Motivation can be elusive. Sometimes, even when there is something you very much want to accomplish, you may find yourself struggling to get started.
There are plenty of reasons that your motivation may not be as strong as you’d like, and figuring out those underlying reasons can help you find your drive again.
Lacking a Plan
Sometimes, you might have a vague idea of where you want to be but you’re lacking a plan for getting there. For example, maybe you want to retire early and travel the world, but you aren’t doing much about getting the savings together to accomplish this.
Looking at your retirement plan, figuring out how much you need to save to reach your goal and maxing out your contributions can help.
Take a look at what other assets you have as well. If you have a life insurance policy, you may be able to sell it through a life settlement.
You can review a guide that will explain the value of your policy. With a financial plan in place, you’ll be more motivated to save and reach that early retirement goal.
Lacking the Right Habits
Big projects are only accomplished through many small steps, but it can be difficult to see the through line from your actions today to what you eventually hope to accomplish.
Even though you know that you need to start running several times a week to train for a marathon, it can be easy to keep putting it off until tomorrow.
Do you want to write a novel? You can’t do it all in a weekend, but if you write 200 words per day, you’ll have a novel-length manuscript in a year.
These actions are all a matter of putting the right habits in place so that instead of arguing with yourself about whether you will do them each day, you simply do them in the same way that you brush your teeth.
Fear of Failure
Fear of failure is underacknowledged as a big factor in procrastination and lack of motivation. If you never try the thing, you never have to fail. You can instead keep telling yourself a story about what you will accomplish someday.
The problem with this, of course, is that someday never comes. While it may sound contradictory, the best way to conquer your fear of failure is to embrace it.
What’s the worst thing that happens if you fail? As long as the project is not something like performing surgery or flying a plane, the worst thing that probably happens is simply that you have to try again or start over.
It can also help to take a look at the lives of people that you admire or that you consider especially successful. What you will almost certainly find is at least as many failures as successes in their lives.
If you never get out and try to run that mile or you never sit down and write those words, you’ll never have a running form or a novel draft to improve upon. Be gentle with yourself, let yourself fail and you’ll find the way to motivation and success.