How To Get Motivated When You Don't Feel Like To Do Anything?

How do you stay inspired when life gets hard?

This is a question I get a lot and one that’s tough to answer. But the way we answer it will determine our success in so many areas of life, from the art we create to the way we treat our bodies and our loved ones.

So, here are four methods to stay motivated when it’s hard to get your best work out into the world.

1. Use Action to Create Motivation 

You’re procrastinating for no reason. We all have those days, right? In this scenario, you can convince yourself to work if you do the first and tiniest step that will move you in the right direction. Many people wait until they feel inspired to start working on something or take action. But unfortunately, waiting for lightning to strike can often take a while—years even.

If you have to work on a project, just open the document and type one sentence. Then give yourself permission to take a break. Seriously!

As artist Henri Matisse said, “Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.”

2. Shift Your Attention to Benefiting Others

When you are struggling to get motivated, often you are stuck in a “me-focused” rut. You think about what you need to do, or you worry about not knowing what to do next. Then you start to beat yourself up, recalling other things in your life that haven’t gone as planned. Before long, you’re neck-deep in a pity party. One of the best ways to get out of that is to simply focus on other people.

It’s a powerful thing when you realize that, regardless of how down you were feeling, you can still help someone else. On one hand, you realize other people don’t share the critical view you have of yourself (they’re too busy worrying about their own problems). And as it turns out, you can actually help them. It may be as simple as helping a single mother carry her groceries to her car. Or offering to stay late to help another team at work. Seeing how you can add value to other people’s lives with such a small effort can help build your confidence. It gets you out of your “me” rut and reminds you that when you can solve other people’s problems. Or sometimes you can have a strong inspiration to make an effort to buy gifts for family members.

3. See Life as a Series of 2-3 Week Experiments

First, it helps break up a large goal into smaller chunks. But it also transforms your relationship to the process. Now you’re not just thinking about accomplishing a larger goal, you become a scientist whose mission is to gain information and “data” along the way. There are endless ways you can use this in your personal and professional life.

This approach also helps relieve the stress of committing to one course of action. If done well, you can design these small experiments so that you are risk very little if they “fail.” But they are never complete failures if your goal is learning—and especially if they help you validate a particular direction. Often you may feel a lack of motivation because you’re not sold on the right course of action. How could you design a series of experiment that would validate whether you’re headed down the right path? Rather than being paralyzed thinking about what you want to do with the rest of your life, just take action for the next 2-3 weeks.

Some can start with a new unique design t-shirt or a new positive quote shirt a new hairstyle to make a new version of you.

Especially, you should make your goal public. If you tell someone – or write down – your goal, you’ve essentially made a promise to keep your word.

4. Do It With Friends

Remember your study groups back in college? You probably didn’t want to study for that calculus test, but hanging out with your friends made it a tad less miserable. It’s the same reason why gym buddies and diet groups work.

Whatever you’re trying to do, see if there’s a way you can do it with friends. If you’re working on a tough presentation due tomorrow, see if you can find colleagues planning on doing OT as well. So while you might be working on different things, at least you’re not alone in the office and you’ll have someone to commiserate with during coffee breaks.

Have you noticed how if you deeply desire something, you can summon almost unlimited energy and resources to go after it? If you aren’t feeling motivated to pursue the goal, it’s not necessarily a sign that you don’t want to do it. It could just be that you’ve lost touch with your “why.” You’re thinking about the daily grind, and you’ve forgotten the real reason—the ultimate benefit—of why you’re on this path.

You can see more: 7 Ways To Enjoy The Weekend Most and Prepare For A Productive Week to enjoy little things to achieve a big goal.