Blog

Do you ever find yourself asking, “Why do I keep feeling unmotivated even when there’s so much work I’ve got to do”?

Or maybe, “Why do I lose motivation so easily when I’ve got so much stuff to accomplish?”

Most probably yes, and yes.

And it’s likely that you might suffer from this problem more often than not.

It’s a common struggle that many people face in their regular lives. Whether it’s about feeling unmotivated in your personal life or feeling unmotivated at work, or even lack of inspiration to do anything—this can be frustrating and can hinder your progress.

It’s also very frequent, because since a very long time we’ve been chasing superficial desires that keep on piling up no matter how much we satisfy them.

Long story short, feeling unmotivated or having no drive in life is sometimes one of the biggest problems we face, also the most common one. If a person is motivated enough to do something, then they will surely complete the task before them and this motivation surge will leave a positive long-lasting impact on their minds.

On the other hand, though an absence of motivation can still lead to action, if the person is dead set on staying on schedule; it’s likely that having a motivated mind and the drive in oneself will push one to work better and longe. Now that we’ll know what we’re working towards, we’re less likely of feeling unmotivated.

In this blog post, I’ll explore the reasons behind this common issue of feeling unmotivated and then provide some tips on how to find motivation.

## Why Am I Feeling Unmotivated?

If you’ve, at any time, found yourself asking yourself, after a long day stretched by boredom, after a particularly wasted period of time spent in inactivity, in a really frustrated voice—”Why am I so unmotivated?” chances are that you know what I’m talking about.

Motivation is, basically, the complex psychological phenomenon influenced by various factors that instills enthusiasm in an individual to do something, to act. We face many instances in daily life where we don’t seem to have any such motivation to do anything, and here are the common reasons why you might find yourself lacking motivation today.

Sometimes we have so much on our plate that it should prompt us to work harder but instead it leads us into a panic spiral where we don’t know how are we going to complete all the gigantic level of work, and what work should we undertake first, and how should we proceed with all this mess.

This is because of a lack of clear, concise, pre-planned goals.

If we have a perfect idea of what we’ve got to do, then we won’t face any challenges when we’ll have to act on them, and we can just get down to the goals we had planned earlier without any delay or shortcoming.

Having clear and achievable goals is essential for staying put on our track and not losing any motivation during the process of working. If we don’t even know what we’re working towards, it’s pretty easy to lose the drive, and this can be one of the major reasons for feeling unmotivated at work.

To avoid this problem, we should take proper time to clearly jot down (because writing down what you want to do is a must) all the ideas and action-points that we have to look at. Then go through them one-by-one so that we know what we are working for.

This is like a brain dump. A clear, motivated mind works wonders. A cluttered, tired one doesn’t.

Of course, burnout is one of the leading reasons why people might end up feeling unmotivated, whether it is in work life, or in a relationship, or an individual’s social life.

Sometimes, people are just tired. Plain tired. Burnout itself signifies that a person has overworked to such an extent that they’re mentally and physically exhausted, seemingly to the point of no return. Though, we should establish that that is not true; on the contrary, burnout can be cured, but the feeling of motivation and drive and hope that it strips a person of is highly dangerous for them in their jobs, or whichever area of life is affected, as well as their mental health.

Chronic stress can very easily drain the motivation out of anyone. If we are constantly working, and pushing ourselves to the point of utter mental and physical tiredness, then this stress can very easily lead our motivation to plummet.

So, it’s very crucial for everyone to maintain a really balanced life without an overdose of any factor.

Fear of failing is also a big reason for being unmotivated at work, because we look at our colleagues completing assignments seemingly perfectly and we are hit with these insecurities all of a sudden that question if we are even capable enough to undertake this task.

How are we even going to know what is going to happen if we never even try?

Failure, or the fear of it, that’s what holds so many of us back every single moment of our life when we might’ve done something different to get a different, more positive result.

And yet we let ourselves get talked into stepping away by those little demons sitting in our heads.

Some people tell us that we are not going to make it. Many of the times, these people—are we ourselves. Let’s not be our own enemies. The fear of failure influences so many of us in the negative way. We step back. We pull away. We let ourselves be scared.

It’s essential to understand that failure is a natural part of the learning process and all of those who’ve ever made it big started small and failed a lot along the way. We need to embrace failure as a stepping stone to success, to learn more things and find new opportunities.

Sometimes there’s no other reason for feeling unmotivated but having no enthusiasm itself. This is simple, sometimes the thing is not within our interests, and we find no such drive to invest ourselves particularly into it.

This is the kind of thing with me and math. Lack of interest. Mutual.

If we are not interested in a task or project, and our heart isn’t into it, then it’s challenging to find motivation to do it, let alone do it passionately.

In such cases, we should try to find aspects of sub-tasks that might interest us, or we might have to present it in a more compelling, interesting way that could grab our attention.

Or we can simply not do it, that works too. (Except for math, of course, I have to do it, for whatever reason.)

One of the major reasons for, particularly, being unmotivated at work or feeling unmotivated to do anything that at least feels like work might be the constant, amazing distractions. Some examples of these can be social media, the first and the foremost, or a cluttered workspace, or happy daydreams that can highly disrupt the focus and energy of the work environment that we might’ve wanted to create in the first place.

These kinds of attractive distractions, though look great in the moment, will eventually add up to loads of wasted time and energy and day-by-day keep on reducing your motivation and drive to do something.

We should take active steps towards eliminating all kinds of distractions from our workplace and home, so that no time is wasted in looking for motivation, and instead finding it right where it rests—within ourselves.

---

## How to Stop Feeling Unmotivated?

Now that we’ve explored some of the reasons behind a lack of motivation, here are some strategies on how to find motivation, rekindling that inner drive that we seem to have lost somewhere along the way:

Divide all your goals into smaller, manageable tasks that you can take on one at a time. When you’ve finished one, quickly move on to the next. Celebrate when you’ve accomplished the big thing.

One day at a time. That’s what everyone is supposed to take. The book Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott talks of this concept for writers, bird by bird. Take it bird by bird. As in to say, to all the humble, ambitious souls: take it day by day.

Achieveing these smaller goals gives us a sense of accomplishment and boosts our motivation and confidence and we feel that we can surely take on a bigger challenge now whe we’ve completed these smaller ones. And this is true.

If we have no purpose, quite truthfully it would be hard to find inspiration, because then we wouldn’t know what we’d be working towards, and what we were going to receive at the end of the journey.

That’s why, to have a constant stream of motivational ideas in our brain, it’s necessary to find the reason behind why we are doing things.

We need to find our why, as Simon Sinek accurately talks about in his book Start With Why. Whatever we’ve got to do, we’ve probably got to start it with the why behind our how and what.

Knowing what we want to achieve and what is the reason behind our constant hard efforts is a great motivator, a great prompter for us to keep going even when nothing seems to be working.

A great way to find motivation and inspiration in life even when things seem to be hard is to look for it in the best places where we might find it: books, podcasts, friends and family, or from people who have overcome similar challenges.

It helps sometimes to look for motivation in other people’s experiences, to look at the things they’ve accomplished despite adversities and then realising that we can do it perfectly well too.

That is why we should seek inspiration wherever we can.

Learning from others’ experiences can reignite your motivation.

Though sometimes we might be feeling unmotivated, it’s necessary to know that this unmotivation isn’t exactly a result of our own mistakes or shortcomings. Sometimes, this might just be the case. Because.

It won’t ever help beating ourselves up for not living up to the expectations, or not meeting the project by the deadline or not being motivated enough to do something worthful. That is the reason why it helps to be kind to ourselves in these situations.

We have to understand that it’s normal for everyone to have periods of low motivation, and that taking one day off from work won’t hurt us much. Don’t beat yourself up over it; instead, focus on getting back on track.

Sometimes it helps to create a routine to stick by no matter what, so that even if we are not motivated, or the whole motivation factor is low, we can still accomplish the tasks we had decided to do earlier.

Moreover, inspiration isn’t permanent. That’s why discipline is necessary.

After following the routine time and again, despite any obstacles, we’ll start to realise sooner or later that the routine itself provides us with motivation. We have got to do this thing, at this time, at this day, at this place, and we have to complete it by this deadline, and so we better get to work or we’ll lose the streak and not finish our task. This in itself provides so much needed motivation to work on time and foster discipline.

Establish a daily routine that includes dedicated time for your goals. Consistency can help build momentum and motivation.

One of the main reasons for feeling unmotivated might be that we’re not giving ourselves time to adjust to the small wins and instead just running towards the big one without a break.

You should celebrate all your achievements with cheer and fervor because they will motivate you the next time to work more and achieve similar levels of pride and self-confidence.

Even if the successes are small, celebrating them leads to pride in oneself and a drive to up the performance the next time around.

We should reward ourselves for all small milestones we reach.

If we frequently deal with the problem of feeling unmotivated, then maybe we should tell someone else about this and see if they can help. Get a mentor.

Share your goals with a trustworthy person, a family, or a friend or a teacher. Tell them about your moments of low motivation. They can provide you with encouragement whenever they’d see that you’re losing your focus.

Aside from this, you can also gain momentary motivation from other small forms of media like YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram motivational content, etc. Be careful while engaging with this, though, that you don’t end up distracting yourself in the way.

It’s just about finding motivation, not how or where you find it.

All during the process of finding motivation you should keep in mind that it’s entirely ordinary for a person to experience this dreaded periods of low motivation.

We can understand the reason behind our supposed lack of motivation and implement the respective strategies, and see the results as our drive re-ignites, and we work towards achieving our goals with even more perseverance.

Motivation can be a fickle thing, one moment it’s here, another moment its lost. However, with the right approach, we can overcome the “no motivation” hurdle and move forward with purpose and enthusiasm.

On times when you’re unmotivated to do anything, it might be because of the universe’s calling, it might be the onset of some new, great ideas. Learn how to make use of boredom and how it leads to new levels of creativity: Boredom and Creativity: Discovering the Way Boredom Leads to New Ideas