You’re in luck if you’re suffering from a lack of motivation, because you’re about to learn the 7 main reasons why you’re short on the motivational energy you need to achieve your goals successfully… And exactly how to fix each of them.

You’ll have the skills you need to unleash the motivating engine inside you by the time you’re finished reading this.

1. Lack of clarity

This first one is by far the most popular of all the reasons responsible for why you may be lacking in the motivation department: either you don’t know what you want, or there’s a lack of clarification about what you want.

One of the first questions I ask whenever I do goal-setting workshops with individuals is What do you want?” ”

You will be shocked by how many individuals are unable to provide me with a convincing answer to that issue.

In other words: What is the result that you are after? If all were to go exactly as expected or better, what would it look like?

When we are confused of what we are after in the first place, it is hard to get motivated to do something at all. On the other hand, if we take those fuzzy visions that we have and put them into focus by writing them down as targets, then the inspiration will naturally flow.

They will give you so many numbers that make your head spin if you ask a traditional sports fanatic about their favourite team. From pace to points per game and on and on, they will give you all the information you need to know about a team and its players.

Yet they can hardly recall what they had for dinner last night when someone asks them about the particulars of their own lives.

And it is also not a question of intelligence.

I think most individuals are just as smart as they make up their minds to be. They wouldn’t have such an in-depth knowledge of the stats of their favourite team if it were a matter of intellect.

It’s not a matter of intellect. It’s about concentration.

If in any area of your life you lack motivation, it’s likely because you haven’t decided what you want in that area in detail. And there’s anything we can’t concentrate on if we don’t realise what we’re striving for.

My solution

The solution to the first explanation behind why most people lack motivation is straightforward. Bear in mind that a mark that you can’t see can’t be reached. That said, in each of the major areas of your life, define and write down some persuasive, exciting goals for yourself – physical, financial, emotional, spiritual, etc.

2. Physiological expression

Take a moment to visualise in your mind what a person really looks like, physically, who has a lack of motivation.

How do they stand if a person is unmotivated? Where are they seated? Have they got a good posture or a bad posture? Are they held upright by their shoulders or are they slumped forward? Is their back rounded or upright?

Now imagine what a completely inspired person looks like…

Where does a driven individual stand? Close and narrow, or upright and open?

How does a driven individual walk? Head holding low, or head holding high? Are they slumped forward with their shoulders, or pushed back neatly as they walk?

Where are they seated? What’s their stance like? Are they sitting upright, or are their backs bent forward? =

How are they speaking?

Where are they standing?

What if I told you that by mimicking the images of a motivated person that you just pictured in the eye of your mind, you might immediately motivate yourself?

My solution

Motion contributes to being inspired. Learn to monitor your physiological state if you want to get inspired. This is how:

Next, find out what kinds of gestures you make spontaneously when you feel inspired…
Do those things, then and your mind is going to suit your body.
When you put yourself in a position to genuinely feel more motivation, you’ll begin to feel more motivated. When you’re motivated, act like you move. When you’re motivated, stand like you stand.

Here is my dumb, but extremely effective, method of using my body to lift my motivation: Jump in the air. The hands clap. And at the top of your lungs, scream out.

Only try it and see if your state does not change.

3. Low target level

Whatever we try to accomplish, writing a book, losing weight, achieving the ideal relationship with our significant others, it is the degree of ambition that we have to reach those goals that ends up being the main factor in achieving them.

But so many people are trying to put restrictions on their wishes. They say they don’t need crazy success, they tell themselves and others. This kind of thinking is risky because we restrict the scope of what we’re willing to do to accomplish our goals when we limit the scope of our desire. And when we narrow the scope of what we are prepared to do, we restrict the scope of our encouragement.

A lack of thrilling and desirable quickly leads far too many individuals down the path of motivation levels that are lacklustre.

You will restrict what you are willing to do to build it if you limit your future success, which limits your motivation, not to mention your overall feeling of satisfaction about the life you lead.

What is known as the 10X Rule is the solution to this problem, which states that:

You need to set goals that are 10 times what you believe you want and then do 10 times what you think it’s going to take to achieve those goals.

While some people would tell you that setting unrealistic targets destroys motivation and that “underpromising and overdelivering” is safer, this line of reasoning is simply dumb.

10X-targets, often referred to as “stretch goals,” can only inspire you to do more and try more than you have ever done before. Besides, even if we fall short of achieving our goals and ambitions at the 10X level, it’s better to fall short of achieving a massive goal than just achieving a small one because if you aim high enough you’re going to demand more from yourself and get better in pursuit of a massive goal.

My solution

We appear to feel lethargic and unmotivated to accomplish them when we have puny, uninspiring objectives. On the other side, we feel motivated and invigorated to take steps towards achieving them because we have big and optimistic goals.

Set huge targets, then. Take action massively.

Pressure yourself to the limits of the outermost. You will find that the more you take action, the more you become more inspired to continue doing even more.

4. Highly overwhelmed

“Have you ever been so stressed, under so much pressure, so overwhelmed, that you’d rather say Screw it. “I don’t even care,” than to keep marching on with something you’re trying to do?

One thing we know about being frustrated (or stressed to the gills), regardless of the cause, is that it can sap motivation, big time.

When you’re overwhelmed, it is difficult to get motivated.

Here are a few realistic solutions to get you on track again…

My solution

Perhaps you took the point I made earlier, about your objectives of aiming higher and 10X-ing to get you inspired, to heart. But maybe you have also been striving a little higher than your current capabilities. If that’s the case, lower the bar bit-by-bit before you find your sweet spot (which is between your current skill and a target that’s just hard enough to accomplish that you have to stretch to accomplish it).

Or, you might just have way too many things on your plate. If that’s the case, rather than attempting to do so many things concurrently, it’s time to pair up and concentrate on smashing one major target at a time. This is like the old saying,

“You won’t even catch one if you chase two rabbits.”

5. Vulnerable to procrastination

If we don’t have enough clarity on what to do next, another factor that can trigger overwhelming, which leads to a huge depletion of motivation. Such uncertainty contributes to procrastination. And procrastination contributes to a loss of creativity.

Here is how this one should be fixed:

Chunk it down to an urgent step that is doable.

My solution

Take whatever it is that you lack the drive to do and chunk it down to an urgent, feasible next move that you can take right away.

I’ve recently been thinking about this workload, and because of the sheer volume associated with a project like this, I feel overwhelmingly frustrated and demotivated. And just as I was about to curl up in the corner of my office in the foetal position, I remembered I needed to take my own goddamn advice and chunk down this thing.

Instead of worrying about everything that needed to be achieved, I decided to ask myself What can I do right now to make progress on this objective?” For me the response to that was to write out the outline. What I’ve done. And when I started doing it the sense of motivation that began to bubble up was remarkable.

So the secret is here:

Think about whether you need to chunk stuff down into something feasible to move the ball forward if you’re low on motivation. And if that’s the question, chunk your idea into something doable (or whatever you’re not motivated about)-and then do it!

6. Not sufficiently precise

With ADHD, motivation is like a fickle, transient emotional creature. For an extended period of time, it’s hard to get it to focus on a single thing… unless you provide it with very specific directions.

One reason you can lack motivation is that you leave things too open.

The drive can disappear when things are unclear.

If you can’t tap into the inspiration you need to succeed, it could be because it’s too elusive about whatever you want to get motivated for. Here are a couple of examples of typical objectives that are much too vague:

Wake yourself up faster.
Train more.
Balanced eating.
If you were to pick any of the examples above, here’s how things will most likely turn out:

You’ll start off at the very beginning with lots of encouragement…

But you’ll find after a little while that the inspiration dies away and loses its potency.

What’s the remedy, then?

My solution

Give clear and actionable instructions to your brain. In order to unleash the motivational energy you are looking for, doing this will provide it with the regulated concentration it needs.

Asking yourself questions is an outstanding way to drill down and get precise. Here is a fantastic one that will narrow things down and spark some inspiration as a consequence:

How am I going to know I’m successful? ”

With something particular and measurable, answer the question.

Specific: To help clarify the idea, come up with at least 3 examples of pairing stretch goals with SMART goals; then draft/outline/record article and episode.

Measurable: Refer to my previously published goal-setting posts, along with 1-3 accurate goal-setting books. Then, brainstorm ideas before I decide on three excellent examples I can use to illustrate this idea clearly.

The more specific you are about the behaviours and habits that you need to take, the smaller they become. And the smaller the action, the simpler it is to empower yourself to do it. Eventually, those small, concrete steps you take on a regular basis are piled on top of each other, leading to a continuous sense of encouragement and achievement.

7. Seeking inspiration instead of seking habit

The final reason most individuals suffer from a continuing lack of motivation is simply that none of us can be motivated all the time at the end of the day. People always say to me, “Wow you’re so motivated.” But here’s the truth: I only look like I’m motivated all the time, when I’ve only been diligent in the reality of implementing some keystone habits that matter most to me in the areas of my existence.

You see, I don’t have to gather the courage to get up and go to the gym at 5am every morning, because it’s a routine.

Right now, I don’t have to push myself to concentrate on writing this post, because I have formed a habit of writing every day.

I don’t have to push myself to do what I’ve been used to in my life, because habits are things with little to no conscious thinking or effort that we do frequently and automatically.

So the real question here is How do you build habits?

My solution

A smarter way to achieve your objectives, and the behaviours you will need to achieve them, is to channel all your resources and concentrate on approaching each of them one at a time, as follows:

Choose your target: What is one big long-term goal that you are completely committed to achieving over the next 12 months or more?

Choose your habit: What is the ONE new habit you can make, so that you can meet or surpass your target by creating it? To find it out and write it down, take a moment.

Next, read what you can possibly know about how to do it correctly. Oh, go deep. One of my big habits, for instance, is writing. No matter what, I do it every single day. I never publish the bulk of what I write. And that’s great with me because without cranking out the bad stuff first, I can’t get the nice stuff. Every day, I write because my ultimate goal is to continue to evolve for the rest of my life as a writer. There’s always space for growth, no matter how amazing I think I may be.

Identify a habit that you should keep doing all the time. It needs to be something that, no matter what you can integrate into your routine and conduct on a regular basis. Eventually, without stressing about it or having to get yourself all motivated, it’ll be something you can do quickly. You have the habit installed at this stage, so it needs minimum effort to execute and you can put it on autopilot. And if you want to, you can start to develop another new habit now.

The last word

What’s the explanation for your lack of motivation? Identify why you feel demotivated and discuss with my above solutions the root cause of your lack of motivation, and you will soon find yourself motivated even at the most difficult period!