The Rise and Fall of Motivation

“I’m not feeling motivated. I lost my motivation. I can’t stay focus. I’m not excited like how I used to be. I just don’t feel like doing things anymore. I find myself easily distracted. I procrastinate on important tasks. I feel unproductive.” These are common statements I get from my patients – they all struggle with motivation.  The loss of motivation is a universal problem. And I, myself, am not immune to the ebb and flow of motivation. The truth of the matter is: motivation rises and falls. You can count on motivation to be short-lived. Even the best of the best, high performers, and the elites cannot maintain motivation ALL the time. Trust me, I know because I’ve worked with these types of people – those identified as highly disciplined, successful and high-achieving individuals. No one is above this problem. And that’s OKAY! I’m here to tell you that you can still be productive, effective and disciplined even when motivation is low.

There are plenty of literature and social media coverage on hacks and tips to help you get motivated, but some of the psychological factors that can influence motivation might surprise you. So let me provide you some psychological techniques that I use for myself and my patients.

Start with Why

Your WHY is your mission statement. I cannot emphasize this enough. There is a reason WHY this is mentioned time and time again in the realm of motivation.  Just like you can catastrophize and overthink a situation enough to raise your anxiety to debilitating levels, you too can do the same in the opposite direction. You HAVE to REALLY CARE about what you are doing to be motivated. Seriously, ask yourself some hard questions: “Why am I doing this? Why do I care? Why do I need to do this? What would happen if I don’t? Who would I let down? Who is depending on me?” Once you have a reason, ask yourself: “So, what? Why does that matter?” Write about it, talk about it, tell yourself about it, and keep adding reasons to why it’s important to you.  This is how you begin to embody your WHY. So, dig deep on this one and find something powerful to aim at.

Establish a Self-management Practice:

1. Prioritize your physical health for physical energy. You cannot expect yourself to operate optimally without taking care of your health. This is a given. It’s like driving a car on empty. There isn’t much else to say here that has not been said before. Nutrition, exercise, and sleep. These should be non-negotiable.
2. Simplify and streamline your processes and systems. Sometimes doing less is doing more. I often see two major logistical errors that impede motivation and focus: we tend to make things complicated by having an overwhelming “to-do” list OR we go in without a clear plan to aim at and aimlessly winging it. Both can lead to a lack of clear focus and a tendency to multi-task. Research shows that when we constantly switch gears and task-switch, we become less efficient and more likely to make mistakes, which ultimately compromises performance. The so-called multi-tasking divides our attention, making us less able to be fully present and in tune with one thing. In addition, studies “suggest that people who frequently ‘media multitask’ (like listening to music while checking email or scrolling through social media while watching a movie) are more distracted and less able to focus their attention even when they’re performing only one task.” So, do yourself a favor, cut back on things, and break down your goals into bite-size pieces that you can sustain over a long period of time. I recommend reading, Atomic Habits or Tiny Habits.
3. Work on your emotional regulation. When emotions take the driver seat, you can find yourself going from 0 to 100 in a matter of nanoseconds.  Think of emotional regulation as the designated responsible driver. “Emotional regulation refers to the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their feelings. Emotional regulation can be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have effects at one or more points in the emotion producing process.”
   1. Emotional regulation tools:
      1. Awareness: Noticing what you feel and naming it is an important first step to managing your emotions. And to build on that, it’s vital to understand your triggers and what pushes your buttons, your early signs of distress, noticing when you are in distress, and determining your window of tolerance or limitations.
      2. Mindfulness: The simplest mindfulness exercise is breath control. I recommend you focus on your breath and using it as a reference point when you need a reset because you are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, upset or confused. Think of your breath as a lighthouse, shining a ray of light to guide you back to the present moment.
      3. Cognitive Reappraisal: Most of us do this without realizing it – this includes altering the way we think or respond to our circumstances. This is an essential component of CBT, which most therapist use in practice. Some cognitive reappraisal skills include:
         1. Acceptance: This is the practice of embracing your thoughts and feelings, rather than fighting or feeling guilty for them. This may seem confusing at first – but it creates a safe, internal working space to deal with the difficulties in a creative and productive way. For example, in the case of motivation – it’s important to accept that motivation comes in waves – that failure is a part of success – that perfectionism is a mindset that often creates barriers for the actions needed to build momentum – in other words, a motivation killer. When you can accept these things, you can stop beating yourself up and understand the underlying issue.
         2. Self-Compassion and Accountability: Many, many people still strongly believe in the tough love approach. They might think: “If I have self-compassion, doesn’t that mean I’m being easy on myself? Letting myself get away with stuff?” Well, for one thing, if you are really compassionate and respectful toward yourself, you know that what feels good in the moment isn’t always really what you need, so NO. Self-compassion is a practice of being kind to yourself AND being HONEST with yourself. This process encourages you to engage in more constructive feedback vs destructive self-criticism. When things don’t go the way they should, you can learn how to sooth yourself so that you can get back up and keep going. When you have better access to positive feelings, you can persist for longer — whether it’s changing work habits, changing eating habits, connecting better in relationships, or any other positive change you are trying to make. Self-esteem, self-respect, self-compassion means you’re in it for the long haul, and knowing that developing as a person isn’t some kind of short sprint you can “win” with one big push, but rather a long-distance hike with lots of varied terrain and ups and downs. You better pack snacks and water, wear the right clothes, and pace yourself if you want to keep going.
         3. Solution-Focused and Bouncing Back. It’s important to use your setbacks as a setup for continued learning and growth. With self-compassion – you can move towards self-forgiveness a bit sooner – but being kind to yourself does not mean you condone the behaviors or actions that led you astray. It allows you to be a bit more objective about it without falling into one of the thinking traps of overgeneralizing and putting yourself down – which in itself can deter you from getting back on track. I suggest reading Mindset.

4. Environmental changes – this is perhaps the easiest thing that you can do to set yourself up for success. Sometimes a loss of motivation is due to a loss of focus on the thing that matters. Because there are a lot of noise surrounding us that competes for our attention daily, challenges our willpower and tugs at our impulse to activate a quick jolt of dopamine or sense of reward and pleasure. I’m talking about things like social media, our phones, food, sex and drugs. Therefore, make some arrangements with your environment – make it more of an inconvenience for the habits or behaviors that you wish to do less and make it more of a convenience for the habits and behaviors you want to see more of. An easy example for being healthier is to get rid of the junk food in the house making it less accessible, so that you would have to drive or go out of your own way if you want junk food.

Leverage the Dark Side

This may be a bit of a radical approach for some people, but it falls in line with acceptance. Knowing that unpleasant emotions, such as anger, annoyance, hurt, and disappointment is such a prominent part of life, it’s important that we find productive ways to use them to work for us and not against us.  It’s a huge part of making a transformation and living peacefully. So, hear me out – we often associate the emotion such as anger, with the behaviors such as screaming, yelling, lashing out, etc. This association often leads us to want to AVOID and internalize these “negative” emotions. This is a huge mistake. Unpleasant emotions does not have to be a REACTIVE behavior. I often tell my patients that, “feelings are natural, behaviors are by choice.” The aim is to inhibit or suppress your emotions just enough to slow it down and convert it into more constructive behavior. You can summon and evoke these powerful emotions consciously in small doses to aid you in your mission. It’s important that you self-validate before you can leverage the “dark side.” Self-validate is accepting and empathizing that your pain matters. The next part is creating a channel that converts the “negative emotion” into constructive behaviors.

While this is, by no means, a comprehensive list, they will help you get started. Keep in mind that motivation is not a linear process. Some of these methods might contradict your existing ideas about what works and what doesn’t in terms of motivation. Try incorporating a few of these strategies and see what happens. In the end, everything we do is a process. So focus on the journey, not so much the outcome. You have more control over your efforts than you will ever have with the results of them.

About Author

Albert Nguyen is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice. He specializes in providing an integrative and holistic approach to mental health care that includes personal self-care, anxiety and depression, and peak performance in children, teens and adults. Reach out for more information on how he can be of service to you here.