7 THINGS THAT CAUSES YOU TO LACK MOTIVATION AND SOLUTIONS TO THEM

Last Updated on August 15, 2022 by Joshua Isibor

We have all suffered from a lack of motivation, at one point in our lives or the other.
Motivation is the fire of our lives, and to make fire you need the wood, the matches, and the heat from the fire. Without motivation, it is impossible to accomplish set goals and achieve those goals.

If you are suffering from a lack of motivation or you are struggling with finding motivation lately, check your fire. You could be having problems with your wood, your matches, your kerosene, or you could be even using wet wood or even worse pouring water on your fire.

Luckily for you, today we would be discussing the things that could be possibly wrong with your fire (things that are causing you to lack motivation) and how to rekindle your fire (fix these problems that cause you to lack motivation).

Seven major reasons that cause you to lack motivation and their possible solutions are:

1. Your mindset:

mindset

Talking about mindset, your mindset is one of the biggest reasons that make you lack motivation. There are two types of mindset, the fixed mindset, and the growth mindset.

People with a growth mindset are open to new things and ready to learn. But people with a fixed mindset are where the major concern is as they lack motivation. You have a fixed mindset if you are not open to learning new things. People with a fixed mindset are set in their ways and beliefs.

They lack motivation because they believe that things are what they are, so there is no need in striving to learn new things.
If as a person you have already concluded in your mind that doing a particular thing is impossible or a waste of time and resources, then there is no way you can be motivated to do it.

Solution:

To overcome the problem of mindset as a tool that causes a lack of motivation, you have to learn to control your mindset. Work towards developing your fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Be open to new learning positive new things. Learn to control and direct your line of thoughts. Avoid thinking negative thoughts.

2. You don’t know what you want and why you want it:

Another reason why many people lack motivation or are unmotivated is that they don’t know what they want out of life.
A lot of people can tell you everything and anything about their favorite actors, musicians, and football stars, but when asked what they want especially out of life, they don’t know.
You will agree with me that a man with no goal will not be motivated to do anything.

A perfect example will be a college student who comes from a rich family, that already guarantees them a job upon graduation. You will agree with me that most students from such backgrounds lack the motivation to do anything other than keep average grades and party. The same applies to a person without ambition, they will do nothing except Netflix and chill.

Now, it is also not enough that you know what you want. Knowing what you want without knowing why you want those things can also make you lack the motivation to carry out those things you want.

Solution
Write down your goals (what you want) and why you want them. This will serve as a fuel (motivation) that will propel you to achieve your goals. Writing your goals down isn’t just enough, but also envision yourself (imagine how your life will look like) when you achieve those goals. This will also help you garner the motivation you need to succeed.

ALSO, READ HOW TO BE DETERMINED AND ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

3. Fear:

Another reason why many of us lack motivation is fear. Especially fear of failure. We begin to lose motivation the moment we start living in fear. Fear comes when you don’t believe in yourself (self-doubt).

You begin to imagine how people will look at you as a failure if eventually, you don’t achieve those goals you set. The moment you start doubting yourself, you begin to invite all the elements of fear like procrastination, anxiety, resistance, and excessive worrying. Immediately you start experiencing this, you start losing motivation and focus.

Solution

Make sure you expel every atom of fear in you. Positive daily declarations can greatly help boost your motivation. Believe in yourself, it is the first step to boosting your self-esteem and motivating yourself.

4. You feel overwhelmed:

Most times, you might have a lot of other things on your plate that are taking a lot of time and energy from you. Making you weak, tired, and stressed out. It mostly makes you lack motivation, to carry out other activities or goals you set for yourself. A very good example of this type of issue that might zap your energy includes (relationship stress, family issues, etc)

Other times, you might have set a lot of goals for a short or little time frame. And the thought of achieving those many goals makes you start feeling fear and from there procrastination enter, you lose motivation to carry even one single goal out of the numerous goals you set for yourself.

Solution:

Make out time to rest and regroup. Schedule time for yourself (make out a timetable or a to-do list for each day). Planning for the day is easier and more achievable than planning for a long period (say weekly or monthly).

Set long-term goals, but also learn to break those long-term goals into daily short-term goals. So as not to be overwhelmed whenever you think of the future.
A good example of how to breakdown a large goal is planning a vacation with your family,
First off, you will need to think of a good location, suitable for families; you then decide how long you are going to spend there; the estimated amount for rooms and board; clothes befitting the climates of where you are visiting, and the kinds of stuff related to it.

Now when you break down the vacation planning like this and decide to accomplish 2 out of it every day, you would discover that it isn’t as overwhelming as trying to do it all in a day.

5. You are not doing enough:

when you are not aiming high enough or planning big for yourself, you tend to lose or lack motivation. Most people lack motivation because they are hiding under the disguise of under-promising and over-delivering, forgetting that your mind controls you. That is why you are always advised to think big always. Also, many people see envisioning extremely big things for themselves as greed, so they downsize their dreams and aspirations.

They settle for less. Most times they end up doing less than they envisioned because they consider their dreams small and doable, and they end up losing the motivation to do it at all.

Solution:
To avoid losing motivation due to not doing enough, it is advisable to use the “10X rule”, which says that you should dream 10X of what you want to achieve and work 10X more than you initially planned to work towards that goal. The bigger you dream, the more motivated you get to achieve that dream.
Learn not to settle for less, but rather reach for more. Encourage yourself. The more you that the more driven and motivated you become.

6. Unhealthy Lifestyle and Psychology:

living an unhealthy lifestyle and not being in charge of your psychology, is also a great drainer of motivation. Imagine the chances that someone who is a couch potato (one who does nothing but sit on the couch all day long, and mostly eats unhealthy foods) becoming a quarterback.

It’s highly impossible because he is not motivated to even leave the couch not to talk of even joining the school football team and going to practice.

Now your psychology is the way you look outwardly (your posture). You will agree with me that a man determined and motivated does not stand, sit or walk the same way as a man who lacks motivation and focus.

Solution:
To get back motivation in the case of the couch potato person, they must be ready to change their habits. Most times we lack motivation because of our habits and set in ways. Therefore we must make a conscious decision to change our unhealthy lifestyle ( by eating healthy foods, working out, etc) remember that a physically ill man cannot carry out any mental activity.

Now, to take control of your physiology, look around you and find a highly motivated person, and study the physiology of that determined and motivated person around you. Try copying then and see if you won’t start acting like a motivated person already.

7. Impatience:

The reason why most of us are greatly unmotivated is impatience. A lot of times, we compare our success rate to that of others. We lose the zeal to continue immediately if we don’t attain the height we want at the exact time we wanted to get there. We forget that good things take time to be achieved.

At times, we look at those friends who started at the same time as us and are making huge progress as us, and we become depressed. Forgetting that we can only run as fast as we pace ourselves, Instead of being motivated by their success stories and becoming motivated to do more, we quit.

Solution:

To overcome impatience, learn to be patient and celebrate your small successes and victories.
Learn to be motivated by the success stories of others rather than being depressed by them. Always remember that you compete with no one, don’t be a people pleaser.

Apart from solutions to these problems, you can also talk to a therapist about the issues plaguing you if you can’t work on them by yourself.

Remember, to always declare positivity upon yourself daily as it is the highest builder of motivations.
See you at the top.

ALSO, READ 400+ Motivational Quotes about success and Life by Reno Omokri