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Have you ever had the feeling that you’re just not making progress? That you’ve lots to do, but you can’t seem to find the motivation or the energy to do anything?
Well, you aren’t alone.
In most cases, what you end up doing when you feel bogged down is filling your day with tasks that don’t require much brainpower, such as cleaning a space over and over again or sorting our clutter in a drawer.
Other times you may find yourself mindlessly scrolling through social media or even having another cup of coffee to “kickstart” your motivation.
Ultimately you end up procrastinating and putting more critical things on the long finger.
Lots of things can cause you to feel bogged down with life. For instance, maybe you’re anxious about something, or the work at hand isn’t exciting enough.
In other instances, you may be unsure of the best way to proceed or don’t have the skills to tackle the task. On a higher level, it could point to a lack of clarity on your purpose in life.
The following are the critical areas you must examine when you feel bogged down and lack motivation for even the most basic things in life:
The first step is to look at your energy levels.
Sleep, diet and exercise typically form the culprits that influence your energy levels. If you don’t get enough sleep, for example, you’ll have lower energy levels the next day.
Equally, if you’re not eating healthy foods, your energy levels suffer as a result.
Again, if you’re not getting enough exercise that gets the blood flowing around the body, your energy levels will take a hit and affect your motivation.
So, go through these three and gauge whether you’re getting enough sleep, eating healthy and getting enough exercise.
Energy vampires are things, people, or situations that drain your energy. On the other hand, energy chargers restore your energy.
Now, some people need to work around other people because it brings energy. But, equally, you can be around people that literally suck every ounce of energy from you.
As you go through your day, become aware of the moments and people that recharge you versus the energy vampires that suck your energy dry. As you do, find ways to eliminate the latter while surrounding yourself with more energy chargers.
Most people lack motivation because their minds are cluttered. You have too much going on that overwhelms your mental bandwidth.
There are loads of activities you can use to clear your mind. Some of these include:
Find an activity that suits you and practise it regularly to keep your mind clutter-free.
The more you clear your mind of the cluttering thoughts, the more you open the gateway to the Unconscious, allowing more creative ideas to move from your Unconscious to your Conscious mind and the Executive Center of your brain.
Furthermore, these activities also help you deal with fear and anxiety that sometimes leads to a lack of motivation.
You can feel bogged down and lack motivation for a task because you don’t have the necessary skills, knowledge or experience to perform it.
What do you need to learn to perform the task and move forward?
Other times, you may feel that the task at hand isn’t aligned with your life purpose. Go through your daily tasks. Are you happy doing them? Do they inspire you? Can you eliminate the ones you don’t like or possibly delegate or outsource them?
Are your daily tasks helping you get closer to fulfilling your life purpose or life dream?
When your tasks are not aligned to your life purpose, you fill your days with activities you don’t want or need to feel productive.
Your environment significantly impacts your motivation and energy levels.
So look around your office or where you spend most of your time for working. What things drain your energy in that environment? Do you feel productive or distracted in that environment?
For instance, seeing clutter around your work environment can drain your energy. However, for some people, a creative environment boosts their energy levels.
It’s worth noting that your environment extends beyond the physical space. It includes your mental environment too. Ask yourself these questions:
If you don’t enjoy the work, your energy levels reflect that. The reverse is true. Excitement about your work fuels your energy and motivation.
Who have you surrounded yourself with? That includes family, friends, acquaintances, clients and customers.
“Your network is your net worth.” By extension, you tend to be the average of the people in your circle.
Take it a step further to your energy levels. You’ll take the average of the energy levels of the people surrounding you. Your energetic net worth will be the average of the energetic or the energy levels of the people you surround yourself with.
Ask yourself this:
You don’t want to be surrounded by people who will throw water on your plans, your dreams, and what you want to achieve.
You want those around you to be your champions, cheerleaders, mentors, and advisors.
You want people that stretch, challenge and encourage you to go after your goals and dreams.
Motivation follows action. Let me explain that:
If you’re sitting on the couch watching TV, flicking through the channels and thinking, “Oh, I must go to the gym.” And you’re constantly in that thought process of going to the gym, but an hour later, you’re still sitting on the couch and flicking through the channels.
It’s not until you pick up your gym bag and put on your runners that you finally get the motivation to hit the gym.
As you take action, however small, motivation follows.
You can apply that to anything in your personal or business life. For example, in writing a report, it’s only when you start on the report that you get motivated to complete it.
If you don’t know your life purpose and mission in life, you’re not going to be jumping out of bed in the morning to fulfil it. It’s just not there.
Therefore, the question you must ask yourself is: What’s your life purpose? What do you want to achieve in life, and more importantly, why?
When you have that absolute sense of purpose and that clarity, you’re motivated to jump out of bed in the morning to fulfil it.
If your vision is not inspiring enough, not big enough; you’re going to feel bogged down. You won’t have the energy to go after your goals and vision.
So, do you have an inspired vision?
All the questions above help you clarify your inspired vision so as to stop operating from the lower part of your brain and move to the Executive Centre, which is more creative and intuitive.
To do this, you must only do activities that align with your Genius Drivers instead of filling your days with meaningless tasks.
If you don’t know your Genius Drivers, you need to start there because they lead to your purpose and inspired vision. They form the cornerstone that brings your life to order and provides meaning fulfilment, motivation and joy.
Life is for achieving absolutely everything that you’re here to achieve. It’s for you to make manifest what you’re here to make manifest. It’s to experience life on a whole new level that most people don’t get to achieve.
So, spend your days doing activities that bring you closer to your purpose, and you’ll have more energy and motivation.
And when faced with challenges? Challenges are there to get you to higher levels. Learn from them.
What are you waiting for? Start today, now, this minute to live the life you’re meant to live. It starts with a decision then action. And remember, motivation always follows action.
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