I find that motivation feels great only when I have it all figured out. When I wake up with a clear goal, feel ready to work on my next project, and everything seems smooth and easy. One day I heard a quote that says: “It’s easy to stay motivated when everything is going your way.” I find that specifically true in my case.
A few years ago, I started a service agency. I was excited like every new founder. So, I had a huge to-do list, starting from the brand name, color, message, and all the fun parts of any business.
I remember the first thing that hit me and made my motivation level drop rapidly was when I was trying to register my business as an LLC.
I found a problem with the company that was responsible for this step, so I ended up canceling their services. The next problem was that the bank didn’t want to register my business even though I had all the papers in place.
I ended up choosing a different bank, but these were not the biggest problems I faced. The website that I spent months building (the main agency asset) was injected with millions of spam links.
This is a technical problem that might be easy for tech people, but we are talking about a solo founder—me.
I had to figure out how to clean these links. I succeeded in the end, which took me months to finally get rid of all of the links.
The point is, I lost a huge amount of motivation that I could have put into growing my business and getting my first client.
These days were challenging. Sometimes I felt focused and excited. Other days, even simple tasks felt like moving a mountain.
If your progress depends entirely on feeling motivated, it becomes difficult to stay consistent for long. I was able to continue even though I felt demotivated and frustrated.
However, here is the good news; consistency does not require constant motivation. It requires that you have a system that still works when your motivation is low.
Here are some practical ways I found really helpful to keep moving forward when you simply do not feel like it.
Change Your Perspective on Motivation
Because, as I explained above, motivation doesn’t happen every day. As a result of this belief, people make one of the biggest mistakes by treating motivation as a requirement for action.
Many of us might say: “I’ll start when I feel ready.”
Bad news; this feeling may never arrive or arrive too late, and you have no energy left.
The key to success is simply acting even when you have zero motivation.
This doesn’t mean motivation is not important at all. It means motivation is just like a big, nice bonus, not an absolute requirement.
Make Your Tasks Smaller and Simpler
We need to make things simple and small to trick our minds into continuing when there is little to no motivation. Because a large goal can suddenly feel overwhelmingly hard and impossible.
For example, instead of thinking, “I want to build my business/website/write this book,” say, “I want to work on this project for 20 minutes.”
This hack taught me to be consistent and finish what I start. It is almost like a system that you put in place.
The goal is to make every task simple, not easy forever, by removing the mental resistance that prevents us from starting.
Focus on Building Habits and Systems
We all have different moods and energies that may change throughout the day. So the only way we stay consistent is by giving important activities a regular place in our day.
One effective way that works for me is deciding to allocate a specific time to a specific task.
Example: “Every weekday at 9:00 a.m., I will spend 30 minutes working on my most important project.”
This way, you already decided to do what is important, and you increased your probability of doing the thing.
Another highly effective way is to automate (or even delegate) the boring and repetitive tasks and the ones that drain your energy. The application of this method differs from one person to another depending on the nature of your work.
Always Remind Yourself of Why You Started
The only way that worked for me so far is setting up goals that are bigger than me… I don’t mean goals as in “hard tasks”; I mean a bigger purpose, something noble. Something that you would aspire to achieve even if there are no materialistic gains.
This one will require that you sit with yourself and find your higher purpose.
Because during low-motivation moments, it can help to remember why the goal matters to you.
This can be something like: you want to build something of your own (a legacy). Or you want to develop an important skill that would make you feel happy and complete. It could also be that you simply want more freedom in the future, or to prove to yourself that you can finish something you started.
The good thing is that your reasons do not have to sound impressive; they just have to matter to you.
Now, to keep remembering “Your Why,” you might need to write it down somewhere you can see it.
Track Your Progress, Not Your Results
I know that it can be difficult to notice your progress when you are working toward something that takes months or years to finish or reach satisfactory results.
Therefore, tracking your actions will give you visible evidence that you are moving. I found out that being stuck for a long time is what you should fear more than going in the wrong direction. Because movement creates momentum, which builds confidence that leads to consistency.
You could use a simple calendar and mark every day you complete something that leads toward your final goals.
The end goal is to give your efforts momentum, so use a simple tracking system.
One important thing to consider here is that even though results are what we want and need to see, to get there we need the “movement stage,” so don’t be discouraged by slow results as long as you keep moving. Because the road to your final destination is this one. See our article about how to stop being stuck.
Protect Your Energy at All Costs
I came to realize that sometimes what feels like a motivation problem is actually an energy problem. I learned this the hard way, after I lost valuable time and wasted huge efforts.
So, if you are constantly feeling tired, distracted, or overloaded, telling yourself to “try harder” may not solve the problem. Because you have an energy issue.
One effective way to fix this problem is by paying attention to when you naturally have the most energy. Then use those periods to do your most important tasks.
Another effective way is to simply give yourself some time to rest. Something like a small break or a good night’s sleep can help very much by giving you more energy.
Finally…
It is quite normal that we do not always feel motivated. That does not mean you have lost your ambition.
Work on your mindset, make things simple, build systems, track your progress, and always remember why you started. Because consistency is getting back to work; it is not never stopping.
