Do you struggle to find the motivation to pursue all those hobbies and ideas that you have? Whether you desire to write a blog, create a podcast or start up that side hustle you are passionate about, do you find yourself holding back on taking action when it comes to working towards your goals and dreams?
All of these ideas are so exciting, but if they are just swirling around in your head- they can’t help anyone! Taking steps towards our best life requires us taking consistent action, but many of us get stuck there and have a hard time “finding the motivation” to make it happen.
Motivation is either THERE or it’s NOT
When we talk about not being motivated or struggling to find motivation, usually we assume that motivation is a binary drive, meaning it is either there or it isn’t there. We are either motivated or we are not motivated.
We think the presence of motivation means we feel a drive to get work done and be productive. When we are “motivated” we are actually taking action, we are pursuing our ideas and hobbies and we feel good about ourselves.
But then when we are not motivated, when we struggle to “find motivation”, we are stuck. We give in to inertia. We can’t summon up enough willpower or discipline to take action and propel ourselves forward.
It can be so frustrating because there are so many ideas we have and things we want to do but we just can’t force ourselves to get started. We just aren’t motivated enough.
Does any of that sound familiar?
Do you suffer from these cycles of peaking and fading motivation? Do you struggle to maintain consistency in your actions?
This is the problem with thinking of motivation in this “it’s either here or it’s not” kind of way. We feel helpless to the transient tides of motivation. We feel out of control.
Will we wake up today feeling motivated? Or will we just not feel up to doing what it takes to actually work towards our goals and dreams? We make motivation into this external force that is acting on us, instead of becoming the force.
A different way to think about motivation
I’d like to challenge you to start thinking about motivation differently. I want to share with you how I have been thinking about motivation recently and how this new approach helps me to stay on top of my game and stay consistent in my actions.
First let’s look at the actual definition of motivation. Motivation (n): the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
Based on this definition, motivation is not binary. It is not something that is either present or not present. When we think about motivation this way, we can see that we are always motivated to do SOMEthing, it just may not always be the thing we tell ourselves we “should” be doing.
It may not always be the action that is in line with our higher self. It may not always be the thing that is following our intuition or helping us reach our goals and dreams.
We may be motivated to fall back into old patterns, or to self sabotage. We may be motivated to procrastinate. But when we start acknowledging we are always motivated to do SOMEthing, we can start to work within that framework.
We are always motivated to do something
Let’s say you are trying to convince yourself to start up a blog. It’s been one of your New Year’s resolutions for ages. You have so much content you’d love to share with the world. But you keep putting it off.
When you get home from working your full time job, you feel “too exhausted” to open up your computer and get anything done so you start watching Netflix instead and another evening passes in that autopilot fashion.
In that scenario, you are not feeling motivated to work on your blog. But that doesn’t mean you are “not motivated.” Remember, you are always motivated to do something.
In this situation, you are motivated to watch Netflix instead of working on your blog. Something is driving your behavior towards Netflix and away from working on your blog. Once you get curious about WHY you are motivated to watch Netlfix instead of working on your blog, then you can start asking yourself important questions to get to the bottom of it.
I promise you… this works so much better than getting frustrated and beating yourself up for “not being motivated”.
So what is this behavior for you? When you are “not motivated” to work on your goals and dreams, what is it you ARE motivated to do? Are you motivated to nap? Are you motivated to scroll through your social media feeds? Identify what some of these behaviors are for you so we can start getting to the bottom of them.
All behavior has a positive intent
One of the assumptions of NLP (neuro linguistic programming) is that all behavior has a positive intent, even if it appears outwardly “negative” or “bad”.
Another way to look at this is secondary gain. We are always trying to secure something positive for ourselves through our behavior, even if our means of getting that thing are a bit misguided.
When we binge eat an entire pizza in one sitting, the secondary gain or positive intent might be comfort. We are trying to provide ourselves with something positive: comfort, a sense of safety and security. Although eating our body weight in cheese may not be the healthiest way to meet that need, ultimately the reason we are doing it is to try and secure ourselves something positive, aka a sense of comfort.
We are always motivated to seek out pleasure and avoid pain so it’s important to understand how your brain is making these pain and pleasure associations.
So let’s investigate this using the above example where you WANT to motivate yourself to work on your blog, but you end up being motivated to watch Netflix instead.
What is the positive intent of you watching Netflix? What pleasure are you associating with watching Netflix and what are you trying to get for yourself by doing that?
My guess would be, that watching Netflix is “easy” and perceived as “safe”. There isn’t much risk involved. You don’t have to put yourself in the spotlight or face rejection. You get to curl up on the comfort of your couch and passively allow time to pass you by in a reasonably entertained state of mind. Maybe you are also getting an immediate sense of relief and relaxation from not having to exert yourself or expend any energy.
Understand your behavior so you can work through it
This whole line of questioning and investigation is about UNDERSTANDING our reasons for acting so we can work through them instead of just chalking it up to the fact that “we aren’t motivated.”
Instead of trying to work against your mind and power through and force yourself to act, I think it is far more effective to get curious about what is going on with your behavior.
If you can approach this from a place of curiosity instead of acting like a drill sergeant, it will make the whole process of working towards your goals and dreams so much more effective AND enjoyable.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when you are struggling to find the motivation to work towards your goals:
How am I comfortable where I’m at?
What pleasure am I gaining from (insert undesirable behavior here)?
What is the positive intent behind my behavior? What needs am I trying to meet for myself?
What is my mind trying to “get me” by motivating me to…. (watch Netflix instead of work on my goals and dreams)?
What does my mind want for me?
What is the purpose of this behavior?
Remember, this is all about understanding yourself and the reasons you are acting instead of constantly feeling like you are in a fight with yourself.
Once you have a better understanding of the positive intent of your behavior, then you can start to question your strategy.
Maybe what you are after is a sense of safety or comfort, but is there an alternative way you can get that for yourself? Maybe a way you can feel a sense of safety and comfort WITHOUT derailing your goals and dreams?
How can you meet your needs in a more creative way that doesn’t stop you from going after what you truly want?
So if you are struggling to “find the motivation” to start working on your goals and dreams, I hope this blog post will help you start to think about motivation a little bit differently.
You don’t have to “find motivation” and you don’t have to beat yourself up for not being motivated. You are ALWAYS motivated to do something. You just need to start understanding WHY you are motivated to watch Netflix (or scroll through social media, or take excessive naps) instead of starting to working on your goals and dreams.
Once you start to understand your current motivations, you can start to work with them. You can start to harness the power of your motivation to line up with what you actually want out of life! Instead of allowing your subconscious mind or your ego to run the show, your higher self can start taking charge and you can start to turn your dreams into a reality.
Now I’d love to hear from you! Where are you currently struggling when it comes to “finding motivation?” What are you trying to motivate yourself to do and what kinds of things do you end up doing instead? Comment below and share so we can work through it together.
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