.
Best regards,
Dimitar Nikolov
Motivation stems from taking action on a continuous basis. Working toward a dream may not be easy , so its logical that your motivation can cease. A way to keep yourself motivated is keep pictures of the benefits you will receive once you achieve you goal. Your mind will become filled with positive thoughts which will sky rocket you towards to success. So start to post picture of your soon-to-be benefits and watch your motivation increase ten-fold.
Thanks Dimitar! Yes, I often find that focusing on the reason for something is a great way to get motivated. Even if there isn’t much in it for you, there’s normally someone else you’ll be helping out in the process of getting that “thing” done.
Jonathan, thanks for the reminder about visualisation. I find that this works well for me in conjunction with other methods — visualisation alone doesn’t tend to do it when I’m feeling really lethargic about my goals!
Love the picture. You might want to take a look at my blog post about motivation here. It might be useful
I had an interesting exchange with someone recently who was complaining of a lack of motivation — I had the instinct to ask her “what does lack of motivation feel like?” and sure enough, she said it was this heavy feeling in her shoulders. So we had her breathe into her shoulders and upper chest and she found the “lack of motivation” feeling starting to move and change. But now I am rambling — the contribution I wanted to make was that moving stuck energy like this can be a motivator.
Excellent point Chris. I think we often let this kind of ’static/burden energy’ build up and it’s definitely important that we displace it or even transform it into a new kind of positive energy.
Great advice too on the breathing technique. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Eric
Я практически случайно зашел на этот сайт, но вот обосновался тут надолго. Задержался, потому что все очень интересно. Обязательно скажу о вас всем своим знакомым.
I was just recently de-motivated after I completed a few minor tasks around the house after wanting to accomplish something by the end of the day. Now it’s 6.30pm and i’ve lost it. I wanted to see if there was some easy one or two liner that would put the wind back in my sails and here we are. After seeing the daydream I thought about how great it would be to have a few more things around the house done and it’s back.
One thing that can help motivate is to start off small, or with a checklist of easy things to do. I organized my office filing cabinet after finally getting some hanging folders, I figured out how to manipulate a broken elliptical machine (that I shorted out myself without knowing it) so now we can use it again, and I installed a program that will help me keep notes organized.
And now, i’m going to complete my day by doing the dishes, lifting some weights, and coming back to the computer to get started on my flyer for teaching people about technology in order to hopefully get some biters and bring some income my way.
As a last thing to think about: Save your heavy projects for the day after you complete multiple smaller tasks. Take breaks in between, and keep making progress and if you finish in the same day, what a great feeling of accomplishment! It took me three days to figure out how to setup my own server for my home network and once it was fully functional it was amazing and now I have so much more work to do – which is another thing to look out for! Once you complete something that large which generates four times the amount of work, make a list of those things and fit it into your schedule when you have some time to dedicate to it and things should go smoothly. (I need to install 2 programs over the network which is going to take me an entire day each to successfully complete, longer if I run into problems.)
If nothing else motivates you, just look around and ask yourself what minor changes you can make to help make life easier – install shelves in rooms for more space, buy some cheap laundry baskets to have around the house to dump your clothes in instead of onto the floor, replace lightbulbs with more efficient ones, get your car an oil change – doing little things can show you how much of a difference you can make in your own life and others.
Take things one day at a time, and if things get you down, just think of the future. (i’ll probably never come back here, I googled, but thought I should provide my wisdom for those that do. I’m 23, and I think for myself, I blaze my own paths, and one day i’ll be somewhere. But until then, all we can do is hope.)
-A hopeless romantical optimist