Having motivation is great. It’s an external source of energy, will and makes doing what you love easy. But what if your motivation was being taken away without you even knowing? Wouldn’t you want to fix that leak, and prevent it from affecting you?
Here are some motivation killers of which you need to be aware.
1. Negative people
Negative people have one goal in mind – to bring you down. These are the people that cannot accept you, and consistently work to hurt, belittle or suck away your motivation. They rarely have anything to contribute, and putting someone down (or bringing them down to their level) is how they see contribution. Stay away from these leeches. They commonly hold envy for you and what you’re doing with your life. Regardless of your accomplishments or recent achievements, they will try to not only make you feel bad so they can feel better, but try and hurt you in the process. If any of these people are in your life, just remove them without hesitation. You deserve better.
2. Negative news
We’re constantly around some sort of influence whether it comes from: T.V, friends, social media, newspapers, the internet and so on. This influence has the ability to affect you in two ways: It will either motivate you and leave you feeling more positive about yourself or it will suck away your energy and leave you feeling unmotivated. Now I’m going to guess you’d rather end up feeling more positive so you can use that energy to do what it is you love doing.
Imagine for a day, if all the influence you had was positive and everyone was encouraging, how would you feel? You’d feel amazing, and be ready for anything that comes your way. Negative news on the other hand is going to slowly bring you down, eventually draining your energy and leaving you unmotivated. I recently went out for coffee with a friend of mine and all they did was complain. I hate this, I can’t stand this person, and most of all I hate it when people do this. Even though this person was talking about different things it was all related to negativity. And after an hour, I started feeling angry because of what I was constantly listening to. When I went home I did nothing – and just went to bed feeling unmotivated. It’s safe to say I won’t be seeing that person anymore.
3. Fear of failure
Failure is a huge motivation killer. We let failure define too much. Most of us look at failure in one way – that our effort means nothing and that we failed at what we did. This is a misconception. You didn’t fail at anything, you’re just looking at failure the wrong way. I’ve realized failure is a feedback system. It tells you what you did wrong, so you can have the opportunity to fix it, reflect, and grow for the next time. Failure is a wonderful tool to help you learn.
Last week I got in a fight with a loved one, and after our argument I felt I failed. I was down, and motivation was at an all time low. So I took some time and looked over what had happened, and I tried not to personalize our fight so much, and look for the lesson from this failure. It taught me to be more open, and try to understand the situation that they are coming from, and their perspective of the situation. Once I did that, I apologized and we worked it out. If it hadn’t been for failure, I would’ve never apologized and made our relationship stronger.
4. Inaction
You have dreams, aspirations or goals. But they don’t become reality if you don’t do one thing – take action. And all this requires is a simple fix from you. Just take action, anything will do, no matter how small or big. Just take it. When I was trying to register my website I spent weeks looking for the right name. And I finally found one, and it was available! Instead of spending the 10-15 minutes to register it right away, I put it on the back burner and started doing other things. A month later, I went to register it and the name was taken. I felt upset and unmotivated to continue with the website because what I thought of was taken. The bottom line is this: don’t overthink it, and just do it.
5. Don’t overdo it
Don’t burn yourself out. This might sound contrary to the point above, but remember you’re not a robot. Being productive is great, but there are times when you just need to stop, and take a break. Taking a break has been proven to: reduce stress, increase productivity, give you a brand new perspective, and relax you. Last month I wrote a total of over 1000 words each day. It was an amazing feeling, but each day felt heavier on me. By the end of the month I was completely done. I couldn’t write anymore; It was the worst feeling ever. I took a whole week off from writing and just decided to take it slow. Burning yourself out is only going make you tired, kill your motivation and stop your momentum.
6. Forget the past.
It’s in the past. It’s not here, right now. So move on. Simple advice, but it’s really to implement hard. I’ve found focusing on your breath works very well. Get in the habit of being conscious of your breathing: focus on your inhale, your exhale and the pause in-between. I always bring up past issues into my life, even though they serve no purpose and are always negative. These negative feelings don’t help me out with anything, and just reference a time in my life which I wasn’t happy about. There are times when I fully involve myself in my past, and I forget everything around me.
7. Stop living in the future.
I used to always micro manage every single detail of my future. I would expend my energy, motivation and thinking to a time that never existed. And there was only one thing certain of my future: It never turned out exactly as I planned it. So, similar to the past, there is no future. There’s no certainty of anything. Focusing on how you want your future to be is nonsense. There’s only one way to create your future – by doing the work that needs to be done, right now.
8. Don’t forget about yourself.
We live in a face paced world. So are some responsibilities you have to take care of. But remember that you are the priority. You have a choice to do what it is you want. Find time for yourself, and make your schedule work for you, don’t work for your schedule! I learned this lesson the hard way. A year ago I spent nearly two weeks helping a friend in a tough situation. I helped him move out, helped him with finances, talk to him. I was constantly around him helping him out. A month later he got a new girlfriend, and he completely forgot about me. We stopped spending time together, and my relationship with myself was gone. I spent so much time focusing on his life, that I forgot about mine. Don’t forget to ask yourself first. You always have the power to say no.
What are some of the ways that you’ve felt killed your motivation? And how did you deal with it? Let me know in the comments.
Featured photo credit: …you guys go on…/Graham Reznick via flickr.com
