New month is just around the corner, have you thought about what new habit you are going to start? I bet you already thought about it. Maybe it’s losing weight? Reading books? Learning a language? Studying? Do you feel that positive energy, motivation and excitement about the new beginning?

I think it’s fascinating that we always wait for some kind of right time to start building new habits, like a certain date would change the meaning or outcome of it. But we don’t really invest our time and energy to the one and only thing that we should be considering is how not to lose the motivation in what we want to do and keep on going no matter what.

How many times have you started doing something and quit after a while? 

Start of the journey is always driven by what it seems the endless energy, but days go by and all the charm of the new routine disappear, interest in building a new habit gets lost somewhere in the cosiness of comfort zone or same old behaviour patterns.

Oh, and seeing others crushing it in their lives while you’re scrolling down the Instagram feed with your cheesy dust covered fingers from the finished family pack of Doritos puts you even further away from the journey to a better life.

But you will start on Monday again, right?

This circle never ends!

The good news is that a lot of people are doing the same so we are not the only ones who are caught up in this game. And another good news is that it’s actually possible for us to keep motivating ourselves even when we already gave up on our dreams.

Why do we lose motivation?

Motivation is the force that is driving us to achieve our goals. It is the reason or the ‘why’ we want to do one thing or another. Just sometimes, no matter how hard we would try to keep working for our dreams we find ourselves refreshing Youtube home page and doing absolutely nothing for it!

And there are a few reasons why we lose motivation:

• We don’t believe we deserve the outcome.

Some of us often stop achieving our goals when we see amazing benefits that we are going to get at the end of that journey, and suddenly we start thinking that we do not deserve it! We convince ourselves that other people are more worthy, they are better and they shouldn’t expect anything else, just a failure. That is a real problem, because it immediately stops us from working on our dreams.

• We worry what others would think.

Lots of us constantly think about other people, and we believe that what others think is so much more important than what we think. We let other people’s opinions about us control our actions. Which means that we let others control our life.  

• We choose wrong reasons.

To help others, to love others, to make others laugh, to feed others, to serve others gives us true happiness. Believe it or not, the only thing that makes us happy, fulfilled and gives us purpose to live is SERVICE. That’s why sometimes, if our goal is only related to our selfish needs, we might lose interest and motivation and just stop doing it.

• We try to reach too high.

‘Go hard or go home’ doesn’t always work. It’s true that in order to grow we need to do the things we haven’t done before, get out of our comfort zone, but sometimes we set way too unrealistic goals. When we try to handle the things that are way out of our abilities, we avoid asking for help, and when after some time we can’t see any (even the smallest) results we tend to lose interest and finally drop everything thinking that we aren’t good enough for it. 

• Insecurities and fears come in a way.

What will others think?

What if they will judge me?

What if I fail?

What if it didn’t work as I wanted?

These and other hundred thousand questions that show the parts of us that we aren’t ready to deal with. Setting up new goals or trying to develop new habit is something that isn’t comfortable and definitely takes us out of our comfort zone which means that we will be forced to face the unknown land, open up a lot of uncomfortable truths that were hidden away, or we were afraid to acknowledge or even didn’t’ know existing. 
Facing our own insecurities and fears is something that we tend to avoid, so this can actually put us off from being positive and motivated in building a new life.

• Serious mental problems.

I’m so sorry but I have to mention this here. Sometimes lack of motivation isn’t just an occasional laziness or avoidance, sometimes it is a real and very very serious negative mental state, or depression. This condition can’t be ignored and it should be consulted with a professional to find out the real reasons behind the lack of motivation and get a proper help.

‘You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.’

– John C. Maxwell

How to get back your motivation?

While I am not the most productive person in this world, and I can’t say that I have to do a lot of things throughout the day, I still work on some personal projects – like writing these blogs, creating weekly newsletters, trying to workout… And I do feel that my energy levels are like roller-coaster, constantly going up and down and up again. So when I catch myself lacking motivation and being lazy the third day in a row I look for ways to pick myself up and get some movement!

Here is what I found to be most helpful when I need to get back my motivation:

1. Getting curious

There is a lot of things I learned while travelling on my own. It’ not a secret that I love adventures and exploring new places. And I realised that even I have loads of fears, low self-esteem and a lot of other mental blockages I can go to the other side of the world without second thoughts driven by… drum roll… CURIOSITY!  SO, when I lose motivation I often try to pull myself into being curious by telling myself ‘what if I just try’, ‘let’s see what happens if I do it’, ‘I just want to see how it goes’, and believe it or not, I get back that interest in a task and final result. So staying curious helps me to keep on going.

2. Tomorrow never comes.

It might be very harsh to say this, but seriously, I realised that tomorrow never comes. We tend to postpone changing our behaviour for tomorrow, or next Monday, or next year, with the hope that we will be different then. But it’s not true. If we don’t take action right this moment, we will never change and we will never do the things we want to do. Our past is gone and we can’t change it, it’s a history, but today is the day that we live, and there is just  this moment. We have to choose what we want to do now for better tomorrow.

3. Reflecting on the moment that got me into this.

If I catch myself being lazy and unmotivated to do things, I try to remind myself what got me into setting up those goals in the first place. I try to reflect on thoughts and feelings which got me into making decisions to take action. It’s a very powerful tool and works very well for me. Usually, when we start a new habit or new activity, we are very motivated and full of energy. We realise that current situation isn’t what we want and we use that feeling as our driving force. That feeling of making a change and seeing a better future is so empowering. So I found that reflecting on that very first moment might be a great way to get that motivation back.

4. Quotes and visuals

I find it so much easier to get out of bed when I read some motivational and inspirational quotes. I basically surrounded myself by positive energy – I follow a lot of accounts on social media that posts beautiful quotes, I have a lot of cute little motivational sentences hanging everywhere around my room, I created inspirational wallpapers for my phone and laptop using pictures from beautiful destinations I’ve been to or want to go. I had drown myself into all the positive and good energy that uplifts me and set my mind to do more and be more.

5. Choose yourself over everything

I know that sometimes I lose motivation because I feel insecure, I don’t think that I am good enough or worth something bigger, and besides that I think what others think about me, I am afraid to be judged.  I am still learning how to be fearless and take whatever I want from this life. But I have to force myself every single day to choose myself over everything else. I always remind myself that this is my life and I have to fill it with as many things that I love as possible.

Also, you might find it interesting – How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others and Healing Your Inner Child.

I know that we all are very different and the way I see and understand the world might be very different from how you understand it, so what works for me might not work for you. But I can say that even if you think that you can’t find motivation – you can, you just need to find your own unique strategy!

Motivation is the main force that gets you out of bed and experience this wonderful world. Despites being positive and energised at the beginning of new challenge, or setting new goal, after a while we might lose our interest and motivation for it. There might be millions of different reasons why it happens, but there is also millions of ways to get that motivation back and go conquer the world!

You are amazing, and someone else needs to see your amazingness! Stay motivated!

Remember to be kind to yourself.

---

Related Articles