Prevent Lack Of Motivation With These 9 Tips

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@tenkabuto asked me on twitter:

This is a problem most bloggers face often during their blogging careers. Not only bloggers, but everyone in every career goes through periods of lack of motivation.

We’re trapped by our own bad, ‘invader’ thoughts about the consequences, and these thoughts enmesh us so strongly that it’s impossible to free ourselves.

Motivation is what urges you, encourages you to do something. That encouragement is important if you want to do something and succeed. But if the motivation and confidence is not there, you often fail, or do badly.

Before you go on to cure your lack of motivation, it is worth to read what exactly causes you to lose motivation, so it will be easier to identify the problem.

The Causes

There are many causes for lack of motivation. Let’s take a look at some of them. Note that I’m only discussing the causes here. The remedies come later.

Taking a Long Break

Some bloggers take a long break from their blogging and return, only to find that their motivation to blog has gone. It happened with me too. I stopped back in February, and when I started again in mid-June, I couldn’t get myself to blog. Read on to find how I helped myself get back on track.

Another example is of doctors who’ve been out of regular practice for a long time, and are entering practice again. They also fear: what if they’ve forgotten their stuff? What if they mess up a treatment?

Past Experience

Another turn-off for motivation is a horrible experience of something in the past. For example, if you had once tried to cook food, and it had resulted in a horrible, disgusting mess, the feeling stays with you forever. You don’t feel like cooking ever again. Even after a few years, whenever you try to get over the past and to cook again, the thought of that horrible experience stops you. What if you mess up again? Right?

Lack of Experience

Lack of experience is another road block for motivation. It often happens with children. They’re still learning things, and when they encounter new stuff, they’re often perplexed. It even happens with adults, when they’re faced with something new. Your mind is filled with “what if”s: What if you messed up? What if other people started laughing at you? What if…

The Fear of Possible Consequences

We are also often concerned with what will happen as a consequence of what we are about to do now. Very common.

Be it something we’ve never experienced in the past, or have, we are always worried of what will happen as a result. The above two points are closely related to this point.

What if your food is disgusting? What if you mix two items and the whole mixture explodes? What if your cooked food causes indigestion?

What if your patient dies, instead of living? What if you don’t know what to do?

We’re trapped by our own bad, ‘invader’ thoughts about the consequences, and these thoughts enmesh us so strongly that it’s impossible to free ourselves.

The Remedies

Now that you’ve looked at the causes of the lack of motivation, now read how to get out of these problems, and gain back your motivation, or increase it.

Keep Practicing: Don’t Let Go

It’s imperative that you don’t take long breaks from a task you’re doing. If you’re a blogger, keep blogging regularly; if you’re a writer, keep writing regularly, and so on.

You see, when you keep doing something regularly, you build up a passion for it. You know you did this yesterday, and you’ll do it tomorrow too. You become confident. This confidence is what motivates you to keep going. You know that you can do it, and you remain motivated.

After all, all these days you’ve taken to build up a regular pattern, you’ve also strengthened your motivation, and confidence. But when you stop and take a long break, you break that pattern, as well as the motivation and confidence. When you start again, poof! All your hard work at maintaining that pattern is gone.

NOTE: I’m not saying it is not okay to take small breaks from your job. They are absolutely necessary

Force the Motivation to Come to You. Persist

As you may already know, I had stopped blogging back in February (Exams. Yuck!). I started again in mid-June. Now, till the time I stopped blogging in mid-February, I had already built a strong, regular blogging pattern. I had slowly upgraded to daily posts, instead of the one-every-other-day posts. Now when I stopped, that pattern went straight down the drain, and when I started again a few months later, I couldn’t get myself to start!

Really, I didn’t feel like blogging. I felt my relationship with blogging was over. But, I decided to make the motivation come to me. I started up building my blogging pattern again. No matter what happened, I always did a post every other day. I made the effort of researching content and proof reading and so on, but I didn’t stop. Today, I’ve got a regular blogging pattern again, and am motivated and confident of myself again.

The secret is persistence and perseverance. Don’t let go. Once you start again after a long break, about the only thing that can help you get back on track is being persistent and perseverant.

Establish a timetable. Even if you don’t have content, research. You can’t afford to stop. Don’t.

Stop Thinking about the Past, or the Future

As I outlined above, one of the major causes of lack of motivation is a bad experience in the past, (thoughts of which torment you now too), or worries about the future.

Would the Wright brothers ever have flown the first airplane back in the start of the century, had they not believed in themselves?

There is a cardinal rule(according to me) about blogging: Don’t worry about what people will think of your content. Publish it!.

As I said earlier, these bad thoughts about the future entangle us within themselves, just like fish trapped in a net, unable to escape. They are so bad they will even destroy every little bit of confidence that you build up, every little piece of motivation. When ever you muster up the courage to face something, these thoughts trouble you about the future and remind you of the past.

You have to somehow free yourself of the narrow and dangerous mindset these thoughts have trapped you within. Stop thinking about these thoughts. Try this exercise, which I hope will help you block out these invader, rascal thoughts.

Even if you have had a bad experience with something before, muster up the courage to face it, and make yourself confident that you’ll not mess up this time. Probably you won’t. Even if you do, it doesn’t matter. Try again.

Believe You Can and WILL Do It!

A cliched piece of advice, this has become. Important, nonetheless.

Self confidence is very important, if you want to succeed in anything you do. Without self-confidence, there’s no pushing force, and thus no motivation. Believe that you can do what you’re about to do. Believe that you will do what you’re about to do!

Not only will this give you self confidence, it will also create a huge virtual wall around you, to protect you from the incoming invader thoughts. The greater the self-confidence, the greater the belief in your abilities, the stronger the wall, and the more difficult it is for the invader thoughts to penetrate this wall.

The perfect and greatest examples of this would be that of philosophers and inventors and thinkers. Would the Wright brothers ever have flown the first airplane back in the start of the century, had they not believed in themselves? Surely their ideas had been ridiculed upon by the community, right? Then how did it happen? Think about it. Think about the dropped jaws of all the silenced critics who made fun of the Wright brothers.

Consider Galileo. Wasn’t he ridiculed so much about his theories? Didn’t he prove the critics wrong? Why? He was confident of himself, that’s why. He believed in himself, that’s why.

Come Out of Your Comfort Zone

One of the major damages these invader thoughts do to you is that they make you stay in your comfort zone. What’s wrong in that? Well, these rascal thoughts have dominated your comfort zone. They control your comfort zone, not you or your common sense. Therefore, you’re trapped in your comfort zone.

Come out of your comfort zone, which is infested with bad thoughts. Do something different. Do something which is not like you. Adapt yourself to the conditions outside of your comfort zone.

For example, if you’re a writer who writes fiction, and are at a loss for motivation, don’t just sit there!
Try something else. Another genre, perhaps? Another style of writing perhaps? A change in location or a change in the music you normally listen to?

Often, elements which are involved in your task become attached to bad thoughts. For example, a particular type of music you might listen to normally while writing might now hampering you. Whenever you hear that music, you start thinking about - about the future, about the past.

Identify and root such pests out of your life. You don’t need them. Adapt to new conditions. Try new stuff. It might not seem good at first, but through trial and error, you’re bound to find something that suits you :D.

Think out of the box. Embrace things which have never been tried by others in your field. Doesn’t matter if you fail. Doesn’t matter if you get ridiculed upon. Were not Galileo and the others made fun of too? Didn’t they challenge ‘prevailing wisdom’ and prove that the Earth was in fact round, and not flat? Had they not done that, we would be still believing that crap, right?!

So, in short, don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Become a pioneer in something new. Silence the critic inside you.

Is It Really Your Type?

Sometimes, things don’t really go hand in hand together. Are you and what you’re doing compatible with each other? If not, you need to change. It’s no use doing something you don’t enjoy doing. It’s just like marriages. Marriages fail because the constituents are incompatible with each other. Maybe it’s the same here.

Don’t Think Negative. Ponies and Rainbows Are Better!

As you most probably already know, thinking negatively is not a good idea. It is a BIG BIG turn-off for confidence and motivation. Thinking negatively will only allow the bad thoughts to infiltrate your already weak defenses, and capture your mind, leaving you helpless, and in need of help ;).

Anyways, always try to think positive, no matter what happens. Even if you have to think about comics(what I do) to keep yourself positive, it is okay. Thinking positively provides you with a strong enough line of defense to ward off evil, invader thoughts and deter them from trying to infiltrate within.

Reward Yourself

You deserve it!

Before doing something really challenging, set a prize for yourself before starting. That will give you the confidence and encouragement to work towards earning that prize, whatever it may be.

This might seem lowly and of little importance, but it plays a big part in building up self confidence and the belief that you can really do something, and shut up that critic inside you

If you do a relatively more challenging task, set a bigger prize. The greater the challenge, the bigger the prize. It’ll only strengthen your belief that you can really do this thing!

Maybe Simply It’s Time For Some Fresh Air

Maybe, you’re not feeling motivated or confident simply because you’re tired, bored or not interested. That happens often. What you need to do in that case is get off the computer, and go out for some fresh air. I’ve stressed this many times, before.

Go to the nearest park and roam around. Make new friends. Chat with people. Improve your mood. Maybe there’s something on your mind which is troubling you? Lighten your load and unburden your heart. It’ll feel relaxing.

Listen to the stories people have to tell. Get inspired, and most importantly, get motivated! Encouraged! Gain confidence!

Your Turn!

I’ll stop my babbling now, and it’s your turn to speak up. What would you recommend to a person who is at a low on motivation and confidence? Come on, there’s no right or wrong answers! Give your opinion!

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