Feeling a Lack Of Motivation? How To Get Motivated And Stay Motivated (Your Ultimate Guide)

If you’re like most people, you probably find it a struggle to feel motivated. And even when you do manage to get going, you quickly lose your momentum.

Fortunately, there are many tried-and-tested techniques for not just temporarily boosting your momentum but — for permanently transforming it.

In this guide to regaining and generating motivation, you’ll get to discover Lifehack’s ultimate formula for making your motivation practical and systemic. You’ll learn how to take back control of your circumstances and put yourself firmly in the driving seat of your life. With motivation on your side, you’ll become more confident, determined and proactive. You’ll also become much more successful than you currently are.

So, read on to see how you can build a motivation-generating engine that will propel you forward every day on autopilot.

The Importance of Motivation

The first question to ask yourself is why is motivation so important? Why bother making a motivation-generating engine? To understand why it’s worth looking at the importance of motivation.

Finding, and building motivation is vital as it allows us to:

● Change our behavior ● Develop competencies ● Be creative ● Set our own goals ● Grow interests in various topics ● Plan ahead ● Build skills and talents

By staying motivated throughout the day, you’ll be doing more of those kinds of things day in and day out and growing as a result. But there is more to motivation than those particular perks. With life behind something where we are constantly responding to shifts and changes, motivation plays a crucial role in that too. Motivation is also key in these instances as it allows us to:

● Adapt to the changing environment in the first place ● Function productively ● Be able to maintain our wellbeing in the face of constantly shifting opportunities and threats

By staying motivated throughout the day, you’ll be doing more of those kinds of things day in and day out and growing as a result. But there is more to motivation than those particular perks. With life behind something where we are constantly responding to shifts and changes, motivation plays a crucial role in that too. Motivation is also key in these instances as it allows us to:

You can also look at motivation from a health standpoint too. Motivation as a psychological state is linked to our physiology. When we lack motivation, our functioning and wellbeing will also diminish.

For example, consider a situation where you were faced with a challenge or a task you didn’t want to do. How motivated were you in that moment? Probably not a lot. That’s because we tend to lose our motivation in those kinds of situations.

That example is also an example of what would happen if you don’t have the motivation to do something. Time and time again, studies have shown if we’re not motivated, we simply won’t do it.

While that’s fine in terms of bad or harmful tasks, this same philosophy holds true with good things. You need motivation to go to the gym and work out. You’ll need motivation to be a good parent, partner, and friend. If there is no motivation, you simply won’t put effort into improving those things in your life.

It’s for these reasons why you need to find your motivational drive. It’s a crucial aspect to living a Full Life and achieving happiness, success, and more. Without motivation, you’ll coast through life or say everything is fine when you know that you have aspirations for more.

Why Do You Lose Motivation? When you have no motivation, you simply won’t do it. But how do we get to that point? It’s through losing your motivation. There are many reasons for losing your motivation. Here are just a few of them:

Not Aiming High Enough While it’s easy to think setting easy goals will keep you motivated, it actually undermines your motivation. If you make goals or actions you need to do too simple for yourself, you’ll get bored and lose interest. Ideally, you want to be striking a balance between a goal that still requires you to push yourself but also not make it too tough that you can’t achieve it. If you’re used to aiming low and staying within your comfort zone, then you’ll be missing out on the power of setting big goals. When you push yourself by aiming higher, you’ll conquer fear, wipe out regrets and begin to write your own life story. As an added bonus, as you achieve more — you’ll be rewarded more too. Suffering From Procrastination There is a big difference between procrastination and simply not wanting to do something. Procrastination is more along the lines of acknowledging this is a priority but favouring something else instead. For example, putting off working on a big report to handle smaller tasks first. Why we procrastinate can stem from many different reasons, but how you can mitigate it is through creating easy steps, changing your work environment, amongst other tactics. Whether at home or work, if you find it hard to get started, you’ll always find yourself falling behind. Procrastination is a bad habit that you must learn to break if you want to achieve big things in your life. Some simple steps you can take to defeat procrastination are: commit to starting a task for at least 3 minutes (read more about this in this article); create daily, weekly and monthly to-do lists; and reward yourself when you complete your tasks.

Unsure About What You Want Uncertainty in life is common as we have no clue what the future may hold. That is paralyzing for us as it gets us to be thinking about “what if?” What if it doesn’t work out? What if people disagree with your decision? This can all be mitigated if you spend time creating a vision for yourself. If you don’t know what you really want in life, then you’re likely to drift through life and just get by. But when you know your passion and find your purpose, you’ll be driven and hungry for success. This is vital for your big goals, but it also impacts everything else you do. You can start the process of discovering your life purpose by spending some time thinking about this question: “What would my ideal life look like?” Letting Fear Control Your Mind And Actions Similar to the previous point, the “what if?” scenarios can lead you to being afraid of something and not wanting to commit to something. Fear can stem from that or from other sources such as you’re afraid of failing or being laughed at or from stepping out of your comfort zone. It’s crucial that you don’t allow fear to hold you back. If you do, you’ll inevitably miss out on career, relationship and self-improvement opportunities. However, as you’ll discover in the linked article, fear can be overcome. One way to do this is to look for the root causes of your fears. For example, you may be afraid to speak up in work meetings because people mocked you for getting things wrong before. But that was then, and this is now, and you should reevaluate your fear based on the present circumstances. Start speaking up in meetings now, and you’ll see how quickly you can defeat this particular fear. Feeling Overwhelmed With Work and Responsibilities Otherwise known as burnout, it places you into a state of depression from your work and you struggle to make things happen. How you get to burnout can come from overworking yourself, or the tasks are too demanding of you and you think it’s not worth it. Even if only one of these motivation blockers is active in your life, it will be enough to derail your chances of success.

Types of Motivation

Understanding and knowing how to make use of the different types of motivation can help you reach your goals.

• Intrinsic Motivation

Also known as internal motivation. This motivation stems from within and it’s not shown explicitly.

An example of this is say you want to start a regular program of running and swimming to help boost your health and fitness. While that’s fine, the reason you are doing this stems from deep personal reasons. Some want to compete while others see these exercises as means of losing weight and boosting self-confidence.

Those internal reasons are intrinsic motivation that’ll keep you coming back to the pool, track and field, or gym to keep training.

• Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic is the external motivation that’s around you. While too much of it can be dangerous to us, knowing how to use this motivation and keeping it at a health level can provide you with benefits.

For example, your team at work is close to achieving its targets, but there is a final push needed to make this a reality. Instead of having to rely on your inner motivation, in this example, you'd likely be powered up by the thought of your team and company achieving their targets.

• Reward-Based/Incentive Motivation

Similar to extrinsic motivation, you can think of this as carrot-on-a-stick motivation. Something is in front of you and as you complete the task, you’ll get a reward for it.

For example, your partner tells you that if you clean the house, they'll cook a delicious dinner for you. If cleaning isn't your thing, then you'd probably do what you could to avoid it. But with the incentive of a reward of a tasty meal, you'll probably find the motivation to get the job done.

As you can tell, it’s manipulative motivation, so it’s not designed for long-term things such as retaining employees. However for short-term tasks it can be very effective.

• Fear-Based Motivation

Fear-based motivation is an example of negative reinforcement.

Life isn't as safe or secure as most of us would like. Unfortunately, there is always the chance that people are trying to take advantage of us or out to steal our personal belongings. The latter example might deeply concern you, causing you to spend time and money buying and fitting an intruder alarm at your home.

While you might not consider fear a positive thing, it can be, if you turn it into a strong personal motivator.

• Achievement-Based Motivation

Depending on your chosen career path, you may have had to achieve certain qualifications, perhaps including graduating from a degree course.

Knowing that your qualifications would open doors to your career, would have been a major motivating factor helping you to pass your course.

• Power-Based Motivation

If you want to change the world (or at least some part of it), then you'll be able to call upon power-based motivation. Essentially, if you need to be a leader and a visionary, you'll only be able to succeed with a thirst for power. This could be a negative (think of dictators), but it could also be very positive (think of Martin Luther King, Jr.).

• Affiliation Motivation

If you've ever been part of a sports team, you'll have seen affiliation in action. It's that special team spirit that motivates each player to perform their very best.

Work can be the same too. You just need to make sure you're part of a harmonious and supportive team.

• Competence Motivation

If you dislike not knowing how to do things (or how to do them well), then you'll naturally be driven by something called competence motivation.

For example, you might need to do some DIY work around your home but realize that you lack the necessary skills. Instead of giving up, however, you spend some time online looking at articles and YouTube videos to learn the specific skills and techniques you need.

• Attitude Motivation

Imagine trying to tackle a big goal such as learning a new language by starting off with a negative mindset. Your defeatist attitude is likely to lead to just that — defeat.

But now picture the same scenario with your mindset switched to positive. With this hopeful, go-getting attitude you'll have the motivation to start learning and speaking the language of your choice.

Want to find the motivation styles that work best for you?

Is One Type Of Motivation Better Than the Other? Out of so many types of motivation, are internal ones or external ones better?

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation Extrinsic motivation does sound more manipulative right? While there is truth to that, it’s still mentioned in the types of motivations above for a reason. As manipulative as it is, extrinsic motivation is still good motivation. It just has to be used in certain ways. Similarly, intrinsic motivation isn’t always going to get the job done if you need one final push for something. Indeed, both of these motivations are better to be used, however it’s the situation itself that determines which one is best in that scenario.

When To Use Extrinsic Motivation Because when overused, extrinsic motivation can have some negative effects, it’s key to be using it sparingly. Some ideal situations to use this are instances like:

● Offering it to those who don’t want to do a particular task. Similar to the example of reward-based motivation, getting someone to do a relatively short task can be rewarding if there is something to look forward to at the end of it. ● Using the external motivation as positive praise or feedback in cases where someone is performing better than others can work too. According to research, this enhances one's intrinsic motivation. ● Offering unexpected external rewards works as well, though you still need to be cautious about it. Offering this liberally can lead to people expecting this reward regardless of performance. ● To motivate someone into learning something new or perform something they’re not familiar with.

When To Use Intrinsic Motivation While we think of intrinsic motivation as the best kind of motivation, even it has its limits. To understand the limits, it might be best to see intrinsic motivation as such: the behavior itself that you’re encouraging yourself to do is your reward. Intrinsic motivation is about your personal growth, appealing to your sense of duty and giving you recognition of purpose. For example, you work late hours because you believe in the work that you do. Or you picked up investing because you want to be more financially independent. The ideal situations to use intrinsic motivation are situations where general motivation is needed to do something. It’s something that’ll allow you to kickstart the activity. Once you’re doing the activity, it gets a bit tougher to rely on intrinsic motivation and it’s there where some external reward can help if you need further motivation.

Positive Reinforcement vs Negative Reinforcement Reinforcement is a consequence that when applied will strengthen the chances of us performing the same habit again. Think of reinforcements as another layer to motivation and that it influences specific actions that we do. Reinforcements come in two ways: positive and negative. While you’d immediately think of these as one to use a lot and the other to disregard, both of them are used on a regular basis throughout our lives. It’s just you haven’t taken much note of it.

Positive Reinforcement Positive reinforcement is all about presenting a motivating stimulus to someone after a certain action or behavior is done. An example of this is receiving a bonus from performing better than your co-workers.

Negative Reinforcement Negative reinforcement is all about removing a certain stimulus after a certain action or behavior is done. For example, you’ll clean the dishes if it saves you from your partner telling you to do them. Another is waking up and turning off your phone’s loud alarm. No matter which type of motivation, you must learn how to take action about it so as to get what you want. Now that you know why motivation is key and how you’ll lose motivation, the next thing to understand is how we gain motivation. As you probably know motivation is everywhere. There are thousands of motivational videos out there along with motivational posts to pump you up. You can also attend speeches and simply be around people that encourage you. But what you’ll find is all of those sources of motivation won’t last long. You’ll find yourself up against one of the roadblocks mentioned above or something else in your path.

The Motivation Flow If you’re looking for proper motivation, you need to understand that motivation is a flow. In order for you to feel motivated, you need to dive beyond the surface of those sources of motivation. You’ll need to find something deeper. One way to think about motivation is that it’s like the Sun. The Sun is a self-sustaining and long lasting ball of energy that continuously supplies energy to all life on Earth. Like the Sun, your motivation engine has several layers to it as well, starting from the core and spreading out to the surface. The surface is what we all see. In motivation perspective those are the speeches, quotes, videos and more. But if you rely on that, you have no core - no real process or drive to achieve and stay functional. It’s a crucial part to any motivation engine. If you’re able to create a motivation engine that’s self sustaining, not only will you find meaning and purpose, but you can enjoy every minute of what you’re doing too. It’ll shift your roles and responsibilities from chores to things that drive you and move you. To help you understand the motivation flow better, it’s best to break the motivation engine down into 3 parts or layers:

● Layer 1: Core - Your ultimate purpose that drives everything you do. ● Layer 2: Support - The enablers that support your work. ● Layer 3: Surface - Your acknowledgements

Surface This layer encompasses any type of external recognition or acknowledgement that could give you motivation. Maybe it’s respect from a manager, other co-workers, or maybe compliments and praise. It can also be emotional support too like encouragement, feedback, and constructive criticism. It could even be from affiliation like having a friend who has the same goal as you. All of these motivational aspects are things that other people see too.

Support The second layer is the enablers that support the goals that you have. They ultimately ensure that things go smoothly to achieve those things. How they do this is by magnifying your motivation core or speed up your momentum that you’re building up. Some examples of these are your friends and networks who are able to provide advice, encouragement and keep you focused on your task.

Core The first layer is the core and is most important. It is the driving force behind your motivation flow - your purpose. Think of it as a why, but much deeper. Your purpose is what differentiates those who are motivated and those who are demotivated, the achievers to the underachievers, and the happy from the unhappy. Your core is your purpose and it’s sustained by two things: Having meaning and forward movement. With these two as foundational pieces, you’ll have a power source that can give you motivation forever. So how do you get these two things? Here is how:

1. Having Meaning It’s as simple as asking yourself a question: Why? Why are you pursuing this goal over anything else? The answer to that question will determine your motivational source. If it’s vague or unclear, the energy will be the same. If it’s precise and clear, the energy will be the same too. Without meaning, there is no direction. That said, having meaning doesn’t mean it has to be grandiose like changing the world. Finding meaning boils down to contributing value to something or someone that matters to you.

2. Forward Movement

The short version of this is to keep moving. Motivation stems from making progress and building that momentum. As soon as you stop, everything else will. The other thing to keep in mind is that progress doesn’t have to be massive leaps and bounds either. Even if one thing changed for the better, that’s still progress.

A good strategy to ensure forward movement is to be setting milestones and having checklists. These are good ways to visualize big and small wins. Video games do this all the time and while those achievements are virtual, they still trigger the same motivation centers that you would have in any other instance.

Purposes

In addition to all the motivation tips above, we understand that you may be looking motivation for a specific purpose. This section can help you.

Life Motivation

Life motivation is ultimately what’ll get us to move and do things. Consider it as the general overview of motivation. If you have no life motivation, then chances are low that you’re open to do anything at all.

While the only person who knows how your life is going is you, some possible reasons for why you’re stuck can be things like:

● You’re not sure what you want. ● You’re not in control of your physiology. ● You’ve made “lack of motivation” part of your identity. ● You’re not aiming high enough. ● Feelings of overwhelmingness ● Procrastinating too much ● You’re not being specific enough to spur motivation ● You’re too busy looking for motivation rather than looking for habits.

Finding your inner motivation and building yourself a sustainable motivation engine will help you regain life motivation.

Work Motivation

Another area where people lose motivation is through their work. Where most people get stuck usually stems from one of these four traps:

● Your values are mismatched. A task doesn’t connect with or contribute to your own values. You see no reason to do it so you don’t do it. ● You lack self-efficacy. Deep down you don’t think you’re able to do the task at all. You lack the capacity to do the task and so you don’t do it. ● You’re experiencing disruptive emotions. You’re consumed by various negative emotions whether that’s fear, anxiety, anger, depression, or others. These emotions sap away your motivation so you don’t do the task. ● You have attribution errors. You’re unable to identify the reason for why you’re struggling with something. You attribute your lack of performance to something that’s outside of your control.

Weight Loss Motivation There are times when you feel like giving up on your fitness goals, especially when sticking to a workout routine and healthy diet is so challenging. Here're some reasons why you lose your weight loss motivation:

● You’re doing the same thing every day. Not necessarily the same workout but if you’re doing 3 sets of 10 reps every week, you’re eventually going to get bored of doing it. ● The progress you’ve made has stalled out. If your goal is to lose weight, it can be demoralizing to see the same number on the scale every morning even if you’re working out hard. ● You are working out alone. While being on your own is fine, it can get lonely and bringing a friend can help you in showing up. ● You’re not recovering properly. You’re going to lose motivation if you’re working out and then immediately going down to a fast-food joint. ● The environment has changed. For example, visiting the same gym all the time can get old as well. “Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” Norman Ralph Augustine

Getting and staying motivated will make an immense difference in your life. You’ll be able to tackle those goals and dreams that you’ve put aside for years. You’ll also be able to set yourself new and exciting goals that you would never have considered before.