Lack of motivation can be a normal way of life for many people. It usually takes place when the physical body has no energy and the heart has no desire. What generally contributes to this level of blah is our level of fitness, our diet, the amount of daily exercise, and whether we are following our doctor’s orders by ingesting the proper medication. Taking care of your physical needs may be all you need to do to prime the pump and your down and out, up and out. However, for those who suffer from mental and emotional issues, no matter how the physical body is, the unseen anchors that bind and block them for years are really the only means of escape.     

Mentally:

The way we think can impair our motivation. Negative thoughts have been proven to weaken our system and limit success. If you tend to be negative and see the glass as half empty, switching to positive thinking may help you gain back the motivation you need, but it is not a one-time endeavor. Chronic negative thinking needs to be chronic positive thinking, but this may seem too difficult to even attempt.

A person in treatment recently asked me to define what being in your loving heart means. They confessed to never experiencing any type of love from others. Have you ever tried to explain something emotional logically? It was difficult. But when I asked them how they felt when they were hugging their kitten, they understood. The same goes for thinking positively. If you’ve always been negative and felt everything was going to fail and switched this to being positive, it needs an element of hope. We asked the group about the positives in their life and after being prompted stated that the only positive thing this person knew was it was positive for them to be in treatment and learn how to change their ways.  

How many negative thoughts in a day do you have? Chronic negative thinking has been linked to immune disorders, dissatisfaction in relationships, with work, and speeding up the aging process. Since these thoughts come from ourselves, there can be an addictive quality to chronic negativity. If we are used to always losing, then we will anticipate it and stop trying. Have you considered that it may take one more step toward your goal and you may actually achieve it?

If you think you can, if you think you cannot, you’re right.

– Henry Ford

When our thoughts are chronically negative, we see no hope, we give up, and find little pleasure in life. This is referred to as “Learned Helplessness.” We’ve trained ourselves to fail, we expect it, so without even trying, we give up.   

To change constant negative thoughts, the first step is to purge them out of you. Free-form writing is a process where you write down your thoughts on paper, then, after you are done, rip it up and discard it. Once you reduce the negativity in your mind, replace it with positive. Write out a positive statement and repeat it. When you are aware of thinking negativity, force-feed these positive thoughts to provide less time for your mind to get stuck in automatic mode.

Try this: Jot down three qualities you would like to experience in your life and repeat them 100 times daily for the next 32 days minimum. This is known as a personal affirmation.  

An example: “I am positive, caring, and full of hope.” Even if you don’t believe the statement, repeating it 100 times a day helps that message sink in. Even if you lack the motivation to do 100, 40 helps. In this regard, some effort is better than none.  

Psychology has become more scientific and believes the automatic brain wiring that happens when you repeatedly think about life a certain way, plays a big part in limiting motivation. Once our brain is wired, it takes great effort to rewire oneself to think more hopeful. We have created the negative wiring, we can also create positive wiring.  

Here are other proven methods to wire yourself positively:  

1. Positive intentions help you set a goal for yourself and make incremental steps toward it.

For example: “My intention is to be positive. My intention is to be supportive of myself. My intention is to achieve my goal.”

Set intentions throughout the day to remind yourself of the qualities you would rather experience and then proceed in that direction.  

2. Taking one more step – just when you want to give up, give it one more effort. Who knows? That might be all you need to achieve your goal.
3. Self Praise – when you do something more beneficial, celebrate it.

For example: I appreciate myself for substituting water for food when I am having late-night cravings.    

4. Seeing problems as a blessing – when we go through something difficult, we can use it to stop us in our tracks or learn from it and try to move forward differently. Suddenly problems aren’t seen as a bad thing, but something that helps us improve. Life is trial and error. It took a lot of falling before we learned how to walk. If our intention is to improve, we can.
5. Narrative Therapy – uses this same concept. In the Narrative Therapy approach, they believe that all of our past problems are stored as stories. Many of them have us believing we are losers or victims. To change this, our stories need to highlight how creative and strong we were. This is called “reframing negatives into positives.” Hey, it was a difficult situation but what I learned is that I can be crafty and resilient.

Yes, it can be difficult to be positive when the knee-jerk reaction is to look at only the negatives in a situation. Can you make it a possibility that positive can happen too, and to you?

Emotionally:

The emotional level is more of a relationship with self, level. Our slogan is: “The real issue is not your issue. The real issue is how you relate to yourself while you go through your issue.” Do you make a mistake and then beat yourself up? Do you see problems as opportunities for learning and growth?

Our relationships with others mirror our relationship with ourselves. If we are hard on ourselves, we will be hard on those who are close to us. Do you like you? When was the last time you told yourself something kind?

Our group does Self-Appreciation each morning. Follow this format:

“I appreciate myself for…” What do you appreciate yourself for?

“I appreciate myself for reading this article.”

One client told me the other day, “But, this is so hard. I’m not used to being nice to me.”

Even being unkind to ourselves takes effort. You choose how to dole out your energy.

Improving motivation can simply mean taking a few steps first and giving it one more try before you pack things in, and then noting the results. This may take on the appearance of going for a walk around the block when you aren’t ready to go for a run. Replacing junk food with something more healthy, or even telling yourself something kind when you normally are critical. Little changes add up to big victories.

Here’s the good news: You were motivated enough to finish reading this article. This may seem like something very small, but completing even the smallest tasks can be praiseworthy. That is the real love of self. Maybe now is the time to get off your ifs, buts, and excuses, and give it one more extra step.