How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated

How to get motivated and stay motivated… that is the question. We all lack motivation sometimes. Even when something is important to us, we may still struggle to keep up the pace or get the thing done. I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic because the last few months have left me feeling uninspired and definitely unmotivated. I’ve learned a few things that are helping me find my way through the slump. I hope they’ll help you, too.

Key Things to Note about Motivation

Motivation doesn’t come before action. If you get nothing else from this article, I hope you’ll remember this. It’s a common misconception that motivation comes before we do something. Have you ever thought you needed motivation to write that next article, produce that next episode, or accomplish that next task at work? Next time you feel this, remember what I’ve said here. Want to feel motivated? Do something to move forward with that task.
Motivation levels drop when we do fewer things. The less action we take, the less motivated we’ll feel. The past few years have been a struggle for us all. We’ve found ourselves being home more, socializing (in real life) less, and traveling a lot less. This has left some of us doing less than we did before. Though some have thrived during this time, others have found themselves in a rough place. When our moods aren’t great, it’s challenging to feel motivated or energized to take action. This is what I hope to help you with in the rest of the article.
Motivation is part of a cycle. We have to do something to get the reward to feel the motivation to repeat the cycle. Have you ever trained a puppy? When it sits or goes potty outside, it’s rewarded with praise and maybe a treat. The puppy responds with kisses and tail wags because it’s happy. So, the puppy took action, we rewarded their good behavior, and the puppy feels motivated to repeat the behavior to receive the same reward again.

Motivation cycle created by the author using Canva.

Cycle: Action > Reward > Motivation > Repeat

Dopamine rewards us to keep doing the thing that rewards us. So how do we hack this reward/behavior system to keep us productive and taking action toward our goals? Before discussing what to do, let’s first look at what not to do.

Things That Cause Us to Feel Unmotivated

Negative self-talk is the inner dialogue we have within us that can cause us to have limiting beliefs about ourselves and our abilities. Negative self-talk cripples our dreams. It takes away our strength and our self-esteem. Your inner critic can become your greatest enemy if you don’t keep it in a constructive space. Allowing our negative self-talk to run rampant may lead us to become more anxious or depressed. Not to mention that having negativity in your mind all the time could affect your relationships and general health.

We can minimize our negative self-talk by creating an identity for it. Call it a name, like “Negative Nancy” or “Debbie Downer,” for example. Train yourself to take every thought captive and sort the thought as constructive and helpful OR destructive and harmful. If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself.Easier said than done, I know, but negativity begets negativity. In small ways, over time, we have to learn to correct the things that aren’t bringing us wellness and joy.

The other negative behavior we can correct is to stop minimizing our accomplishments. I’ve really struggled with this over the years because I have never had a healthy understanding of what a personal achievement really is. Living in a hustle culture where we’re constantly encouraged to do more, work harder, and accomplish more has made some of us forget just how far we’ve come. We’ve failed to celebrate our work. Instead, we reach one goal just to set another and another quickly. And when someone gives us praise, we dismiss it because we didn’t feel any sense of celebration when we accomplished it in the first place. This keeps us in unrecognition of our achievements.

We can remedy this behavior by creating a list of our achievements. What have you done that makes you proud? This can be something small like checking off your to-do list today or something large like graduating college or completing a certification. If you journal daily (and I highly encourage you to do so), that would be an excellent place to write your day-to-day accomplishments. And when others bring up your achievements, try to accept them positively with humble kindness.Your soul needs to feel those tiny sparks every once in a while, don’t be the one to put them out.

How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated

Now that we’ve discussed what not to do, let’s take some steps toward finding motivation, shall we?

1. Build small habits that encourage action. I use what I call the 10-minute rule. It’s small and doesn’t take much time. Even after only spending 10 minutes working on a task, I feel a sense of relief because I’ve moved the needle on this task a little further. One interesting thing to note here, though, is that I usually spend more than 10 minutes on the action because I get in the zone. It turns out that just getting started is the most challenging thing. Some days I only spend 10 minutes working on a task, while I can go on for hours on other days.

2. Couple every challenging task (or task you do not want to do) with something you enjoy. For example, once I write for 10 minutes, I’ll watch one YouTube video. Then I’ll repeat this cycle until I’ve accomplished the task. Or go for a walk after sending that tough email or grab a cup of coffee after you had that meeting. The key here is to offer yourself a kind reward for doing the thing that you’ve been avoiding.

3. We want to be sure to build intrinsic rewards that make us feel good about ourselves. Our culture tends to focus on extrinsic rewards (praise, accolades, people-pleasing, and money). We don’t want to be bound by extensive rewards we can’t control, which will often lead to disappointment and lack of motivation again. Instead, we should work on building intrinsic rewards.

Ask yourself, “Why are am I here? What’s important to me?” Dwell on the good feelings that come from the actions we take. For example, I love to walk once I get on the trail, but taking that time from my day sometimes feels like a burden when I have many other things to do. So, I remind myself how much peace I find from spending that time with my thoughts. It’s important to my values that I spend time every day outside, away from the distraction of busyness and supporting my connection to nature. Focus on your greater purpose and how this task will help you build to that ultimate goal.

Are fear and perfectionism keeping you from finishing your projects? Read more here.

4. Think about your future self. Your future self has done all the things that you needed to do. You’ve built a life guided by your values with a vision of who you want to be. How happy are you? How fulfilled do you feel?

5. Think smaller! (Yes, I meant to put that exclamation mark there.) Thinking too big is one of the biggest motivation sucks ever. Let’s say, for example, you want to open a coffee shop, but you don’t know a lot about coffee, you have never owned a business, and you have no experience with pretty much anything related to owning a coffee shop. This task would feel impossible. Why? Because it’s too big. The best thing to do when you have an enormous, looming job in front of you is to break it up into small — the smaller, the better — tasks and take steps toward accomplishing it. So, you could send an email to inquire about a coffee class or apply to work at a coffee shop part-time to see if you even like it.

6. Hang out with people who inspire you. In the digital age, this can be easier than we think. Find a few friends, schedule a work session video call, and work on your task. Or meet a friend for coffee while you both work on the think you’ve been putting off. The accountability will improve your progress, and because you admire the person, you’ll value the time you spend working alongside them, even if you are working on your own things. Even chatting with someone you admire who is doing great things can motivate you. Have you ever walked away from a conversation with someone and had all these new ideas? Yeah, keep that person around. These motivational people can help you meet your goals by inspiring you to move forward. On a larger scale, mastermind groups serve this purpose.

7. Keeping track of how often you do tasks can help. I have a daily to-do list on my Google Calendar with tasks that need to be done to build the habits I’m trying to develop. Every day that goes by and I do them; I mark them off — one by one — and the longer the streak goes, the more I don’t want to break the chain.

8. Be sure to stop rewarding procrastination. What do I mean by that? Think about how you procrastinate — watching Netflix, playing a video game, or reading a book? Every time you procrastinate and do reward activities, you’re teaching yourself to procrastinate even more. By removing those rewards, you’ll likely find yourself doing the task so that you can do the thing you want to do.

9. Focusing on positivity makes all the difference. Don’t punish yourself when you don’t reach your goal or complete the task. Give yourself grace and start again. It’s not an all-or-nothing kind of game. For example, you don’t blow your diet just because you ate pizza on Friday. Your weight loss goal is not hopeless because of one meal. Every time you make a good decision for yourself, it’s GOOD! Be proud of yourself for each one. You’re making movements toward what you want, and that will make all the difference over time.

10. Hey friend, lower your expectations. You are one person with loads of obligations. You can’t do everything as fast or as perfectly as you’d like. I will say it again for the people in the back — give yourself grace. Be realistic to the best of your ability. All this stress you create when you’re pushing too hard will lead to burnout.