Energy and motivation are important parts of life. We need both the energy and motivation to work on our goals and dreams. The problem most people are facing today is that they don’t have enough energy and they lack the motivation to take action to reach their goals. Are you one of them?
There will be times when you feel extremely motivated and want to take massive action. There will also be times when you feel lousy and extremely tired, and you just want to do nothing and lie on your couch.
This is very normal because as humans, we tend to be affected by our feelings, energy, and emotions.
The key then is to learn how to manage our energy and maintain our motivation throughout our daily life.
I believe that everyone, including the most successful people in the world, has had times when they will feel down, have no motivation, and are tired.
But these people know what to do when they lack energy and motivation. They have ways to handle their downtime or when they are feeling low.
In other words, extraordinary people take charge of their emotions and feelings. They know how to manage their emotions, motivation, and feelings so that they are not affected by their moods.
On the contrary, ordinary people choose to let their emotions and feelings control them. They follow their emotions and whenever they feel no motivation, they procrastinate and do what is comfortable. When they don’t have the energy, they quit.
Ordinary people do things according to their feelings. Extraordinary people do things according to their principles/systems.
Successful people know how to handle the situation. And they choose to do it even when they don’t feel like it.
Now, what should you do when you lack motivation and energy? Well, here are 16 tips to help…
The best way to feel more energetic is to be happy. Do something that will make you smile and laugh. However, don’t overdo it because if you laugh too much, you use up too much energy and it makes you feel tired.
Watch a funny clip or read a funny story that brightens up your day. You don’t have to spend an hour to do this; just a few short minutes will do.
When you are happy, you tend to feel more energetic. And when you have the energy, you are motivated to take more action.
Here are 54 ways to remain happy and healthy, check it out.
Do you know that 60% of our body is made of water? Your heart and your brain consist of 73% water. Thus, what makes you think you should not drink more water?
A study suggests that we should drink at least 8 glasses of water each day. And this is equivalent to 2 liters of clean water.
I drink plenty of water upon waking up. Within the first hour of waking up, I drink at least 500ml of water, sometimes even more.
You want to hydrate your body functions and water is used to convert food and body fat into energy.
Plus, drinking water also makes you feel fresh. So, drink more water.
If you have to work in front of your computer for long hours, like me, this is going to be a very effective method to maintain your energy level.
Go out and take a walk. Research shows that going outside for 10 minutes a day can make you more creative and refreshed.
Staying indoors for long hours is not a good practice. Take time to recharge yourself by connecting with nature. Take a walk in the garden. Go outside and breathe the fresh air.
This is one of my favorite ways to get motivation and energy. Some people say that too much caffeine is not good for your health, which is true. However, I’m not suggesting you drink 10 cups of coffee in a day.
All I’m suggesting is to get a cup of coffee in the morning. If you feel that coffee is not your choice, go for tea.
Tea is a healthier choice than coffee. But my first choice is still coffee.
It wakes me up, makes me energetic, and more alert, and thus, I’m able to get more done.
I knew about power naps many years ago, but I did not really practice it until one day, I read Michael Hyatt’s blog, and he convinced me that taking a short nap is productive.
Whenever I feel tired and sleepy in the afternoon, I will take a short power nap for about 15 to 20 minutes. After the nap, I feel fresh and alert. And sometimes, after a short nap, I will wash my face to refresh myself.
I don’t do this every day; I only take a power nap when necessary. You can do the same. However, don’t oversleep because this will make you fall into deep sleep mode and make you feel sluggish when you wake up.
You have to recharge and replenish your energy. And a power nap is all you need. Try this and make it your routine if you want to.
Do you know that your motions create your emotions? Meaning to say that when you feel lousy, tired, or sleepy, your body is in a certain posture?
Usually, when you are sleepy, your shoulder will be slumped, your breathing will be shallow, and you may not sit straight.
So how do you snap and change your emotion? Simple, change your motion. Get up, do some stretching, and exercise. Move your body.
Trust me, when you do this, you will experience a state change. You will feel totally different. Suddenly you will feel awake, energetic, and ready to take action again.
Well, you can try this even now. Just stand up, and do some stretching or jumping. You will see how the energy flows to you almost instantly. You can also read this article to understand more about how motion creates emotion and what you can do to get unstuck.
In order to maintain your energy level throughout your whole day, you must take smaller meals than one big meal at a time.
Smaller meals allow your body to digest the food more easily. When you take in a big meal, your stomach has to do more work and will use up more energy.
This is why sometimes you will feel sluggish after lunch. You feel tired and sleepy after a heavy lunch.
Therefore, take smaller meals more often. Instead of eating 3 big meals a day, try to break them into 5 smaller meals.
It will be easier for your body to digest, and the additional breaks can recharge and refill your energy.
Imagine watching a movie without any music or song in the background, just the conversation between the characters, how will you feel?
You will fall asleep, I’m sure of it. Music and songs can lift you up.
Whenever I feel sleepy, I will put up my headphone and listen to my favorite song. For example, Fight Song from Rachel Platten is a good choice. As for music, I prefer Two Steps from Hell.
You can make your own song list. Fast-paced music will wake you up and make you motivated.
Don’t listen to slow, sad songs when you are down. It will only make the situation worse.
One more thing, when you’re doing creative work or tasks that require your thinking power, don’t listen to songs with lyrics. Choose music. You don’t want the song to distract you.
A lot of people underestimated how much sleep they need, including me. I used to think that I’m young and I can sleep less. I used to take only 4 to 5 hours of sleep.
Too bad to say that it did not work out fine for me. It is good in the first few days, but after that, I feel like a zombie. I feel so sleepy and so tired that I cannot focus on my work.
After that, I ditch the idea that I can get less sleep. Cheating sleep is not going to work, maybe for me. But I’m not sure about you. You can try.
I take about 7 hours of sleep these days. There is no point to stay awake 20 hours a day, but feeling tired and cannot get things done.
To become productive, you need energy. And to have more energy, you need to sleep. Our bodies need to rest to replenish our energies.
It is better to get enough sleep and have the energy and productivity to get things done, than to lack sleep and are not performing at your best. You need to get enough sleep to succeed.
If you want to maintain your energy level, you must keep a positive posture. Sit straight, walk straight and act like you are energetic.
You may think that this is ridiculous, but it works. As I have mentioned above, our motion creates our emotions.
When you are in the right posture, the energy will be there.
Try to sit straight while reading this article. You will feel the difference right away. Act, walk and talk like you have all the motivation and the motivation will come to you.
According to this article, a university professor encourages his students to “get up and wiggle” every half hour or so. This body movement helps to activate the students mind and their energy levels go way up.
So, if you need more energy or whenever you are at a low energy state, change your body movement.
The Goldilocks strategy is easy to understand. Imagine you are a tennis player. If you play with a kid, how would you feel? You will quickly feel bored because the match will be too easy for you.
On the other hand, what if you play with Roger Federer? The opponent will overpower you, and you can’t win. The match will be too difficult, and you feel overwhelmed.
In both cases, your motivation will not be high because the matches are either too easy or too difficult.
Thus, you must choose an opponent where skill level is almost the same as yours. Find someone who plays with you where both have the chance of winning.
And that is the Goldilocks’ Rule.
It is the same when it comes to achieving your goals and living your life with motivation.
When your goal is unrealistic and too big, you will never have the motivation to take action because you know very well that it will be impossible to accomplish the goal with your current ability.
If your goal is too easy, you won’t feel motivated to do it too. For example, if you are earning $5,000 a month right now, making an additional $50 a month will not excite you.
Therefore, you have to apply the Goldilocks strategy where you choose to aim for goals that are “just right.”
Not too easy and not too difficult. Just nice.
The same goes for your tasks. If you want to have the motivation, do something that is just nice, not too difficult, and not too easy.
What you need to do is to make your work excited to you.
When you find that your work is too difficult, break it down into smaller steps so that you won’t feel overwhelmed. And when your task is too easy, try to make it more challenging and exciting.
In order to have the motivation and to keep the motivation going, you need to always remember your purpose. Why do you want to do it?
Why do you want to achieve your goals? Why do you want to be successful?
Your reasons are the purpose why you act in the first place. Hence, if your reasons are not convincing enough, you will never have the motivation to act.
When your reason is strong and emotional, you will take action no matter what.
Think about it; this is why deadline works. People tend to put things off and procrastinate until the last minute when they have no other options, and then they will take action and make things work.
When something becomes a must, people will find ways and move mountains to do it.
You have to do the same. Find out your reasons. Why do you want to achieve what you want in life?
Why do you wake up in the morning? When you don’t have a reason or something to look forward to, you will never want to wake up in the morning. You will want to sleep until you get up naturally.
So, take a piece of paper and write down all your reasons right now. And revisit your reasons every day.
Here are some additional guides you should check out:
Everything takes time to grow; your businesses, your kids, the plants, your skills, etc. Hence, have patience and always start small.
Break down your goals into simple steps that you can act on. You want to make it easy to start especially in the early phase.
Building momentum is like a moving train. When it is at rest, it requires a lot more energy to make it move. It started to move slowly and then moves faster. And once it is moving, it will be difficult to stop.
The same goes for your momentum. If you wake up at 7 AM each morning and suddenly make a drastic change to wake up at 5 AM, your body will not get used to it.
You will feel tired and extremely sleepy. However, after a few days, you will slowly get used to it, and it will slowly become the norm.
This is where the snowball effect comes into the picture. In the early stage, break down the task and make it easy for you to act.
If your goal is to do 50 pushups each day, start with 20 in the first week, then 30 in the second week, and 40 in the third week and do 50 pushups in the fourth week.
You increase the difficulty and challenges gradually. Make it easy for you to begin. Just like a snowball. It started small, like the size of a tennis ball. And then it gains momentum and grows as it travels down the hill.
Here are 2 articles you should read:
I strongly suggest you read this book, Atomic Habits, written by James Clear.
In the book, Clear wrote that if you want to build a habit, you need to start with a cue, which is a trigger to perform the desired behavior.
For example, before you do something habitually, there is a cue that makes you do it. Just like if you are a smoker and before you smoke, usually, there is something that you will do, and that makes you fall into the smoking habit.
Some people when they get bored, they smoke. The boredom is the cue. Some other people smoke when they smell the nicotine from another smoker. The smell is the cue that triggers them to smoke. There are also people who smoke when they are around another smoker. They see other people smoke, and they want to do it as well.
So what does this has to do with your motivation? You can create a cue to trigger your routine.
If you want to work on your task, you can create a cue to trigger you into action.
Let me give you a clear example. I stick to my schedule of writing every day from 10 AM onwards. What I do before I sit on my chair and start my work is I will make a cup of coffee.
That is my trigger. That is my cue. Whenever I smell the coffee, I know it is time to work and start creating content. Just like writing this article that you are reading right now.
So every morning I will do the same thing. It has become my habit. It has become my morning routine. I will work on it regardless of whether I like it or not. The motivation will come automatically because it has become a routine.
You can leverage this technique to build a constructive habit of working on your goals.
Remember, what you do once in a while is not as important as what you do every day. It is your habit that will determine your success and failure in life.
Here’s what you need to do right now:
If you don’t feel motivated, just get some inspiration. Read an inspirational article. Listen to uplifting music and so on. Or get someone to inspire you.
I found that not all materials can motivate everyone the same. Meaning that what motivates you and me can be totally different. It all depends on your current situation.
I’m into internet marketing, and so whenever I read something interesting about internet marketing, I feel inspired. If you are not doing anything related to online marketing, I don’t think you will feel the inspiration.
This is because you just can’t relate to it and you don’t feel relevant.
Thus, if you want to get inspired, read something that is relevant to you.
For instance, if you are down right now because you have no money, read a story of how people went through a similar situation just like you and became successful. I’m sure you will feel inspired because you can relate.
This is why you need to read the same book a few times. When you are in a different situation and at different points in your life, different things can inspire you.
Make it your habit to read, especially personal development books and materials that are related to your industry.
I have made it a commitment to read at least 2 books a month, and I averaged 3 books. I spend 30 minutes each morning reading. Reading is important. The more you read, the more likely you are going to become successful.
So, motivate yourself to read and make it a habit. You don’t have to wait until when you feel no motivation only to seek inspiration. You can make it your habit to consistently charge yourself through reading and learning.
Another way to create motivation or desperation is to make a public commitment.
Try to tell someone what you are going to accomplish, and you will be more committed to it.
The founder of Zen Habits, Leo Babauta said that when he made it his goal to run a marathon, he wrote in his local newspaper column that he is going to do it. And that public commitment left him no other choice but to go for it no matter what.
The entire Guam Island knew Leo’s goal, and he has been held accountable. And he did it.
You can leverage this technique to achieve your goal and work on your task too. Of course, you don’t have to write a newspaper column to have the same effect.
All you need to do is to make a public commitment. You can share your goal or your task with someone who will support you and ask him or her to hold you accountable.
Remember, get an accountability partner who is optimistic to support you and not someone who is pessimistic.
Read:
After going through these 16 tips on how to get more energy and motivation, how do you feel? Which technique do you think is the most powerful and want to try out?
Share your thoughts with me in the comment section below. And if you like this article, remember to share it with your friends too.
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View Comments
Nice post!
Taking small meals is important. I used to binge eat a lot and I notice that every time I'm full, I'm becoming lazier to do stuff. This year, I'm setting up monthly goals and my goal for this month is to eat healthy foods and exercise more often.
Yup, when you eat too full, your stomach has to work harder to digest the food. Especially fatty and oily foods. So eat smaller portion, and you can eat more times. :)
YEE HAWWW thanks fir the advuce ,