Upend your motivation crisis by creating it yourself

Having little to no motivation is an increasing reason used by people for not pursuing their goals, whether they be personal or professional.

It could be argued that this lack of motivation is an outcome of the highly engaged world in which many of us choose to live, where our senses are being continuously stimulated, leaving barely any time for us to switch off and properly process our thoughts to clarify our way forward.

This extreme exposure of our senses can result in the chemicals of the brain getting out of balance, particularly dopamine which many have heard of, although only use the headline knowledge about it.

Even though I'm not a neurologist or any kind of professional scientist, I've become aware of the importance of how our dopamine levels affect our motivation, and how we can manage this more effectively than simply chasing the nearest dopamine hit that seems quite popular these days.

Much of my learning about this has derived from listening to Dr Andrew Huberman, a well-known and well-respected researcher, author, and broadcaster about neurological science, so this is the layman's interpretation and understanding that could be of benefit to anyone looking to resolve their lack of motivation.

What happens when we feel unmotivated?

There are two common reactions that most people have when feeling unmotivated. The first and least useful or productive of these is to lean into it by doing close to nothing at all.

This option is essentially procrastination, which makes things worse as it doesn't bring you any closer to completing the task you're avoiding, or any other task.

The second option is to do something else as a distraction. It might feel like you're being productive because you're doing other tasks or chores that need to be done, but you're still just not doing the thing that you actually should be doing.

What helps us feel motivated?

If you tend to fall into the second category of the two options mentioned above, then you're halfway to the answer already.

The brain's natural mechanism for consistent dopamine release is based on effortful action, rather than easy action.

Instead of choosing a simple task that we can do almost automatically without needing to engage our brain to complete it, we need to choose something that's more difficult and requires our conscious attention to get done.

The effort involved in doing this more complicated task will trigger the brain into action for dopamine release.

Having this knowledge alone might be enough for some people to choose to do the original task they've been avoiding while waiting for motivation to suddenly appear, but doing a secondary uncomfortable task can also release the dopamine needed to feel motivated in order to start working on the task in question.

Once you've committed yourself to a dopamine-releasing task, then you've naturally created the motivation you were hoping would just randomly appear out of nowhere.

You can then use the momentum from this initial spike of motivation to do another effortful task which creates even more dopamine to sustain the level of motivation in your brain.

This works like a positive feedback loop, although it requires your own effort without that motivated feeling to begin with. Effort comes first and motivation is the reward, rather than the other way around.

How to help yourself make the effort and feel motivated

Here are some things that can help people make that initial effort:

Revisit your “why”

Whatever reason or purpose originally drove you towards the achievements you've already gained so far, may just need to be remembered or slightly tweaked to reignite your previous motivating flame.

Break your routine

Monotony can be a big motivation killer over a long duration, so mixing things up a bit, not necessarily drastically changing everything, can be a noticeable trigger for the brain to feel the difference and the novelty of the new routine to overcome the monotony.

Focus on micro-wins

Rather than jumping straight into a big task that's effortful, break it down into smaller steps. You're still working on the main task, but in smaller stages that can build momentum through multiple micro-wins which keep you engaged if you tend to have a wandering mind.

Reconnect with growth

Similar to the novelty aspect we just talked about, finding an effortful task like developing a current skill to a deeper level, or learning a new language or instrument, can be a useful way to feel like there's a more tangible payoff in your efforts to induce motivation.

Surround yourself with energy

Whether you're working from home or stuck in an office environment with people who either aren't particularly busy or interactive, then it's a sign to shake things up a bit. This might be through relocating yourself to a more engaging environment on at least a temporary basis during each day, or once a week meeting up with either friends or colleagues that share your goals and passions, as the energy from these people can be enough to spark you into the initial action.

Visualise success

Use your imagination to picture a potential future where you're successfully achieving the things that you're aiming for. Write down, draw, or collect images that describe this future so that you can refer to it and remind yourself quickly of what your end destination looks like. This is a very common method that people use to kick themselves into action when things start to feel stale.

Take ownership

At the end of the day, motivation doesn't randomly happen to us, even if it might feel that way sometimes. We have the power and control within ourselves to generate motivation by manipulating our brain chemistry as described so far. If we own our experience and take action to make things happen, then we're no longer at the mercy of random coincidence and can manifest motivation whenever we want it.

Motivation isn't such a mystery as many may believe, but something we can actually bring about ourselves.

If you need motivation then you've now got a small glossary of easy methods to do something about it, so what will you choose first?