You cannot stay motivated if every step you take is a nightmare. At the same time, you cannot sustain your level of motivation when your physical abilities, emotional strengths, and skillset capacities are being challenged on a daily basis. Learn why people lose motivation and what you can do differently to pursue your dreams without giving up regardless of the complexity of your journey.
One of the many factors attributed to failures is the lack of motivation. Without motivation, it becomes much harder to get started or keep going. People start working on what they call their dreams and a couple of months later, they close their doors. Things get tough and they find themselves in intense competition and a never-ending emotional struggle to keep going.
This is why you need to make sure that you are highly motivated and ready to face the challenge before you get started. Learning why people lose motivation can help you avoid fatal mistakes people make that lead to the failure of their businesses and life struggles.
The following are the top 9 reasons why people lose motivation.
Related: 9 ways to increase motivation when facing challenges
1. Lack of purpose
A person without a purpose is like a leaf in a desert that moves only when the wind blows it. It has no clear direction except where the wind goes. When there is no wind blowing in the desert, the leaf stays where it is until the next wind comes and moves it. People without a purpose in their lives act the same way. They have no reason to have motivation, and even if they do, they have no direction of where to go or what to do with their lives.
The lack of purpose is one of the top reasons why people lose motivation. Your purpose is what gives you positive vibes and a sense of security. It is something you are happy to get up every morning and work hard for. Even if things might get difficult, you know you will be OK once you have achieved your goals.
A purpose gives you a reason to live and the strength to maintain a healthy life
Your purpose is a driving force that motivates you to work hard for a promotion, start a business, get that degree, or simply wake up every morning. A purpose gives you something to live for. Without a sense of purpose, people tend to lose their vision and stop caring. Their physical and mental strengths get easily challenged. Due to the lack of a purpose, people tend to chase whatever comes their way just like a leave in a desert without any direction. People without purpose in their lives are more likely to hang out with the wrong people, get in trouble very often, etc. Having no purpose means that there is nothing to have the motivation for.
Even if you have a purpose in your life and are happily motivated to achieve it, it is equally important to never lose sight of it. Straying from your purpose can easily cause you to lose your motivation.
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2. Lack of discipline
Motivation is very important in achieving anything you want to achieve in life. Without motivation, it would be very difficult to get started and put in the much-needed effort during the premier phase of your journey. No matter what you want to achieve and accomplish, you cannot succeed, unless you are highly motivated.
Most people never start working on their dreams simply because they lack motivation. They want to start businesses, a side hustle, work hard for that promotion, change careers, or lose weight. But they never get started. Why? Because they lack motivation.
Having the needed motivation, however, is not enough to guarantee success. What gets you where you want to go is a combination of a lot of things that work in harmony for a single purpose. One of the most important qualities you must have is discipline. Your motivation is important but not enough.
Discipline is what keeps you going when you are losing motivation or no longer have the motivation
As you go through your journey, things will start getting difficult and overwhelming every day. You will start losing motivation as things get harder. That is where discipline comes in. Discipline is another driving force that works with your motivations to get you where you want to go. In order words, your discipline is a force that feels in the gap when your motivation is declining. There are times when your discipline will be the only thing standing between you and quitting.
A lot of people lose motivation and fail to achieve their purposes and goals because of a lack of discipline. Even if you are fully motivated, you cannot win, unless you have the discipline to keep you on your path. In this world, it is easy to lose your focus and target. People will tell you the opposite of what you want to hear. Conflicting thoughts will visit your mind and a lot of noises will interfere with your plan. The only way to keep that motivation alive is to have the discipline that forces you to ignore all noises and keep you on the right path.
Related: 4 steps on how to achieve anything you want in life
3. Not understanding that success takes time
One of the most essential facts in this life is that success takes time. No matter what it is you want to achieve, it will take some time to achieve it. In order words, time is an important factor in achieving success. Everything good takes time and overnight success is a gamble.
Time gives you a chance to correct your mistakes, learn about the market and competition, win the customers’ trust, and design great products and services. You cannot achieve all these milestones in a single day or a single month. It takes time to be great at what you do.
Just because you failed, it does not mean that what you are working on does not work
People fail to recognize that it will take them some time(months or even years) to be successful. They try some things and if it does not work within a few months, they lose their motivation and conclude that it does not work. Failing at something does not mean what you are working on does not work.
It simply means that methodology, techniques, and plan you have been following cannot solve the problem you are trying to solve. In order words, you need to come up with a different plan or make modifications to the one you have already. That is how you overcome failure and stay motivated.
In order to keep your motivation alive, you need to start looking at failure differently. We learn more from our failures than successes. Failure is feedback on what you are doing. If you fail once, change the plan and try again. Repeat this process and give yourself enough time for things to work out. After making peace with the fact that success takes time, you will never have to worry about losing your motivation.
4. Lack of patience
Motivation fades away faster for impatient people. Patience is your ability to tolerate delays and wait peacefully until you have achieved what you desire. Unfortunately, many people are impatient. They expect things to work out their way and fast. If something is not working now, they lose their motivation and give up.
For example, think about a person who weighs 300lbs and wants to lose half of that eight in one month. I am not a scientist, and therefore, cannot confirm or deny that it is possible to lose that much weight in just a month. Anything is possible in this world. But, if you ask weight loss professionals, they will tell you that it is almost impossible to lose that much weight in a single month. The more weight you want to lose, the more time and effort you will need. The problem is that most people are not patient enough to work on their bodies for an entire year.
Those who start give up in a few months due to a lack of patience. They only want overnight success. Real success follows the principles of the universe. If you work hard on something without giving up and allow yourself enough time and wait patiently, you will eventually achieve it. You cannot stay motivated if you don’t have the patience to let things happen as planned.
Related: How to be patient: 8 Steps to manage your emotions
5. Deviating from their passion
People who are highly motivated are usually the ones who stay in their own domains. In other words, they know what they are passionate about and keep their attention in that area. When you are motivated and working on something you know well and care about, it is unlikely that you will lose motivation.
A big mistake people make that costs them their motivation is to deviate from their passion. They start something they care about, work on it hard enough, and then pick a different path down the road. Passion increases motivation. The moment you get into an area you don’t have passion for, you automatically start to lose motivation.
This is because you might end up learning new skills that require you to get outside of your comfort zone. Things might get complicated due to the lack of proper training, skills, and support. All these events will lead to physical and mental stress, anxiety, and depression. Once you reach this level of emotional instability, you no longer have the motivation to keep going. You cannot stay motivated if every step you take is a nightmare.
In order to keep your motivation strong, stick to what you know and are passionate about. Being in your domain does not mean you will have an easy ride. Still, things will get tough and you might end up working harder and longer than ever before. The good news is that you will find peace in solving those complicated problems because you have a passion for them.
6. No celebrating small wins
A big reason people lose their motivation is that they fail to celebrate their small wins. Your journey to success might be complicated or simple depending on how determined you are, your passion, and your habits. It will also take time to reach your goals. Before you achieve the final goal, you will experience small wins or small successes.
The best way to keep your motivation going is to celebrate these small wins. A small win means that you have not achieved your main goal yet, but you have made substantial progress that is worthy of celebrating. Small wins mean that you are on the right track, and therefore if anyone is to win it should be you. Celebrating small wins is also a good time to reflect on how far you have come and how much work is left before you can reach the finish line. That is why it is utterly important to celebrate small wins.
Many people never celebrate their small wins which causes them to lose their motivation. They keep working hard every single day without acknowledging the progress they have made. The lack of progress acknowledgment causes them to have doubts about the success of their projects and their abilities to achieve them. Self-dought is a powerful enemy that causes millions of people to lose their motivation. You cannot stay motivated if you are wondering whether you will succeed or not. For this reason, you should keep your eyes on the big prize while celebrating small wins.
7. Lack of proper planning
A wise man once said, “A project that is well-prepared is always easy to execute.” Planning is essential for the success of any project, goal, or dream. Your plan eventually becomes the roadmap you follow from the start of the project until the completion phase.
Starting something without a plan is like being dropped in the middle of the ocean and trying to find your way back without a compass. The chance of you getting back on the shore is slim and if you do, it will only be based on luck. Luck is not something to rely on especially when building a project of a lifetime.
What you need is a plan. Unfortunately, many people do not plan for their projects. They just get started and try to figure out every step as they go. Every step they take is like a puzzle they are solving. You can stay motivated that long in this kind of situation. You cannot solve complex problems by guesswork.
That is why many people never make it to the other side. They get stuck with an ocean of problems with little to no plan on how to solve them. The more problems and challenges they face, the harder it becomes to keep going. This leads to devastation, frustrations, loss of motivation, and finally, giving up.
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8. Hanging out with the wrong people
Motivation is an internal feeling that pushes you to follow a particular path and have a goal-oriented mindset. These feelings can be altered, changed, increased, or decreased depending on internal or external influence. If you are motivated at doing something and later you hear that it is not possible, you might think about it for a few minutes. Someone can show you videos of people who have tried and failed countless times with the definitive conclusion that you will not succeed.
After watching such videos, you might end up with some doubts in your mind. You might start thing:
- Maybe they are right
- It is not achievable
- What if I lose
- That is why I have been struggling with it
- I need to start something else
- I need an alternative or a backup plan
- Things are harder than I thought, etc
Once these feelings have sunk into your subconscious, you will not stay motivated. The point here is that you should choose your friends wisely. You need to surround yourself with people who have the same vision or those who can at least motivate you to achieve your goals. Fake friends, losers, and small-minded individuals will weigh down your motivation and cause you to fail. Instead of supporting you, they will tell you every reason possible you will fail. You cannot stay motivated if everything around you is doubting your goals and abilities to achieve them.
Many people lose motivation because of the people around them. They hang out with people who tried and failed, quitters, and losers. These individuals cannot motivate you to win. A wise man once said, “You are the average of the people you hang out with.” If you hang out with 9 losers, you will become number 10. Negativity from people around you alone can cause you to lose your motivation and turn you into a failure.
9. Underestimating the complexity of their goals
Anything worth the celebration requires hard work and sacrifice. No matter what you want to accomplish, you will need to put in the efforts necessary and work harder than anybody else, for as long as it takes to succeed. You might end up spending more resources, more money, and more time to make it work. That is how success is created. If you want to lose weight, for example, you will need to show up to the gym and complete all courses required without taking shortcuts.
If you want to start a successful business, you will need to learn how businesses are run, and managed, hire the right people, develop a strong team, deal with competition and customers, etc. You will work harder than anyone else in your organization to make it work. Without sacrifice, hard work, and patience, you might find it difficult to succeed.
A big mistake many people make is underestimating how hard their goals/projects are. People assume that their journey to success is easy to follow and straightforward. The reality is that nothing is easy in this life. If it was easy, everyone would have succeeded. The bigger your dreams and goals, the more it will cost you. Underestimating your goals is the first step toward failure.
