Like balloons, our motivation will slowly deflate. It’s only natural, especially for those who are routine-bound. Sometimes we wonder why some people seem to ‘get it all together’ all the time. Well, maybe they have found their air balloon pump. Or maybe they just simply show up.
Reasons for demotivation are different for everyone. Whichever the reason is, there are circumstances where we cannot ‘leave everything for a while and take a break’. We have too many responsibilities on our plate (work, children, bills, parents, etc) and taking a break, lest quitting is not an option.
In such cases, it’s difficult to perform your optimum best at work and come home to tuck your children nicely in bed. But the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” So, if you’re still alive and breathing, then you still have a chance to become stronger.
For the note, this is not an attempt to ignore the reasons for your deflating motivation. But solving it takes time, yet you don’t have much time to spare to focus on dealing with it. So, you need to acknowledge the problem and slowly find your ‘air balloon pump’. You can’t keep deflating for it is dangerous if you have no motivation in life at all!
The times when we don’t feel like getting out of bed, fight it. Because when you end up lying in bed all day, your responsibilities won’t go away. It will only pile up and when you do decide to get up, you will face a mountain of job at once. The consequence at stake is not always that simple. You could have missed out on paying the bills and have your electricity cut off. You could have missed an important meeting and lose a big project that could have accelerated your career. All was simply because you ‘want to take a break’.
When you realise the consequence of your action upfront, you will fill in the lack of motivation with urgency. This has worked for most people who are in dire need of a break to ‘reflect on life’ but couldn’t completely quit on responsibilities.
Show up, but cut out your tasks
You cannot require yourself to perform your best in a demotivated state. But you can perform just enough that the life around you doesn’t crumble down into a pit hole.
The key is to eliminate small, irrelevant tasks and focus on finishing the big tasks.
You can postpone or ignore replying to unimportant messages. You can postpone grocery shopping. The worst-case would be getting extra notifications for follow up messages or not having enough eggs in the fridge. But you can’t miss the due date of your bills because your water or electricity can be cut off or your credit card can get blocked. You can’t miss the morning meeting because your client doesn’t have any other time to fit their tight schedule and you need to discuss important matters immediately.
You don’t feel like having the energy to do anything at all. But you can at least finish three important tasks, instead of ten tasks consisting of urgent and non-urgent tasks. Therefore, you can earn at least more time to deal with whatever it is that causes your deflating motivation and find the ‘pump’.