Staying motivated every day can be a challenge, especially if your work involves doing the same thing each time. Today, I feel so lazy and I don’t know where to start. As a blogger, I choose to write and publish new content to this blog every Tuesday and Thursday, but today I’m feeling so lazy and no motivation at all. I just wish I can skip writing for today.
However, that didn’t happen. In the end, I choose to work on my goal, which is to write and publish this article.
I bet you have had days when you feel like no motivation at all and you just want to do nothing or get some sleep.
Hear me out, this is normal. Motivation comes and goes. We can’t stay motivated 24 hours. There are days when we’re so motivated and we completed all the items in our to-do lists and more, and there are also days when we’re in a slump and we just don’t want to do anything at all.
And if you want to be an achiever and accomplish greater success in life, you must learn how to manage your motivation.
Yes, there are times when successful people feel lazy and don’t want to do things too, but they know what they need to do when their motivation ebbs. They take the countermeasure so that they can still manage to get things done even when they don’t have the motivation to do it.
And this is what I’m going to share with you today. I’m sharing with you a simple plan of how to get motivated when you feel lazy.
Please understand that this is what I do to maintain my writing schedule each day. As a blogger, there is no one there to check my work, I need to hold myself accountable.
And I can choose to NOT write the articles and do something else, but luckily, I didn’t. I use some of the methods mentioned here to keep myself motivated and do what I need to get done.
If you are having a tough time finding or getting the motivation you needed, check out some of these strategies here. If they work for me, I believe they can work for you too.
Move your body
Yes, move your body and let your blood flows. When you feel lazy and don’t have the motivation, don’t sit or lay on the couch, instead, get up and move your body.
Go exercise if you want to. Or if you are in the office and you can’t exercise and make your body sweat, then just stand up and do some simple stretching. Trust me, after you have done this – move your body – you will feel so much better.
You will feel the energy coming from within you. Once you move your body, your blood flows faster and this oxygenated your brain. As a result, you become more alert, energetic, and hence, more motivation.
Turn on the radio
Here’s what I do on a regular basis too – turn on YouTube and listen to my favorite uplifting music to stay motivated.
Like now as I’m writing this sentence, I’m on my headphone listening to Victory, music composed by Two Steps From Hell.
There are a lot of music you can choose to listen to. Thus, choose the ones that you like the most and can uplift your mood.
And depending on what you’re going to do, if you need to write articles for your blog like me, choose to listen to music without lyrics. But if you’re doing things physically like working out in the gym, you can choose to listen to any of your favorite songs.
Read something inspiring
If you read my blog on a consistent basis, you’ll know that I’m an avid reader. I read a lot of books and on average, I read about 4 books a month.
I find that sometimes reading is not just for the knowledge, it is also for the motivation too. For example, when I read books like Delivering Happiness, Steve Jobs, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and more, they make me feel driven.
The key is that these books show you the possibility and what you can achieve in your life. Success books are inspiring because they can somehow connect your situation and show you how you can achieve the impossible.
And you don’t have to read just books. You can choose to read articles like this one or short e-books too. Just read whatever that inspires you.
Focus on the reward
So, you want to get motivated to get things done? Focus on the reward and feel excited about it.
For instance, if I think about the writing process where I need to chunk out words from my laptop, and I have to do this for hours to complete an article, it makes me feel lethargic.
Instead, I choose to think about the reward. I focus on the reward I’m getting from accomplishing the work. I imagine myself building a successful blog, having a lot of followers and earning a consistent income from it. I then picture myself having a vacation and travel to places that excite me. I even imagine myself driving my dream car as a result of my hard work.
When you do this, you will feel the excitement. The rewards will drive you forward. This is how you maintain your motivation.
Announce your target publicly
Do you dare to do this? Well, I bet you know that making a public commitment can be a good way to increase your commitment and motivation to get things done, but most people are not doing it.
In today’s world, you can do this easily using social media. Just post something like a challenge that you’re going to do on social media. Now, don’t get me wrong, you want to use it as a method to commit to your targets publicly, not to show off.
For example, I bet you have seen a lot of people take a picture of themselves in sports attire and post it to Facebook and announce to their friends that they’re going to run. You can do this too.
What’s more, after you have achieved your target, you can also post about it on social media as a way to celebrate your own hard work.
Take a power nap
Sometimes, no matter what you do, you just can’t find the motivation you needed. This is especially true when you’re tired and exhausted. Just take a quick power nap then.
Power nap supposed to be short and no longer than 45 minutes. You don’t want to fall into deep sleep mode where when you wake up, you will feel groggy. Just take a short nap for about 15 or 30 minutes will do.
After a short nap, you will feel refresh and more alert. I take power naps whenever necessary. And most of the times, I take naps in the early afternoon.
You should try this too.
Just start, really small
Do you want to know how to build up your momentum so that you will have the motivation to get going? Just start.
It is hard to push a car in the beginning, but once the car started to move, it will take you less energy to maintain the momentum. The same principle applies to your motivation.
You just need to get it started. Sometimes when I feel lazy to write articles, I will tell myself that I’m just going to do the draft or write the first few paragraphs. When I started to write, the motivation will come.
Guess what, once I begin to write, usually, I will just continue and complete with a 2,000 words article. This is the power of starting small.
- You don’t have to write a 2,000 words article, you just need to start with 100 words.
- You don’t have to exercise for 30 minutes, you just need to start with 10 push-ups.
- You don’t have to change your life entirely, you just need to commit and do one small thing a day.
Get help
Yes, when your motivation doesn’t work, seek help. Go and talk to someone else about it, anyone. It can be your friend, your spouse, your business partner, your colleague, your boss, your manager, or your parents.
What you need to do is to get out of the negative thinking cycle. So, talk to someone who is supportive and is willing to listen to you. After the talk, you will feel so much better. You will become more committed because you have just shared your plan too.
I often did this with my wife. I talk to her about my plan and what I’m going to do with my blog. When I feel no motivation, I talk to her about it too.
Change your environment
This is another great method to recharge yourself and regain your motivation. And I did this quite often.
Usually, I can focus on a task for a few hours. After that, I find that I will be easily distracted and find it challenging to maintain my concentration. What I do then is that I switch my environment.
Instead of working in my office or at my home, I take my laptop and work elsewhere, like a café nearby.
Now, maybe you can’t change your environment as I did, but you can change your workstation. For example, try to use a different table. Like instead of sitting to do your work, use the standing table or go and work in the pantry for a while.
Once your environment changed, so does your mood. This is how you can maintain your level of motivation and stay focused at your work.
Develop a personal mantra
How you talk to yourself matters. Like this quote from Robert Kiyosaki:
“Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.”
When you don’t have the motivation, what do you tell yourself? Do you tell yourself that you’re so tired and you just don’t want to do it? Or do you tell yourself that you don’t care, just screw it and do it no matter how?
Your thoughts determine your actions. And your actions ultimately determine your success.
Therefore, develop a personal mantra and repeat that mantra until it becomes a standard of operation in your life.
For instance, a simple mantra like “Let’s do this”, or “I can do this”, is much better than telling yourself negative words like “Why do I have to do this”, or worst, “I will do this tomorrow”.
Never let yourself negative self-talk talk you out of the success you want. Create a powerful mantra and affirms it in your head over and over again.
Seek out the motivated
Who are the motivated people you can reach? Reach out to them and talk to them. Energy is contagious. When you talk to positive people who talk about dreams and success, you will feel inspired after the conversation.
Similarly, if you talk to negative people who blame, complain, and always make excuses, you will feel the negativity after the conversation. You too, will become a negative person who always complains and makes excuses.
Birds of the same feather flock together, remember? Hence, join the motivated and positive people. Let their positive energy inspire you. Call them, talk to them, or date them over coffee.
Stop and do something else
Sometimes, it is difficult to get back the motivation instantly when you want to. So what you need to do then is to just stop doing it and go do something else.
It happened to me a few times. No matter what I did, I didn’t feel driven. What I did then is I stop doing the work and do something else. I come back and tackle the work after that.
If you need to write an article but you don’t have the motivation, you can choose to do something else first. Like me, I work on updating my social media and creating imagines for Pinterest. And after that, only I come back to the writing.
There are times when you just need to switch the task to gain momentum. Try this technique and let me know how you tackle it.
Trick your mind to commit to doing just one small task
Yes, just commit and do one small task and then that’s it. Of course, it is a trick I often used to put myself into the action mode.
When I don’t feel motivated to work, I will just trick myself by committing to doing just one small task and then call it a day. But of course, once I’m doing the work, the motivation comes, and I will continue to work even more.
You can use this technique to trick yourself into taking action too.
If you want to exercise for 30 minutes, commit to just exercise for 5 minutes. If you want to write a 2,000 words article, commit to just write 100 words.
This key is to get things moving. When you started to act and be on the move, you will build up the momentum and keep things going.
Conclusion
This is the simple plan of how I get myself motivated when I feel lazy and don’t want to work. You can use these techniques to keep yourself driven too.
So, what technique you like the most? And what do you do when you feel lazy and don’t have the motivation to act?
Let me know in the comment section. Cheers.