Let's talk about lack of motivation.

We all experience a lack or loss of motivation every so often. There are many reasons behind a lack of motivation such as feeling overwhelmed, lack of commitment to a goal or mental health issues such as depression.

Interestingly enough, among the causes of lack of motivation are fear and the habit of procrastination which I covered in the previous blogs.

For over a year now the realisation that my future is in my hands has been a leading cause of waves of motivation in my life. Everytime this reality kicks in I imagine what I want that future to look like, write down steps towards it and create a schedule so that I lay out the necessary steps to eventually achieve the goals set for it.

And I think that's all of us. At different intervals, we have waves of motivation wash up in our lives causing a strong urge to act towards our desired goals.

My motivation currently also comes from believing that if I do work hard enough I can achieve the goals I set for myself. That gets me excited to take the necessary steps and see how far I can go. The best thing about motivation is that it propels you to set a goal and work towards it.

If there is something you are or were working towards, there is most likely something that motivated you to create that goal in the first place. It could be any goal such as wanting to save up a certain amount, to graduate top of your class or why you want to find a job. I think right now the rise in inflation could also be a pretty good reason to start adjusting our financial goals.

The higher the wave of motivation the more intense the urge which ultimately leads us to start working towards our goals. However, motivation to keep going and keep staying consistent fickles and at times we lose the motivation and with it, our sense of agency to continue working. Loss of motivation, like lack of motivation can also be caused by a lot of things.

In my case, I noticed how fear led to the decline in motivation over finishing this blog article last week. When looking at my blog statistics for the last two blogs, I realised an overall decrease in how the second one performed compared to the first one. I started to fear that maybe this blog won't be received as well as my first one as well and eventually I lost my motivation to write it.

The only difference between now and the past year is that I didn't allow myself to be stagnant for long. This made me realise that I used to stay longer in stages of complacency then because I was well within my comfort zone but now I am at a point where I can't let myself lose sight of my goals for long.

Here are five more things I realised now that I never realised before about staying motivated to achieve our goals.

• Consistent motivation is hard where results aren't immediately visible.

I started to think of working towards my goals as me planting a seed to grow a plant. After planting a seed in the soil, which in this instance equates to writing down your goals, you need to place it in the right environment and water the seed consistently for it to grow. However the seed will not immediately start growing out of the soil to be visible to you as a plant.

This is the same as getting results after working consistently to some of your goals. If you want to tone your body it won't be toned within a week but you must work everyday. You need to place yourself in the right environment to work toward your goal and be consistent before the results can be visible to you. Consistency is hard in that case. I haven't been working out for three weeks and last week my motivation to continue was thrown off by a day I was bloated. I saw myself going the opposite of my goal and that demotivated me. Not seeing results is demotivating

• Failure truly is success in progress.

There are always lessons after failure to achieve a goal. Look at it like this, if you created a budget plan and a goal yet you keep going out of your budget no matter how cautious you try to be, it doesn't mean that you are not progressing in your financial intelligence. Every mistake you avoid repeating financially shows that you are not stuck in one place. Also it takes a few trials before getting something right. There is growth in trying over and over again.

• It's important to identify patterns of loss of motivation in your life.

Life will never follow the script we have in planning out our goals. These things that cause us to lose our motivation are constant intruders in our lives. We have no control over how many things occur in our lives but we have a lot of control over how we react and long we allow them to affect us. In my case, I was proud to have felt the fear and faced it. And whenever it resurfaces that's exactly what I need to do consistently going forward. Feel what you feel but don't stay in it for long.

• Nothing works without faith

Simply if you don't truly believe in your ability to reach your goals then you will not. Any little obstacle that tries to steer you away from your target will manage to do so. When you run into an agent of demotivation, push yourself to get up and remember the real truth, "you need to keep going and you can do it".

• Be disciplined but don't push yourself too hard!

There are just days when you just don't want to do anything no matter how hard you try to stay focused. On those days it's important to remember never to bully yourself into productivity. The schedules we set for ourselves should never be used as agents to pressure ourselves into working beyond what we can. Rest when you need to but always remember to get back on the horse.

Conclusion

I don't really think there is a secret formula to mastering how to sustain motivation because lack of motivation has so many causes. Obstacles in life are inevitable. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to try to notice the patterns and causes of demotivation in our lives and confront them for what they are.

If you can get clear on what your goal is, believe in yourself enough and conscientiously plan your actions accordingly, there is nothing that should stop you if you work hard and consistently enough for it. I hope this has motivated somebody to start working on something they have always wanted to do or helped someone to get back on track!