Let me tell you this, we all lose motivation, we all feel distressed sometimes and no matter what a seasoned constantly motivated person tells you that “I never lose motivation, I am always motivated” is not true. The reason is we humans are a work in progress, we constantly need to rethink our strategy, set our priorities and plan out how we are going to get back on track.

Those people who you think are always motivated are actually better at managing their emotions and have a productive thought cycle. They have accepted the truth that I will not be on the top of my game all the time, all I need to do is, somehow find the courage to get back on track, because they know, that whatever they are working on is of utmost importance to them.

Sometimes this people continue working even though they don’t feel motivated about it, sometimes they are feeling like a rut, yet they just go about doing their thing.

Even we know what is important to us and eagerly try to get back on track somehow and complete that work. However what we lack is understanding. What we don’t understand is that “motivation is like a bath, you have to take it every day.” It’s not a onetime thing. And sometimes you have to continue working without it.

First let’s get to know why you have lost your motivation. Then understand how to get it back and be constantly on track.

The top 3 reasons you have lost your motivation

1. You see no progress

Let’s take gym for example, you might have been working out for a couple of months now, initially you might have seen some results and then Suddenly the progress came to an abrupt halt. You kept your hopes high, that a good body takes time and continued on your path. However now after straight 6 months of working out or maybe even a year you see no tangible results for the time, heart and money invested. Because of which you have suddenly started to question yourself “Is this all worth it?” “Am I making any progress at all?” “Will any of this hard work ever pay off?”

Then suddenly one day, you just skip that one particular day of gym. That was the deciding movement, your mind just gave up and it cannot make any sense of all that is going on. So it just decided to stop. Our mind has two mechanisms in an uncertain situation that appears dangerous to it. Either Flee or freeze.

Both of the actions provide our mind the time to think, about how to survive in this scenario. So instead of taking time to figure out what is going on wrong, that one day of skipping has been converted into quitting.

2. You have overworked yourself

I don’t know if this happens to you guys or it’s just me and I am not sharp enough to handle it, but what I have noticed is whenever I read books after books, blogs after blogs and continue reading throughout the day for a prolonged period of duration like say for a month, while fulfilling my daily duties, there comes a point sometimes in a while, that I cannot even bring myself to read a single word. No matter how hard I try to concentrate, no matter how interesting the subject matter, my mind has just given up and it does not want to read even a single word more, until it gets time to rest, recover and organize all the data it has gathered recently.

Bodybuilders have cheat meals and they take a short off from working out, once every 12 to 16 weeks. They use that time to detox, clear out any tissue level debris from the system, give rest to their digestive system, which digests insane amount of food every day and you should know that even our kidney’s require rest, as eating the same type of food every single day for months, depletes certain types of amino acids which are required to digest that particular food item, one day it will give up, so that cheat meal also provides the required rest and until those amino acids recover, different ones are used.

So if this is you, now you know the reason for losing your motivation.

3. You got results, you lost results, you took a break or quit for way too long and it’s hard to start again from the scratch

Pretty self-explanatory right? You just know it, you read the line above and you know it’s exactly that. It’s so hard to know that you had come so far, you were this close to achieving what you had set out to and suddenly poof! Like smoke in the thin air it’s gone. I can empathize with you, I have been there and done that, in fact the very reason I am writing this blog right now is because I associate with it so deeply at this exact moment while I am writing this blog.

After working out for 2 years straight with utmost dedication and discipline, after managing time to the limit, where I was working 18 hours shift, sleeping for 5 hours, getting my work out in and leaving for work in 1 hour and maintaining my whole diet throughout the day with such a busy schedule, suddenly due to various issues in my life that which are not in my control, I had to stop working out for about 12 weeks now, it’s the first time in last 2 years that I am away from exercising, one of the things that I love way too much.

So from the past few days, I am trying to exercise again, from 10% body fat and just 6 months away from my desired body, I am at 20% body fat right now, feel sluggish, work out motivation is sparse and there’s only one thought on my mind, how to get it back? And the second one is, Man, I have to start from the scratch again. Seriously it takes courage to get back on track after you have fallen down.

Now let’s explore the 3 easy ways to get back on track

1. Resolve the conflict

If you were on track and now you are off track, there is definitely some inner conflict going on right within you. Some sort of intellectual or emotional conflict, resolve that. Make time to soundly think about this issue in detail, ask yourself, the thing that you used to do so reverently, why have you stopped doing it suddenly?

Note down those answers, now as you know the reasons, think of possible solutions, what is that’s stopping you from continuing your work? Why one part of you wants to avoid doing it and the other feels worried and sad when you fail to work on it. Isn’t this a sign of a clear internal conflict? There are some conflicting opinions within yourself right now, resolve those and then a clear path of how to start again will be revealed to you.

One part of you thinks that something is important, the other might be thinking, this is of no use at all, I am not going anywhere. Come to mutual terms with your own inner self, take time to find answers to questions like, “Why am I not making progress?” now don’t be so abstract, for example, a bodybuilder will search what part of his entire routine is failing, is it the diet, is it the workout routine itself or something else? Find answers specific to you goal and never give up.

2. Rest is important

Allow yourself to rest completely. By completely I mean, don’t feel guilty about not putting in your 100% if you don’t feel like it right now. If you were hustling hard from the past couple of months allow yourself to rest completely. Guilt tripping will actually make the matters worse. Don’t think that you have lost motivation, simply understand that your mind and body requires rest. Allow it the rest that it deserves.

If you don’t maintain your car properly one day it will breakdown and won’t start at all, unless you take care of whatever the problem is. Now you cannot say that the car has lost motivation. The same way your mind and body requires maintenance, if you don’t provide it, one day it will break down and you will start wondering, why have I lost motivation?

If you are one of those, that stands a risk of overworking yourself, then give this time to completely replenish and reenergize yourself, enjoy your downtime, cause if you naturally like doing a lot of things, within 1 to 2 weeks of proper rest, you will feel crazy bored of this resting routine and start work again with full enthusiasm. Rest completely, don’t guilt trip. You will be good to go.

3. Remember the joy of doing it

Think of how you used to feel while wholeheartedly you used to give your best to something. That amazing feeling of satisfaction it brought. How all those positive emotions engulfed you, when you knew, that today I gave it all I had. Connect yourself to all the positivity associated with all those days and actions. The feeling of excitement that surrounded you all the time.

Think of the music you used to listen to during that time, think of all the scents, environment, remember how your body felt, breeze and ambience of that time. Isn’t it making you feel amazing right now? Wanting you to Jump right off the computer and go and do something about it. Just remember the joy of doing it and you will feel motivated again.

Think of all the amazing experiences it gave you, think of all the beautiful things you felt while doing something, think of all the refreshing memories of that time. It is just impossible to miss out on all the amazing stuff from our life. This feeling right now, that you remember, is too great to just let it go away from your life.

Grab it embrace it, thump your fist onto your chest and declare it to yourself, This is too precious for me to give it away, no matter what life throws at me I will never give up, I will never let this thing fail, I intend to give it all I got and make a fulfilling life that I deserve. This is too magnificent to give up on, this makes me feel like my life is complete and so I vow today, I am not giving up on my life.

Conclusion

Motivation is a bath take it every day. Small doses of it every day, read motivational blogs, quotes, watch videos, read about inspiring people, read about how you can develop yourself to better handle what life throws at you. We all feel disheartened sometimes, we all feel unfortunate sometimes and sometimes no matter what you read or do, you lose the will to continue forward. During such times always remind yourself why you are doing it and do it nonetheless whether you feel the motivation for it or not. Resolve is for forever, motivation is fleeting.

You must resolve to make something of your life and never give up, giving up does not solve anything, it’s just a dull survival mechanism I described above, that takes time to figure out what it wants to do, So rest if you wish to, think of how you can improve your situation while resting but never give up its dull.