Staying motivated is a struggle — our drive is constantly assaulted by negative thoughts and anxiety about the future. Everyone faces doubt and depression. What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep moving forward.
There is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is understanding your thoughts and how they drive your emotions. By learning how to nurture motivating thoughts, neutralize negative ones, and focus on the task at hand, you can pull yourself out of a slump before it gains momentum.
Reasons We Lose Motivation
There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.
- Lack of confidence - If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?
- Lack of focus - If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?
- Lack of direction - If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?
How to Boost Confidence
The first motivation killer is a lack of confidence. When this happens to me, it’s usually because I’m focusing entirely on what I want and neglecting what I already have. When you only think about what you want, your mind creates explanations for why you aren’t getting it. This creates negative thoughts. Past failures, bad breaks, and personal weaknesses dominate your mind. You become jealous of your competitors and start making excuses for why you can’t succeed. In this state, you tend to make a bad impression, assume the worst about others, and lose self confidence.
The way to get out of this thought pattern is to focus on gratitude. Set aside time to focus on everything positive in your life. Make a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. We tend to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our failures. By making an effort to feel grateful, you’ll realize how competent and successful you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success.
It might sound strange that repeating things you already know can improve your mindset, but it’s amazingly effective. The mind distorts reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you truly believe that you deserve success, your mind will generate ways to achieve it. The best way to bring success to yourself is to genuinely desire to create value for the rest of the world.
Developing Tangible Focus
The second motivation killer is a lack of focus. How often do you focus on what you don’t want, rather than on a concrete goal? We normally think in terms of fear. I’m afraid of being poor. I’m afraid no one will respect me. I’m afraid of being alone. The problem with this type of thinking is that fear alone isn’t actionable. Instead of doing something about our fear, it feeds on itself and drains our motivation.
If you’re caught up in fear based thinking, the first step is focusing that energy on a well defined goal. By defining a goal, you automatically define a set of actions. If you have a fear of poverty, create a plan to increase your income. It could be going back to school, obtaining a higher paying job, or developing a profitable website. The key is moving from an intangible desire to concrete, measurable steps.
By focusing your mind on a positive goal instead of an ambiguous fear, you put your brain to work. It instantly begins devising a plan for success. Instead of worrying about the future you start to do something about it. This is the first step in motivating yourself to take action. When know what you want, you become motivated to take action.
Developing Direction
The final piece in the motivational puzzle is direction. If focus means having an ultimate goal, direction is having a day-to-day strategy to achieve it. A lack of direction kills motivation because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. An example of this is a person who wants to have a popular blog, but who spends more time reading posts about blogging than actually writing articles.
The key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to success. For every goal, there are activities that pay off and those that don’t. Make a list of all your activities and arrange them based on results. Then make a make an action plan that focuses on the activities that lead to big returns. To continue the example from above, a blogger’s list would look something like this:
- Write content
- Research relevant topics
- Network with other bloggers
- Optimize design and ad placements
- Answer comments and email
- Read other blogs
Keeping track of your most important tasks will direct your energy towards success. Without a constant reminder, it’s easy to waste entire days on filler activities like reading RSS feeds, email, and random web surfing.
When my motivation starts to wane, I regain direction by creating a plan that contains two positive actions. The first one should be a small task you’ve been meaning to do, while the second should be a long-term goal. I immediately do the smaller task. This creates positive momentum. After that I take the first step towards achieving the long-term goal. Doing this periodically is great for getting out of a slump, creating positive reinforcement, and getting long-term plans moving.
It’s inevitable that you’ll encounter periods of low energy, bad luck, and even the occasional failure. If you don’t discipline your mind, these minor speed bumps can turn into mental monsters. By being on guard against the top 3 motivation killers you can preserve your motivation and propel yourself to success.
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Thank you for the brilliant article. It was very timely and helps tremendously. Cheers
This is definitely a timely article John!
I need a serious kick in the pants. You’re right about how easy it is to get distracted and the need for focus. Thanks.
Right on time. I am just crossing a low-motivation period and your article is really helpful!
Congratulations, you did it again!
Thanks all! I’m glad you found the article useful.
i have just gone through your article and its timing is superb.i have been undergoings low moments this past few days and what you are saying is exactly what i was going through.
i had literally forgotten how gifted and blessed i was in my bid to secure my future.since all ma friends had gotten jobs i was constantly doubting my self since things had not been smooth sailing om my part.
otherwise thanks for the article it has really rejuvinated my spirits.
Hi John,
Great article. Thank you for analysing the problem and providing the solutions in such a systemetic manner. Clear and precise, as always.
Wanna also thank you for this is timely for me - and found that all other commenters said that same thing - it’s really common to lose drive from time to time…
I recently wrote about this as well and found your post to be an enjoyable read today! There is no such thing as too much motivation
HEy Johnny,
Thanks for this superb post. It was presented powerfully. It is so easy to
lose focus and motivation as well.
I think fear has being killing a lot of people for so long and they are just
incapacitated by it. I was able to destroy fear in my life when I discovered
a maxim some years back. I hope it will be helpful to someone reading this:
“Whosoever has conquered fear, has conquered failure.”
When I discovered this, I decided to conquer my fear so that failure
will have no place in my life. It is a perfect concept so many of us should
adopt.
God bless you John for bringing this up.
Adebola
[…] to Motivate […]
Very inspiring article. I like your blog!
I particularly found the “finding focus” and “developing direction” parts helpful. It’s really hard getting motivated, when you’re not sure what the goal is. Also, once the goal is clearly defined, developing clearly defining the steps necessary to get you there is crucial. Basically, it’s having a clear picture of what you want, and a step by step plan to get you there.
It’s true about confidence issues. We need to prepare our mind and bodies for real thing first before we make the changes. Lack of confidence is a problem that can truly stop us from being motivated.
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I am doing all 6 things under Developing Direction. Thanks, it is good to know that as a new blogger, I am doing things right.
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Absolutely fantastic. Great work, John. Keep it up!
-Nick
grate simply grate work to motivate people. just keep it up man
This article is very important to get motivated and to motivate others for betterment in every field.
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I am a very pesimestic kind of a person….i dont know know how to motivate myself….article is very good
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Wow, I’ve been going through a major slump… was suppose to have my site up months ago and have been lacking the drive to complete the project. Then today I find this article and am so grateful you wrote it. Thanks so much, very motivating.
~Natasha
You have some awesome articles, I like the signal-to-noise ratio here.
I’ll be stopping back by when I get demotivated.
Thanks, Michael!
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Hi John,
now i’m in the low motivation period, feeling boring with job and life. I’m happy when i searched self motivation website, I found yours. That’s absolutely correct about Lack of Focus.
I have many good idea on my mind, but it seems i have no power\strenght to complete them. One of the reasons is lack of focus.
Thanks,
Jerry
[…] There is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is understanding your thoughts and how they drive your emotions. By learning how to nurture motivating thoughts, neutralize negative ones, and focus on the task at hand, you can pull yourself out of a slump before it gains momentum. Read on … […]
I think the critical factor is ACTION! Not delaying. Doing something right now that creates momentum. It’s like putting on your exercise shoes right now to do some exercise. Once the shoes are on, it’s easy to get going.
Great post!
http://www.thesecretsofsuccess.info
I woke up this morning and was a little, no a lot, of discouragement was in my head.
And God sent me to this and now I’m ready to focus on the act of doing something instead of reacting and not doing anything.
Thank you again,
Peter D
Thank you for this insight, John. I was thinking a lot on these demotivation factors, and from my experience there is one more: lack of energy. I don’t know if this resonates with you.
inspiring
Thanks , great motivation tips,
To your advance success,
Happy New Year,
Tracy Ho
wisdomgettingloaded
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Thanks for this superb post. It was presented powerfully. It is so easy to
lose focus and motivation as well.
I think fear has being killing a lot of people for so long and they are just
incapacitated by it. I was able to destroy fear in my life when I discovered
a maxim some years back. I hope it will be helpful to someone reading this:
“Whosoever has conquered fear, has conquered failure.”
When I discovered this, I decided to conquer my fear so that failure
will have no place in my life. It is a perfect concept so many of us should
adopt.
so it is the of motivation in our life.
I agree with that maxim, thanks for sharing it. In many ways, failure only occurs through fear. Once we get past fear, failures become learning experiences.
thanks a good tip for my motivation , i have a fear about my confidence & other think
[…] the textbook definition may be true, it certainly isn’t very, lets say, motivating. Motivation is the act of creating passion and passion is the fuel for great teams. Great teams feed on passion […]
Great article, just what I was looking for.
Great tips that I think need to be reminded to us more often.
Vitaliy
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Thanks, hope you don’t mind if I link this article to my site. I think it is well written.
That was a great article, and speek sence becasue i am from the uk
Hello - I’m from the UK too and I’ve just read through some of your “highlighted” best read posts.
The concept of “self improvement” is a truly admirable aim, and I applaud all your effort here, but it can be agonizingly unhelpful for a person with low self-esteem and/or depressive tendencies.
It’s a bit like someone with no legs hearing about another person with no legs “pulling themselves together” and climbing a mountain unaided. The first guy can actually feel even more incompetent, after hearing how “well” this similarly effected other guy has “conquered all” by sheer will power and well placed self-help strategies.
Don’t misunderstand me,I like your blog - it’s packed full with positive ideas and extremely well thought out.
I agree that we can all do some things to help ourselves but it is a myth that we can all be successful, rich and happy through self-effort and by definition: if we can’t all do this we deserve what’s coming to us.
Hope you will take this in the spirit in which it was written.. I.e. just putting a slightly different angle on things.
Thanks for giving me the space here to have my say
Hi John,
This insight on motivation is wonderful. While reading through it I was able to apply these traits to achieving success in many aspects of life and business.
There is another way to be motivated that is a favorite of mine: PASSION.
The gut-wrenching, burning passion that drives you to succeed in whatever it is you have that passion for. The thoughts that you will do whatever it takes to be successful at your job, lose the weight, or make money online.
Really gets you going huh?
thanks i’ll give it a go
I find trying to stay focussed and motivated on what I’m trying to achieve can be a struggle at times, I waste too much time when I lose track of what I’m meant to be doing. This great article will help me with my motivation
hi john,
thanks a lot. very helpful in my situation right now. in every failure, there is always a room for improvement and nothing can hinder us from what we truly wants. =p
I enjoyed this! thank you.