How to Stay Motivated When Your Inspiration Vanishes

Pushing yourself to stay motivated in the long run is hard. It starts off with a great idea about how to accomplish a goal, whether it's improving your fitness regime, your professional career or spending more time with loved ones. Day by day you make a bit of progress, and you feel encouraged to keep going. But somewhere, along the way, you slack off. It starts with you procrastinating on a particular day. Then it happens the next day and the day after that, until it snowballs into your new normal. You now realize reaching your goal is harder than you originally thought. To many of us, this is a familiar story, and it concerns more than just our new year's resolutions. It's a life handicap that prevents us from reaching our highest potential. It leaves us feeling frustrated, disappointed or even worse: It causes us to doubt that our goal is even worth pursuing. I'll tell you this: No matter what your goal is, if you were motivated enough to think it up, write it down or mentally repeat it to yourself, it is worth pursuing.

This is because the motivation behind your goal is likely to redress something that affects your self-worth or happiness. That feeling isn't likely to go away soon, and once you realize how hard achieving your goal truly is, you only have two choices: you either give up and spend the rest of your life convincing yourself that you should accept a current situation that brings you deep displeasure, or you work your entire life toward reaching whatever it is you truly believe will make you happy. The former choice may seem easy at first because it requires less effort. However, with time, you'll quickly find out it is the hardest choice of the two. The hunger for change that you have inside of you won't go anywhere, and it may even grow stronger. It will come back to haunt you with regret and constant frustration. The truth is, both choices are hard to face and will take some energy out of you. However, if you are to devote so much time and energy either way, why not choose the option where your happiness lies at the end of the tunnel?

Let's go back to you slacking off. How do you recover your inspiration or motivation to reach your goal once it's gone?

Is it as simple as tackling the easiest task on your list and using that momentum to move on to the next task? That didn't work for me in the long run, and I struggled with staying motivated. But here's what I realized:

Some have argued that anything that gets created in the mind is elusive, fragile, constantly shaped by our environment and requires nurture to survive. The same can be said about your motivation. In order to protect your motivation, you must constantly nourish it and have an environment that fosters it. For me, it meant cutting down on time spent streaming music on Spotify and replacing it with carefully selected motivational podcasts. It meant changing my cell phone's background picture into one with an encouraging quote, replacing the entertainment celebrities I followed on social media with inspiring social figures and being more selective with what I read. However, I quickly discovered that this wasn't enough or even sustainable. I realized that if I abruptly stop listening to almost everything I love and surround myself only with motivational content, I'd suffocate over time, or even worse-- I'd get bored of pursuing my goal. And that is the real threat to staying motivated and preserving your dream. Being bored. Boredom kills motivation and crushes your vision. To prevent this, you need to balance things out through trial and error. I suggest making incremental changes to your environment and gradually adding content that motivates you (i.e walls, phone background, fridge, computer bookmarks, pinned memos, playlists, etc). Get hooked on one thing, get into the habit of staring at it, listening to it or thinking about it- whatever the "it" is for you, then gradually sign up for more.

Another way to protect your motivation is to prevent doubt and fear from settling into your mind. While it isn't possible (and may be counterproductive) to completely eliminate them from your mind, you can counteract these emotions with something that positively spins your energy and reminds you that you can achieve your goals. For instance, you can counteract your fear of failure with a mantra that makes you feel empowered. Recite that mantra every single day. This requires disclipline, but doing so will help center your attention on your strengths and keep you grounded. Reciting a mantra daily can also be useful if you often find yourself sidetracked doing every day tasks. However, keep in mind that mantras, no matter how great, can only go so far. You need to be comfortable with the idea of failing, privately or publicly. It's better to try your hardest to reach your goal and fail than not trying at all. If you never venture out of your comfort zone, you'll never grow.

Additionally, no matter what your goal is, the road to reaching it will inevitably bring pain along the way. You need to be comfortable with it and accept it as your gateway to success. The cliché "no pain no gain" rings true in every facet of life. At the end of the day, you have to decide if you want to deal with pain or regret. Most people give up early on and choose regret by default. They end up regretting that choice for the rest of their lives.

Finally, you need to protect your dreams against those who will bring you down and make you doubt yourself. This can include family and close friends- no matter how well intentioned they may be. You're allowed to be selfish with your dreams. Only share them with those who can help you nurture the positivity and self-confidence you need to keep going. Consider having someone you trust to keep you accountable for reaching your goals. You need a support system to build you back up when you face setbacks along the way.

At the end of the day, there is no magic formula to regain motivation once it's gone, but you have to discover what works for you. The most important takeaway is...you guessed it: never give up!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michele is an aspiring writer who enjoys speaking about personal growth, career development and social issues. When she's not writing for Laptop and a Pen, she handles legal matters as an attorney for startups and emerging companies. Other than her passions for writing and the law, Michele enjoys attending performative arts and traveling. 

#staymotivated #BeBetter #failure #overcomefailure #reachforsuccess