Why is taking you so long to update your CV and apply for the job promotion that you always wanted? What’s keeping you from completing that project that could generate massive profits if it succeeds? Have you ever faced motivation challenges?
Feeling demotivated can negatively impact your personal and professional lives. It also has an impact on your physical and mental health.
Here are some of the challenges to motivation that one faces in their career and personal life:
Unrealistic Expectations
One should believe in their abilities, but one should keep themselves from setting unrealistic expectations. You probably expect yourself to be more accomplished than you are at your current age, but setting unrealistic expectations can cause your self-esteem to suffer a massive blow.
Absence of Sense of Purpose
Having goals gives your life a sense of direction. You have a path that you can tread to accomplish that goal. Without motivation, people work for the sake of it while craving the desire to do something meaningful in life. Feeling like your work lacks meaning and you have no goals in life can make you feel demotivated.
Fear of Failure
The desire to maintain perfectionism keeps you from moving forward or having a fear of doing something incorrectly.
Fear of Success
Low self-esteem tends to distort people’s perception of success. You probably don’t believe success is possible and lack the drive to achieve it.
Overworking
Having too much on your plate can overwhelm you. And when you fail to get the work done in time, it can leave you feeling like a failure and lower your confidence.
Lack of Short-term Goals
While setting long-term goals gives you a direction to follow, short-term goals bring a sense of achievement that keeps you motivated. Accomplishing and celebrating small achievements is paramount to feeling motivated.
Lack of Clarity
Not knowing what to do next or not understanding why you are doing what you are doing can make people lose motivation.
Abundant Choices
Having too many choices on your plate can wear you out. It can make you paralyze and cause you to take no action.
Boredom
When your work does not challenge you, it loses significance for you. Not feeling challenged can make you feel bored. Your work feels monotonous. It doesn’t inspire new ideas in you. One also loses interest in their work and feels bored when what they are doing is too easy for them.
Exhaustion
Adequate sleep is important for the best functioning of the body and mind. It’s difficult to remain motivated when you are worn out.
Comparison
It only encourages negative thinking to compare yourselves to your coworkers, family, friends, neighbors, or anyone else. This is a tried-and-true method for demotivating yourself. There will always be someone doing something you wish you could do who is more successful and younger. You might decide not to even try for something you know you can succeed in if you can’t see how to achieve the same level of success.
Self-doubt
Often people fail to see the value in themselves. They begin to doubt their skills and wonder if their skillset makes them competent enough to try out new and exciting ventures in life. It can be a result of a lack of self-awareness and validation from people they deem important in their lives.
Patience
People usually have such high standards for themselves and demand quick outcomes. When you feel like things should be moving along quickly, it can be discouraging to keep going.
Negative Outlook
Though it’s important to assess both the negative and positive outcomes of an action, focusing too much on the negative aspect can render you feeling demotivated.
Excuses
Everyone makes excuses. They are the unfavorable thoughts you keep repeating to yourself and which keep you from acting. You frequently utter phrases like, “I’d like to do ‘x,’ but I’m too tired, too busy, not smart enough, or…”
Blame game
It is easy to get caught in the blame game and increasingly difficult to snap out of it. You never hold yourself accountable for your faults. Eventually, you begin to feel helpless because blaming others doesn’t help you. It keeps you from progressing and makes you feel demotivated and affects your self-confidence.
Drudgery
Routines can be helpful, but they can also get so boring that you lose interest in keeping them up.
Distractions
You can lose focus and motivation for working on what is most important when your attention is being drawn in too many directions.
How Can You Combat Motivation Challenges?
There are, fortunately, many solutions that help you combat motivation challenges:
Minimize Distractions
The constant buzz of Instagram notifications, Twitter’s chirps, and Facebook’s reminders serve as instant distractions that make it difficult to focus on achieving your goals and targets. You don’t have to stop using your phone, but try to stay off of social media as much as you can to avoid losing your focus. Minimizing your use of social media also keeps you from constantly comparing yourself with your peers.
Stop being a perfectionist
One should constantly strive to improve, but being a perfectionist is impossible. Failure is a necessary component of the journey. Trial and error is how you learn and correct your course of action. As Thomas Edison once said, ‘I have not failed. I’ve just discovered 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ Consider this different angle.
Appreciate Yourself
Being appreciated for your work feels good, right? Why rely on validation from others to make yourself feel good? Start appreciating yourself now. Appreciating yourself makes one feel motivated to put in more effort. Play your favorite instrument. Watch a feel-good movie. Bake your grandma’s chocolate cake. Enjoy yourself as much as you can.
Set Clear Goals
Having too many choices and setting too many, vague goals isn’t gonna get you anywhere. Take a step back, limit your options, and go over your ongoing projects, goals, and values. Decide what you really want to work on and focus your energy on that.
Stay Restful
Change your current sleep pattern and needs. Get a good night’s sleep and stay rested. Find out how many hours of sleep are necessary for you to feel fully energized.
The Ending Note
You are a human being. It’s not possible to be motivated all the time. But if it’s coming a little too big of a problem for you, find out what your specific motivation challenge is and use any of the abovementioned solutions. You might end up feeling motivated after all.