Have you experienced a lack of motivation?We’ve all been there!

Those days where you just feel like every step is an effort and you are dragging yourself with every move you make. So the first point to this post is – that you are not alone. It is ok to have those kinda days. What I hope to chat about in this post is if you have a more general leaning towards being a couch potato than you do towards being a Duracell bunny. Again, you are not alone, whether it’s overwhelm, overdrive, procrastination or whatever, we all tend to have one of these leanings. The good news is that if we know ourselves well enough to have worked out our leaning, then we can work to support our energy and feel good at the end of the day, that we really have done our best.

I want to mention a disclaimer, if you have an ongoing feeling of sadness and lack of motivation, this may be a depression problem, if that is the case, I recommend you get the help you need to manage depression.

Now let’s dive into this topic of lack of motivation. The first step as always is awareness. So let me ask you some questions to get to the underlying cause of your lack of motivation. What feeling do you have when you are inactive? Is it guilt? Is it anger? What is your inner voice saying? Is it something along the lines of “I should mow the lawn, why aren’t you just doing it? You are so lazy, why don’t you do the things you are supposed to be doing?”?

I’m going to ask you to think about this question for a while…..how much do you respect yourself?

Here is why I ask that question… If there is something that needs to be done, and it is good for us to do it. By not doing it, we are showing a lack of respect for ourselves. It is my belief, that many, many of our issues stem down to this reason. If we realise that we are disrespecting ourselves, that’s ok, it probably means that we haven’t been shown how to respect ourselves. Many times when I talk to people about what is behind their guilt or anger, if often leads us back to some fear. Fear of the worst case scenario. For example, my personal fear was being gross and fat, yet I continued to not exercise. I focused on the fear that made me feel bad and demotivated. Therefore, I continued to disrespect myself.

Here is the good news!

It is possible to re-create our own motivation again. But, I am not the kind of gal that will jump down your throat with a “C’MON YOU CAN DO THIS!” That will leave you relying on outside motivation. I want you to re-create your own motivation. So, I would like you to make a personal choice, a commitment to yourself to work towards respecting your body, mind and emotions. The steps that lead towards this respect are: appreciation, love, and trust.

APPRECIATION! I suggest you get a pen and paper, but if not just think about the answers to these questions? What do you appreciate about your appearance? What do you appreciate about the workings of your body? What do you appreciate about your mind? What do you appreciate about your emotions? I hope you have been able to come up with a few things there. Really think about it. I was concerned about my belly, but wow!! When I just stop to think about what my belly has done for me. All those times I just kept throwing chips into my mouth..how much was my belly working hard to process all that, and keep me alive, me!! The very one that was being harsh to it, all the time, it was supporting me so loyally.

LOVE! These are exactly the same questions. What do you love about your appearance? What do you love about the workings of your body? What do you love about your mind? What do you love about your emotions? Ok, here is an example. What’s your favourite food? We often say ‘I love pizza’, or whatever. Have you ever stopped to think about your body’s tastebuds. Do you not love your amazing taste receptors that give you those delicious, yummy flavours? Imagine if all food tasted the same. How boring! So I can really imagine that you must have found something that you love about yourself.

TRUST! This is a big one. Especially if we have dieted or restricted ourselves harshly, then we tend to lose our trust of ourself. We might think if I allowed myself to watch as much TV as I wanted, I would never do anything. But, is that really true? Actually what is likely is, that at some point, our energy for TV would wear out, and we would want to get up to do something else. So here are the questions for trust. What do you trust about your appearance? What do you trust about the workings of your body? What do you trust about your mind? What do you trust about your emotions? Here is an example..with everything else that has a lid, it seems to require some effort to open or close the lid. When you blink, how much effort do you put into your eyelids opening or closing? So, I can definitely say, I trust my eyelids to work for me without effort.

It is my hope that if you focus more on these aspects of yourself, what you appreciate, love and trust, you will build respect for yourself. When you keep going you will notice a shift. This is exactly what happened to me. I made no conscious decision to start exercising, I just did. Why? Because, I found myself looking for ways to support my body, mind and emotions. If you respect something, you want to support it.

So, try each day to ask what you can do to support your body, your mind and your emotions. You might clean the house more, because you feel at peace when your surroundings are nice. You might try a puzzle, rather than switching on the TV, because you want to support your memory, or other part of your brain.

I hope this article was helpful to you in some way. Take care until next time. 👋