One Million and Beyond

Lack of Motivation

By Matt - Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

I have been very unmotivated lately and it really shows in many places such as this blog. My time and energy have been consumed by a couple different things and the impact they’ve had to my motivation have been staggering. I used to have ideas for this blog popping up all over the place now it seems to have dried up. But I have been putting in an extra amount of energy into a side project idea lately, which I can see as being a creative drain. The good thing is that my lack of motivation hasn’t impacted working on this side project very much; I’m still extremely excited by it.

Unfortunately a lot of things around me have been impacted and it’s interesting to see how one aspect of your life impacts another. Lacking motivation could be coming from the office but it might be your hobbies that get impacted the most. When you’re overworked even though you’re busy you can see the motivation slowly ebb away and how the quality and level of work just trickles away as a result. The interconnectivity of everything no matter how much you compartmentalize it can be seen through motivation (at least to some extent).

Staying motivated can be a really big challenge sometime especially if the day-to-day grind is no longer something you love to do (or can tolerate any longer). I have been really busy at the office and I have been mentally drained for a while. In short I’m a bit burnt out. On the other side of the coin I have this little side project I’m working on which I’m working on and excited about and by itself it is keeping me motivated.

So how do I stay motivated?

In this particular case it’s actually my side project that is keeping me going. If it works out the way I hope it does then I won’t need to rely on my day-to-day job for all of the money coming in thus removing the day-to-day grind as required. I’m excited by the idea and the prospect that this brings and it illustrates how I keep the motivation flowing – rather than sit on my behind and moping about it I try to do something about the issues that are sitting on my mind. This isn’t always easy but having a goal however small gives you something to strive towards.

Another thing I try to do when I start feeling unmotivated is slowing down. I might be inadvertently overloading myself with too much of everything. Simplify everything in order to get some balance back into life. I limit commitments to really urgent ones and take some time for myself to relax and truly unwind. Taking on too much might be what’s inadvertently causing the problems.

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