Let me know if this is familiar to you? Everything is going well. You are getting things done at work as well as getting after new goals. You feel motivated, creative, and in control. You are firing on all cylinders, cranking out good work with a lot of optimism and an almost subconscious clarity. Then this happens. One morning, you walk into your office, sit down, and nothing. For whatever reason, the drive and motivation that seemed like it was just there, is nowhere in sight. You think, maybe you are overtired or perhaps the weekend was a little too rough and it’s just a bad day.
But what about when that is not the case and it’s not just a bad day? Rather, a day you had wanted to get a lot done but, it’s just not there. It doesn’t make sense, does it?
This was a very familiar pattern for me. In addition to running my business, I take on new projects in both my personal and professional life regularly. I experience a massive amount of motivation to take action in directions I want to go, but, for whatever reason, it can all seem to disappear. My creativity and optimism replaced with frustration and doubt. Ending up in survival mode only getting the things done that need to get done while ignoring everything else. Essentially, I stall out.
So how do I deal with this? What adjustments did I make to eliminate this stalled out effect from demotivation?
First, I had to confront this idea of motivation. For me, motivation has two separate types. The first type is like a microburst. This motivation is full of confidence that aggressively drives change through new ideas and actions. The second is a more long term general motivation. It focuses on big-picture stuff, paying for life’s necessities and being able to retire one day. After differentiating between the two, I became aware that these microbursts are where I struggled the most.
By acknowledging this, I also became aware of the patterns and that the pattern repeats. The motivation never truly goes away, it just takes breaks and unfortunately, I can not control that.
The solution I realized was that I needed to get consistent. That regardless of how I felt, I needed to keep working on my goals. I knew that If I only took meaningful action during the periods of motivation, I wasn’t going to get anywhere. To truly get where I wanted to go I had to build momentum, not stall it. Consistency is critical to build momentum and to be truly consistent means working through the days of demotivation.
So how to get consistent? It starts with how I approach a goal or objective. I essentially reverse engineer my goals and break them down into their critical success factors. Depending on the size of the goal and what is truly involved will dictate how formal this needs to be. In new business ventures, we call this the Business Plan. For smaller goals and objectives I don’t believe it needs to be as formal. The important first step is making sure I understand what I ultimately want to accomplish and then clearly write it out. Not just the what, but the why. Also known as a “Mission and Vision Statement.” Sometimes, simply reading this is enough to get back in gear when I am feeling demotivated. This first step helps align my new goals and objectives with my long term big-picture goals and objectives. This helps move the microburst’s motivation into the general big picture motivation.
Taking time to do this in the height of the microburst also creates clarity. I realized that by aligning my goals and achieving clarity, I also reaffirmed my purpose or, the why.
Now it made sense, without clarity, goal alignment, and purpose, how could I ever expect myself to stick to anything?
Now that my purpose is established, I pull the critical success factors further apart into the required steps and actions to get me from where I am, to where I want to go. Then I make a plan.
In the past, I would rely on the aggressive periods of motivation and drive to get everything done. I realized this is because when I felt like this I could shoot from the hip and do alright. I never took the time to make a good plan.
Simply having a plan does not prevent the motivation from going away. What changes is what I am now prepared to do when it is gone. Rather than shut down, I fall back on the plan. I don’t need to be motivated to execute actions, I need to be disciplined. I may not be able to control my motivation, but I can control my discipline. Discipline is what separates those who do, from those who don’t do. Successful people do not wake up every morning firing on all cylinders, they just have the discipline and grit to keep working on the things they know they believe in.
Yet still, I am not perfect, far from it. I still slack off and have days that I would rather do nothing at all than a little bit of work. Making these adjustments has significantly improved how I operate by making sure I always have something to do. I no longer can make the excuse that I will work on something when I am motivated and in the right headspace. That excuse came from not knowing what to be doing.
It is these things that have helped me conquer demotivation. Realizing that the goal is not staying motivated, it is building momentum through consistent action. Sure I may just be going through the motions but at the end of the day, that is all it takes.
HRZN HNTR 