I think we all get to a point when we just feel burned out and unmotivated. We can’t find the energy or inspiration to work out, get work done, or achieve our goals. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a quarter-life crisis or anything, but motivation can come and go for sure. Overcoming these periods of burnout isn’t easy, but I wanted to share some of my tips that I’ve found helpful when trying to get motivated again. I thankfully haven’t experienced too many productivity slumps, but these are just some things that helped me and that I know have helped other people (I did my YouTube research, y’all). These tips will also help in the future because lack of motivation isn’t something that I expect will go away. All of these tips are easier said than done, and you won’t find yourself instantly inspired again, but they’re some ways to help you get back on track. I hope this helps you out, and happy reading!
1. Take a break
Sometimes you just need a break and some time to take your mind off of all of your goals and expectations. I’ve definitely experienced this, and the way I got back into the groove of things was by taking the weekend off and taking the time to relax. Several months ago, I was working pretty much all the time, pressured to be over-productive due to the free time I had because of the pandemic. I got to a point where I was hitting a roadblock in my work, and I would spend my days trying to be productive, failing, and getting mad at myself for watching YouTube or Netflix. I realized that I needed to take the weekend after my exams to purposely not do any work and relax as much as I could. I didn’t touch my work that entire weekend, and although it was weird to not be working all the time, it definitely helped me get my motivation back. Since then, I’ve maintained a good balance between work and free time, but taking a few days off once in a while to have no agenda except to relax has helped me stay motivated.
2. Hold yourself accountable
I think this can apply to all sorts of goals, from working out to studying. Make your goals public and try to achieve them with someone else so you can not only hold yourself accountable, but you and your friend can hold each other accountable. If you want to work out more consistently, you and your friend can FaceTime each other and do the same workout program. You’re going to want to keep up with your friend and not want to let them down by skipping out on your workouts. You may also find working out a lot more fun because you can do it with someone you enjoy spending time with. Another example is with studying -- if you study together with a friend, either via FaceTime or working next to each other, you’re going to be more inclined to get work done rather than watch YouTube or scroll through social media. You’re going to need to push back to the urge to socialize with your friend through the whole thing, but if you both go into the meeting with the goal of studying, you’re going to want to stay on track to meet that goal. If you feel the urge to go on your phone, but you see your friend diligently studying right next to you, you’ll be more motivated to study yourself. This kind of collaboration with your friends can really help you stay motivated and make something that may not be the most fun a little more enjoyable.
3. Change your attitude
This is when all of your positive ~affirmations~ come in. Those good vibes. Basically, when you’re in a bad mood, the last thing you’d probably want to do is be productive. There are two things that are helpful to realize. First, you’re not going to be any more productive while in a bad mood. Listen to happy music; watch a funny YouTube video; talk to your friends; do whatever it takes to turn that frown upside down. Cheesy, I know, but try your best to lift your mood because you may find yourself more interested in doing all of those productive things then. Second, the thing that you’re dreading may actually help to improve your mood. A lot of times when I’m tired and don’t want to work out, I find that working out actually helps me feel much less sluggish. It wakes me up and after exercising, I feel a lot better. That doesn’t mean that I always have motivation to work out (currently procrastinating while I write), but it does mean that I know how much good it does for me.
Some pretty flowers I saw on a hike that I did not want to go on, but ended up enjoying. An example of that whole "working out makes you feel better" thing.
4. Start small and slowly build
If you’re just getting back into the groove of things, don’t immediately throw yourself to the wolves and bombard yourself with all of the things that made you lose motivation in the first place. It’s like how after you take a break from working out every day, you don’t want to work out for two hours and do all the exercises you used to. That’ll just make you want to go back into that slump. Instead, start small and build up in increments. First do an easier workout and exercise for fifteen minutes. It’s totally doable, and you’ll feel like you’re starting to get back on track. Then, you can gradually work your way up back to the workout regimen you used to do. Take breaks, though, because you don’t want to repeat the cycle over again.
5. Split things up
The satisfaction you get from checking something off of your to-do list is the best feeling in the world. Sometimes when I have a lot of big projects to do, it might take hours before I can finally check it off. When I look at the to-do list in the middle of the day, it seems like I’ve done almost nothing with my day because there’s hardly anything checked off on my list. Consequently, I begin to lose motivation and get distracted, not wanting to work anymore because it feels like my time isn’t going toward any actual progress. A way to combat these not-so-nice feelings is to split your big tasks up. For example, if I had to write a blog post where I ate only orange foods for an entire day, I could create tasks like planning out all of the foods I’m going to eat, writing the introduction, taking pictures of the food, and proofreading. Each of those tasks doesn’t take too long, but all together they end up creating a blog post. This trick might be something that helps you keep from losing motivation, or it could be something to help you get out of a rut by reminding yourself of how much you’re actually getting done.
6. Reward yourself
Going along with breaking your projects up into smaller chunks is rewarding yourself for your progress. For example, tell yourself that if you read half of your assigned reading, you can watch a YouTube video. Use positive reinforcement to stay motivated and to want to continue toward your goals. This definitely helps me because I know I’ll want to finish whatever I need to do without any dillydallying so I can enjoy whatever reward I want to give myself.
Banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery aka what I think would be a great reward. The things I would do for this pudding.
7. Narrow your focus
A lot of times when you lose motivation, it’s because you’re overwhelmed or spreading yourself too thin. I have (a little too much) experience biting off more than I can chew and consequently having it come back to bite me. As a result, I often find myself overwhelmed with everything I have to do and instead of doing everything I need to, I end up doing nothing. To combat this and try to get back on track, I think it’s important to narrow your focus: choose a select few goals to work towards, and push the other, less important goals to the back burner until you’re ready to work toward them again. With this, you’ll be able to not only maintain motivation and stop feeling overwhelmed, but you’ll likely weed out all of your commitments that aren’t of as much interest to you. It’ll help you honor the commitments that you actually want to do and are passionate about, and it’ll help you refrain from taking on those commitments that you aren’t really that interested in. It’s definitely hard to say no to the different opportunities thrown at you, but trust me, it’s a lot better for your mental health in the long run.
8. Realize how far you’ve come
This is something that my friends need to constantly remind me of, but it does definitely help me refrain from getting down on myself and deeper into any ruts that I was in. I remember when I was in a productivity slump, I talked to my friend about how I felt like I wasn’t doing anything and how frustrated and overwhelmed I felt. He did a really good job of reminding me of how much I was doing, and it kind of felt like validation that I was being productive and not a total disappointment. These kinds of affirmations are things that you have to keep telling yourself because I think it’s all about perspective. You may be stuck on one little part of a project, but you need to remind yourself of all of the parts of the project that you have already completed. It’s like how the low-hanging fruit are so easy to get, but when you try to reach the more difficult fruit, the progress will be slower and you may get frustrated and forget how much fruit you’ve already gotten. Weird analogy, but I hope that makes sense. If you continue to remind yourself about how much progress you have already made, you’ll feel a bit better, and that may give you the burst of motivation to keep going toward your goals.
I hope this helped any of you that want to get motivated or want to know how to stay more productive. These tips have helped me a lot, and I can assure that they’ll continue to help me in the future when I overwhelm myself yet again. Have a good one!
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