Hey girl!
Not feeling motivated? This post is going to be a quick pep talk to help light a fire under your booty. So often, we lose “motivation” to do the things that we KNOW will bring us joy in life. Have you ever noticed that sometimes even pulling ourselves off the couch to do something we love feels like a STRUGGLE?? Why is that!?
Motivation doesn’t exist
Here’s the honest truth – motivation doesn’t exist. We THINK it exists. Every so often we might feel a spark of energy to get up and make things happen… but just as quickly as the feeling comes, it goes! So I guess, motivation does exist, just not in the way we think it does. So often we put off doing something because we’re waiting for this magic moment to happen -and it never shows up. Even if motivation does show up, it’s super unreliable and it DEFINITELY won’t continue to show up everytime.
And here’s the thing – so many people miss out on the biggest, LIFE-CHANGING activities because they simply aren’t taking action, and they’re waiting for their motivation to show up. The real secret? Motivation comes from taking action! I know that sounds so backwards – but when you turn off your excuses for a few minutes and start taking action on whatever it is you need/want to do, you’ll actually start to feel the motivation inside you! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt unmotivated to start a workout, but forcing myself to change into my workout clothes and simply pressing play makes all the difference. A few minutes in, I’m starting to sweat, my heart is starting to pump, and I can feel myself starting to feel thankful and excited to continue.
Motivation comes from taking action
This simple truth has been truly life changing to my overall levels of productivity. Maybe you can relate to this feeling, but whenever I wasn’t feeling motivated to work on something (specifically personal projects, business ideas, etc.), I’d start to question whether it was something I should be working on and spending time on. I was letting my lack of motivation stop me in my tracks and allowing it to halt some of the tasks that would create massive impact in my life.
I used to believe this idea that clarity came from planning and preparation — that I’d find more clarity around my goals and my vision for what I should tackle next by sitting down and thinking things through. Honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you how much time was WASTED on this belief. The reality? Clarity comes from action — more specifically, MESSY action. You don’t need to have your next 5 steps planned out — you just need to take action on step number 1.
Clarity comes from messy action
These ideas go hand in hand because I think for a lot of us, we want to feel like we have everything together before we take action in fear of “messing up”. So we procrastinate taking any steps because we want to make space to figure everything out — but because we can’t predict or see into the future, we create a “perfect plan” for how we’re going to tackle every single step – and then when it’s actually time to TAKE action, we’re too exhausted from all of the preparation — so then we find ourselves waiting for the motivation. If only we’d set those perfect plans aside, embrace the fact that we are going to hit curveballs that will ultimately derail our plans and force us to think creatively to keep moving forward, and commit to just STARTING!
Some of the most common reasons why we don’t take action include:
A lack of clarity around our actual goals
- WHY are we pursuing this goal/task in the first place?
- Are the goals and things that we’re working on going to leave us feeling fulfilled after we accomplish them, or are we just adding another thing to our “to-do” list because we feel like we “should”
- How will this task/goal help move me closer to my longer-term vision for my life?
- How am I going to measure “success”? Will I constantly be chasing it while I’m pursuing this goal, or do I have clarity around what exactly I want to accomplish?
- Once we have this information and we’ve nailed down exactly WHY we are doing it in the first place, it will help us get more clear around why it’s even important in the first place
We spend too much time on a detailed plan instead of a simple, skeleton plan
- Instead of creating a detailed plan around each step that you’re going to take, let’s start digging deep into the WHY we’re doing what we’re doing and creating a simple, skeleton idea for how we’re going to tackle it
- What’s the time frame of this goal? How much time will I need to commit daily/weekly? Is this goal/task relevant to the stage of life I’m in right now? How can I set myself up for success on a daily/weekly basis to help me accomplish this goal/task?
- How can I create a simple bulleted task list of the important items that I’ll need to do to finish the goal. Notice I said SIMPLE list. This isn’t a breakdown of exactly how you’re going to do things step-by-step — but rather, it’s a rough outline and timeline of the high level things that you’ll need to work on.
Our goal doesn’t align with our current season of life
- You know those things that you feel like you “should” be doing, but deep down you just don’t feel like they align with where you are in life, right now?! Oftentimes, a lack of motivation comes from this misalignment. If you don’t feel truly drawn or excited about a project or goal or you don’t believe deep down that it’s something that is going to work at this stage for you in your life or your business, it’s a very low probability that you’ll be motivated to work on it at all.
- Ask yourself — will I still feel happy if I put off this goal for 6 months, and then revisit it to see if it’s a better time? If the answer is yes, don’t work on it, and revisit it later. If the answer is no; you’ll feel unfulfilled now if you don’t work on it, then start asking yourself “why” until you get to the REAL reason behind your motivation for the goal. When we can get down to the TRUE reason why we want to work on something, we’ll be much more excited to tackle it.
So if you’re struggling to find motivation, do these steps above and remember: get clear around your goals, but be flexible on the timeline. If we try to accomplish everything at the same time, we’re going to feel burned out, overwhelmed, and we’ll give up before we start to see the real traction. Celebrate the fact that you decided to show up daily and take messy action BEFORE “finding” the motivation. I’m rooting for you girl! Click here to listen to the podcast and let’s dive even deeper on this topic!
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