7 simple tips to help you boost your motivation when you need to get out of a slump and feel like yourself again.
You’ve likely noticed that motivation can be quite difficult to maintain all the time.
There are days when you feel like you can crush all of the tasks on your to-do list and other days when you barely have the energy to pull yourself out of bed.
Even the most simple tasks can leave you feel overwhelmed. You may feel stuck, unsure of yourself and you wonder how to pull yourself together and get your life back on track.
You’ve been there?
You’re not alone!
In this post, I’ll be sharing 7 effective ways to boost your motivation, get out of the slump and start feeling like yourself again.
Why We Lose Motivation
Before we can explore how to boost your motivation, we need to first understand why we get into those slumps in the first place.
Why do we lose motivation and what can be done to prevent us from getting so down in the dumps.
I’m sure you’ll agree that life is hard and there are many things that can cause us to feel down or lack the motivation we need to accomplish our goals.
I’ve had enough experiences dealing with a lack of motivation and I can identify a few common themes that crop up every now and again. These are:
1. Trying to ‘do it all’
‘Doing it all’ is a dangerous myth that many women,, moms especially, have bought into.
It’s the idea that you have to do all the things and have all the things in order to be perceived as successful. This mindset can lead you down a path where you start to take on too much without really questioning the importance of each new thing you add to your plate.
Our society has a history of glorifying hustle culture. Add to that our social media lifestyle where we only see the parts of peoples lives that they want us to see.
What we see is the picture of the mom boss. Successful in her career and home life. Somehow seems to handle it all with ease and with grace. You’re left wondering how they do it. You start to compare your reality to her highlight reel and suddenly the thoughts that you’re not doing enough or that your lazy start to creep in.
We focus on the outward and decide that working hard is as an indicator of success. Doing less, taking breaks, not being ambitious enough… well that means you’re lazy.
While there’s nothing wrong with working hard, you simply cannot do everything and do it well.
What you don’t see is how that mom is struggling to keep up behind the scenes. You don’t see her doubts, her insecurities, her fears.
Humans were not created to do life alone. When we try to take on more than we can handle, we can easily get overwhelmed and eventually burn out.
2. Unmet goals and expectations
The second reason we often lose motivation is due to unmet goals and expectations.
I’m all for the idea of setting big goals and doing everything you can to achieve your goals. However, what happens when you do all the right things and you fall short of your own expectations?
You stayed late at work every night and you didn’t make the promotion you expected.
You posted on Instagram everyday and you didn’t meet your goal for follower count.
The truth is that we can only control our actions- not the outcome. So it makes sense that facing unmet expectations is a common occurrence.
It’s easy to lose hope and start to lose motivation in these situations. It can be difficult to know how to get back up when you’re faced with this difficult blow.
The only way to avoid this is to stop placing your value and your worth on metrics, goals or outward factors.
While we recognize that these goals are important to achieve, you need to realize that you are enough as you are- whether you meet those outcomes or not.
When you understand this, it makes it easier to pick yourself back up an try a different strategy.
You are enough. You have always been enough. You will always be enough.
3. Comparison
Falling for the comparison trap and comparing your reality to other people’s highlight reel is so common especially in the current social media era.
When you start comparing yourself to people online, you find that you will never level up. You’re trying to compare your reality (flaws and all) to what people you don’t know have decided to show you (the highlights).
You may find yourself wondering ‘what’s the point?’ and the temptation to give up altogether can start to creep in.
Instead of listening to those voices inside your head, realize that you were created by God to be completely unique.
No one else on this planet has the same gifts and talents as you. No one else has the same life experiences, and no one can use their gifts in the way that you can.
The only person you should be comparing yourself to is you.
Your former self.
Seek to improve everyday so that when you look back and see how far you’ve come, it motivates you to keep going.
4. Impatience
Impatience is a character trait that most of us display at some point.
You start something and start to look for results right away.
Maybe you’ve seen someone grow their youtube channel in 3 months. You’ve been doing it for 3 years and you haven’t seen the progress you would have hoped for.
Or your favourite influencer has grown their audience to 100k followers. It took her 10 years to get there. You want your results now after just 2 years of business.
Success takes time.
The problem we face is that we often use someone else’s timeline as our own measure of success.
The way to prevent this from triping you up is to stay determined to the process.
Continue to do the work and be consistent, at the right time, whats yours will come to you.
5. Disinterest
Sometimes we lose motivation simply because we are doing what we think we should be doing as opposed to what we truly want to be doing.
Before you start anything, it is important to be really clear on your why.
Why is it that you want to start this new endeavour? What would it mean to you if you were to succeed. Once you know this, then ask yourself why that is important to you.
You may need to do a lot of self reflection to discover those things that really matter to you.
Here are 100+ Journal Prompts for Self Growth & Self Reflection to get you started.
I’ve found that when you are walking in alignment with your purpose, it is more difficult to lose motivation.
Learn to rest, not to quit.
How To boost your motivation
Now that we know why we lack motivation, let’s dive into learning what you can do to boost your motivation, get yourself out of the slump and start feeling like yourself again.
1. Accept Where You Are
Like they say in AA meetings, the first step in recovery is acceptance.
You need to accept that:
- You are in a funk and that you are not where you want to be.
- Things are not ok and in fact it is ok to not be ok.
- Everyone gets in a slump every once in a while and right now, this is where you are.
This can be hard to do, but very necessary.
No matter what kind of slump you find yourself in, you can always start by accepting and acknowledging your current situation.
2. Keep A Journal
Once you come to an understanding of your current state, I find it helpful to do some reflection.
I start to ask myself the following questions:
- What’s wrong?
- What area of life are you most frustrated with right now?
- What do you wish things would look like?
- What would you need to do to get to that dream destination in your state of mind?
Using these journal prompts help me to get my thoughts out of my head and unto paper where I can see things a bit more clearly.
You can start to notice certain patterns and themes in your thought process. As you work through your current situation, you may be able to identify how you got to this point and how you can get yourself out.
3. prioritize Rest
When you are in a slump, it’s difficult to dig yourself out if you don’t get the rest that you need.
The truth is that this process takes work and energy. So you need to fuel your mind and body so that you can get yourself unstuck.
4. Stay off social Media
Social Media often has a hand to play in why we lack motivation in the first place.
It goes without saying that Social Media therefore one of the worst places to be when you are going through a difficult time.
It’s easy to feel worse about your situation when it seems like everyone else has it all figured out while you are struggling to just get by.
I recommend unplugging from social media and focusing on your life offline. Spend time doing things you love and connecting with people you care about in real life.
Even if you decide to remain on social media, it’s important to unfollow and block accounts that don’t spark joy in you.
This can help you start to feel more like yourself.
4. Take small action daily
When we think of where we would like to be, the distance between where we would like to be and our present reality can feel very far when you’re in the middle of a difficult situation.
It’s important to break projects up into smaller and more actionable steps.
Instead of trying to climb the whole staircase today, why not climb just one step and worry about the rest another day.
If you want to launch a blog, break down that huge task into many bite sized pieces. Perhaps you can focus on choosing a blog name today and building the site another day.
When you focus on smaller tasks, it makes everything more manageable. You’re more likely to take action on tasks that you feel you can handle.
5. Practice gratitude
You don’t have to keep a journal or have anything written down.
Simply thinking of things that you are grateful for is a great place to start.
No matter how small it may be, if you are grateful for it, think about it.
You may choose to take it one step further (if you feel like it) by writing it down or taking a picture of what you’re grateful for so that you have a visual reminder.
6. read Affirmations and Motivational quotes
Affirmations are a powerful tool that we can use to improve your mood and wellbeing.
There’s a ton of research on this and its proven that our works and thought patterns really dictate our reality.
This doesn’t mean that you can snap your fingers and make your dreams a reality just by saying it. Affirmations really put the positive thoughts to your forefront. The more you say them, the more you start to believe them. As your belief grows, you also start to become and behave like the type of person you desire to become.
I’m sure you’ll agree that finding motivation when you feel down is not easy. Each of these simple yet effective tips can go a long way to help you boost your motivation.
Have you ever experienced burnout, what are some things that you do to overcome it and boost your motivation again?
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