8 Ways to Find Motivation When You are Feeling Stuck

You’ve seen it happen before. We set these big, lofty goals for ourselves, and get so pumped to crush them. We get started and we’re really cruising, feeling on top of the world! Then at some point, we start to lose a little steam.

And then a little more.

And then we hit a point where we just don’t even want to continue towards this goal. It feels too hard, or pointless, or maybe we’ve just lost our desire to accomplish it.

To say that burnout and losing motivation to tackle our goals is tough is an understatement. And we then start grasping for any bit of motivation to keep going or we start beating ourselves up because we just can’t get ourselves to move. It’s okay. We’ve all been there.

Know that you’ve done nothing wrong. This happens to everyone. It’s one of the most beautiful challenges of life! But the good news is that you can absolutely rediscover your motivation to keep going. Let’s walk you through some of our best tips for breaking through that burnout and crushing your goals:

Have a strong why.

Finding your why is the most crucial part of any goal. If you’re losing motivation, your why is what will bring it back to you. But it’s not enough to just have your why. It has to be a good enough reason for you to keep fighting. So say you want to adopt the habit of waking up earlier. It’s not enough to say that your why is that you just want to wake up earlier. What are you going to do with that time? Is that the best time for you to workout? Do you want to take time for your passion project? Meditate? Have an hour or two to yourself? These reasons might be stronger for you than just wanting to wake up earlier and then it becomes a lot easier to push through the desire to snooze that alarm. Hold onto your reason why and let that stoke your fire.

Remember that you write your story.

It’s easy to forget that we’re actually the heroes of our own stories. We’re the main character, the avatar, and we get to choose how we respond and act toward life’s circumstances. And the more positive our response, our mindset, and our actions, the more likely we’ll be to enjoy our own stories. Think about it. Who would write a movie where the leading character basically had an easy ride the entire way through? No one because that’s boring. We like an adventure! We love to see the leading character overcome his or her challenges. And the same goes for you. 

Investigate what’s holding you back. 

It’s not surprising that most people who lost their motivation to continue towards a goal often look more to how to get the motivation back rather than to what’s stopping them. We just want to fix it already! But oftentimes, the answer to getting the motivation back is found within our struggles. Have you chosen the right goal for yourself? Are there some limiting beliefs that are holding you back? Are you afraid of what happens when you actually achieve that goal? Most people don’t realize that it’s not a fear of failure that holds us back, but a fear of success. It’s much easier to be stuck and continue down the same path that we always have than to level up and change. Energy in motion stays in motion. So to disrupt that timeline would mean to disrupt everything that was in motion around it. But remember that it’s safe to become the best version of yourself. It’s exciting and new and maybe scary because you’ve never hit this goal before, but you were destined to. 

Take a social media (and technology) hiatus. 

In a day and age when we’re constantly making sure we have enough power in our iPhones or that are computer chargers are plugged in, it’s important to remember that us, as humans, need to unplug too. If you feel like you’re constantly in that scroll cycle of looking at other people’s lives and seeing what they have versus what you have, that’s a huge motivation sucker. More often than not, we’re left feeling resentful, jealous, and down about our own lives when we have so much to be grateful for. Take a weekend, a week, or even a month away from social media. If you feel the need to also take a tech break, do it! Then when you come back, schedule set times to go on and stick to them. 

Reassess your boundaries. 

Often times what leads to burnout is letting our boundaries slip or not having good enough boundaries to begin with. Do you answer your emails at 10 PM on a Saturday night? Or do you keep your phone on while having dinner with your family? What about scrolling through social media right after you wake up? In order to keep our motivation in check, we must set and adhere to boundaries that promote self-care and help to maintain our well-being. That means making sure we’re not constantly pouring from an empty cup. If you’ve found that you allow others to lean on you too much when you could use some support yourself, or you welcome an open stream from the outside world at all times into your headspace, it can be pretty hard to keep focus. But be gentle with yourself. It takes time to learn what boundaries are good for you to have and how to establish them. What’s more, not everyone will be so willing to adapt to these new boundaries and will have to learn to adhere to them just as you are!

Reach out for help. 

We’re human. We’re not meant to do this whole life thing alone. If you’re struggling to stay motivated or maybe just need a shoulder to lean on to help you through a rough spot, reach out. Talk to someone you trust and a healthcare professional. It takes the strongest people to ask for help.

Remember that life is happening for you, not to you.

Much like the second point, most of finding motivation is all about our own perspective. One way to shift this to a more positive outlook is adopt the belief that life is happening for you, not to you. Meaning, every circumstance, every encounter, and every occurrence is solely to help you evolve and better yourself as a human. When we start to look through this lens, we become empowered rather than powerless. We get excited for challenges because we know that there’s a huge reward at the end of it. And then, we’re more likely to succeed!

Do something to spark joy.

At the end of the day, if we’re not doing things through joy and love, we’re not going to enjoy it. So if right now your goals are making you feel frustrated, it’s okay. Take a break. Go do something for you. Go play, have fun, and bring more joy into your life. Because when we feel happy and joyful, we feel a lot more motivated to conquer anything. And you deserve to be feeling good, no matter what. So do something for yourself that maybe you haven’t done in a while, like going for a run at the beach, meeting a friend for lunch, taking your kids to the park, or taking a fun class just for the heck of it. Whatever will spark that joy.