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If you’re anything like me, you pass through phases. Sometimes you’re motivated, sometimes you’re not.
Some people are able to separate what doesn’t motivate them, from everything else. But I can’t.
Whenever
something becomes more of a burden than a joy, I tend to get so frustrated that
I let it affect other aspects of my life.
After years of knowing and over-analyzing myself, I came to realize and accept that I have a weak mind and that it takes me a huge amount of effort to keep my inner self stable and healthy. Any slight change to my state of mind has a huge impact on what I do and how I feel. It’s like riding a roller-coaster. Permanently.
These
oscillations are not good.
So, to balance my motivation and maintain a stable and healthy routine, this is what I try to do whenever one of the key fractions of my life if leaving me particularly demotivated:
1.What changed since the last time you were motivated?
You might not realize it but your demotivation didn’t show up overnight. You didn’t wake up one day and realized you weren’t feeling completely pumped about doing something in your day. So try to remember, what little things did you do and enjoyed doing, that you don’t do anymore.
In my case, I can spot a lot of small differences in my day-to-day.
During good phases I can get up at 6:30 a.m., go to the gym, get to the office at 9 a.m., work happily until 6 p.m. and then go home, cook, read a book and go to bed. I eat healthily and am always in a good mood.
In my not-so-good phases, it takes me a seriously hard time to get out of bed (thank god I have a gym buddy that won’t let me skip gym day – shoutout to Joana), work seems endless and not rewarding at all, I don’t feel like cooking or reading, just watching trash tv and eating take-out.
So the first step would be to acknowledge these changes and realize if you want to bring them back into your life and why. Did you feel better when you did these things? Do you miss them?
2. Understand what’s draining your motivation
Is it your work?
A family situation? A romantic problem?
Are you able to separate it from other aspects of your life or is it impacting everything you do? Ask yourself all the questions until you’ve come to the root of the problem.
3. Understand how much of it you are able to change
Some situations
will put you down but are simply out of your control, as a family situation or
a health issue.
Try to debrief and understand if there are things you can change to improve your situation. For example, if you’re not happy with what you’re doing at work, how much would you be able to change? Are you realizing you would rather be working in a different area or do you simply don’t enjoy the tasks you have that week or that month?
4. Define a
change strategy
After understanding how much of it is in your hands to be changed, define how you want to do it.
Keep reminding yourself why you want to change, remembering what you put down on the first point of the list might help.
It might help if you break down your actions into smaller goals so that you gain motivation when accomplishing one of them and start seeing things change.
This point is all all about building enthusiasm, so figure out the method that works better for you. For me, is keeping a monthly list of 5 goals I have for that month. They push me to change and evolve.
5. Focus on the good while you’re at it
While you’re doing all this mental work and trying to implement small changes, keep focusing on the good. As much as demotivation didn’t come overnight, neither will motivation. That’s why it helps to celebrate the small happy things that can be unnoticed if you’re not paying special attention.
