What's your source of motivation?

[Luceat]

Well, i wanna know, whats your source of motivation. In any kind.

For standing up in the morning / going out of bed and so on.

In case, i'm very sad at the moment; got no energy for anything. Nor gaming, drawing or fotographing.
I'm think, i'm only going out of bed .. for work.

*sigh*

 

[Laissez_Faire_Farming]

Sorry I typed too long....

A long time ago, I did a lot of research, from reading books, research papers and watching a documentary on how to stay motivated. Most of the information did not give me a solution to heal myself from anxiety, depression and feeling umotivated or burnout. I have been at the therapy several times, and still no answer. How to be motivated? My answer is NADA.

The church pastor never understood me and kept telling me to keep praying... I used to guilt myself for not being motivated enough to exercise, work, and find new jobs. –Still gaining weight and suffering extreme low self-esteem. Also, I envied my entourage for being motivated and successful through work. At that time, I was obsessed with being productive, and later I realized It was not healthy, and I needed to slow down and change my way of thinking. – never satisfied or happy. I have been always angry at that time.

During my self-reflection journey, I questioned my self-worth and my values. That's where I started realizing that I was not benefitting myself but society. I decided to take a break from work, activities, and relationships. Fortunately, I have a bit of money to have some sabbatical. Because I haven't shopped or pampered so LONG, I visited the hairdresser to dye my hair pink. –It brought me so much joy and got so many compliments. I decided to experiment with new makeup styles and new clothes. Also, I spent my time with family and friends. I decluttered my apartment and started exercising without guilting myself. –doing it with pleasure.

Additionally, I found a lot of joy in saving money, taking care of myself, doing chores, and worrying less about the future. I started learning to appreciate ordinary life.
After the time has passed from healing myself,
I felt a bit energetic and happy. I volunteered a lot during Covid-19 and learned new tech skills. I have been creating a lot of maps and doing some coding. How do I find motivation?

To me, there is no answer. Simply enjoy your life and stop comparing to others. You don't need to fix yourself.

I know it's bit silly ...
I encourage everyone to be like Sponge Bob than Squidward.
He appreciates simple life , always happy, and motivated.

 

[LRangerR]

I think the tldr of that was "Live for yourself, not an organization/system that doesn't take care of you, and do what makes you happy."

 

[FlyingCatPhillips]

I have a very different out look. I love to be productive and feel pride and accomplishment when I have a finished product in hand so to say. This can be video I made, worksheets, or a crochet hat. Sometimes I even learn new skills just to see if I can use them, such as cross stitch.
I found that exercising helps me to maintain a health does of dopamine, and helps to deal with build up stress. I also had to learn to accept who I am and I learned that despite what other people said, I actually like who I am. So I stopped listening to those people and even cut a few out of my life entirely. Since they did not like who I am and always wanted me to change; why punish them with my presence. I am actually happier for it too!

But, ultimately my family and kids. I cannot live for myself. Some people can, but I cannot. That is not to say I work myself to death, cause I do enjoy working. Working is something to do and does not bring me any lasting happiness. Just as video games are nice to play, but even that fades. My family does not fade and my children always need me. Even if I want a moment to myself...
But remembering that I strive to give them a caring, loving mother whom is actually in their life is a strong push to do more. My children will have memories of being with their mother as child. What more motivation could I possibly need after that.

 

[Dr. eeL]

Some of the replies here are both wise and touching. It's easy to visualize playing in Stardew Valley as a vacation spot. Your time here on earth is a parallel vacation spot, where one collects emotions, good and bad experiences, feels what it feels like to be separate, feels what it feels like to be loved. When one is on vacation, every day is a treat. So lie in bed and laugh at yourself. After all, you are on vacation.

 

[Luceat]

Sorry I typed too long....

A long time ago, I did a lot of research, from reading books, research papers and watching a documentary on how to stay motivated. Most of the information did not give me a solution to heal myself from anxiety, depression and feeling umotivated or burnout. I have been at the therapy several times, and still no answer. How to be motivated? My answer is NADA.

The church pastor never understood me and kept telling me to keep praying... I used to guilt myself for not being motivated enough to exercise, work, and find new jobs. –Still gaining weight and suffering extreme low self-esteem. Also, I envied my entourage for being motivated and successful through work. At that time, I was obsessed with being productive, and later I realized It was not healthy, and I needed to slow down and change my way of thinking. – never satisfied or happy. I have been always angry at that time.

During my self-reflection journey, I questioned my self-worth and my values. That's where I started realizing that I was not benefitting myself but society. I decided to take a break from work, activities, and relationships. Fortunately, I have a bit of money to have some sabbatical. Because I haven't shopped or pampered so LONG, I visited the hairdresser to dye my hair pink. –It brought me so much joy and got so many compliments. I decided to experiment with new makeup styles and new clothes. Also, I spent my time with family and friends. I decluttered my apartment and started exercising without guilting myself. –doing it with pleasure.

Additionally, I found a lot of joy in saving money, taking care of myself, doing chores, and worrying less about the future. I started learning to appreciate ordinary life.
After the time has passed from healing myself,
I felt a bit energetic and happy. I volunteered a lot during Covid-19 and learned new tech skills. I have been creating a lot of maps and doing some coding. How do I find motivation?

To me, there is no answer. Simply enjoy your life and stop comparing to others. You don't need to fix yourself.

I know it's bit silly ...
I encourage everyone to be like Sponge Bob than Squidward.
He appreciates simple life , always happy, and motivated.

Thank you for your kind words .. and .. well said sir/lady

 

[Luceat]

To be honest, there's a big void in me/my life .. and i don't know how to fill it. But i will work on me/it and find a way (or person) to handle with it. :)

Thank you all for your kind words so far! YOU, ladies and gentlemen, are awesome!!!

 

[Lew Zealand]

I hadn't really thought about this until you posted and then I didn't really know what to say. So I didn't say anything.

I'm a simple person.

But then think. I have a family so there's that motivation but that's external. I have a job, it's pretty good. Meh, eh?

Then I remembered. 'Cuz think can be slow at times. Really what I'm motivated about is to find out. About everything. There's a notable shortage of time for that so I've cut a few things out like quantum physics (just skip it, you can thank me later). But I really do want to know how we got here from there and all the reasons why and all the ways it could have gone differently, better or worse. It started at lunchtime by looking up why Armistice Day was relabeled as Veteran's Day in the US on that day (Nov 11) in 2006 or so. Mostly in Wikipedia but other places, too.

I did not exit that Wikipedia rabbit hole until that tiny office I used for lunch was rekeyed and given to someone else in about 2017. Yeah, 11 years. Lotsa rabbits down there, lemme tell you. It spread to anything and everything from the history of Thailand to how stars are formed and quite a few things in between. More than one thing. Totally qualifies as plural.

I now spend a chunk of my time learning how to understand the world around me and also knowing how we fool ourselves. Whether this is tricking the senses (this is literally how magic tricks and optical illusions work) or how fallible and frequently mistaken our memory truly is. And of course many other things including errors in deduction and how our minds are not wired to think using logic. About how that needs to be imposed and how to do it at least in a reasonably good way.

It seems to me (I could be wrong) that many people see the world as a mystery, not a fun one to be solved, but instead a scary, unknowable one. I had that view at one time but no longer do. Instead I know that parts of it can be understood and if not predictable, at least not surprising. And that's pretty comforting.

And motivating to keep at it. The more information I take in, the fewer chances (hopefully!) to repeat the amazing whopper mistakes I spent my first few decades on this planet committing in consistent succession.

Hey, at least I was good at it!

 

[LRangerR]

Whether this is tricking the senses (this is literally how magic tricks and optical illusions work) or how fallible and frequently mistaken our memory truly is.

Funny you should mention this. I am a bit older than some on this forum, and i spent a good amount of my time growing up observing how the world was changing around me. It was pretty early on how i noticed that much of television, specifically commercials were being designed and redesigned to attack multiple senses at the same time, and from there i payed attention to other things that were happening in many other forms of media. Eventually I cut the vast majority of television out of my life (not all of it is bad, but unless you know what you're looking for it's hard to separate them) because of how much bad feels i was getting from it all. Unfortunately it has only gotten worse since then, and now most of the 1st world carries what is effectively a supercomputer in their pocket. Because heaven forbid we experience the real world for a moment.

I find that grounding myself in reality helps at times, but it can be hard to find when society seems disinterested in it reality itself. So my advice to you is get out of your normal routine. Obviously something isn't working, so break a few eggs and make that omelette, you never know what you're going to find once you get started.

 

[FlyingCatPhillips]

I can to some degree understand, I think. Most of my work that I do is on a computer. So I have to remember to take a vacation outside and spend time playing catch with the kids; or get kites stuck in trees!

Spending too much time "working" really starts to annoy me; but I can crochet for a whole day without getting annoyed the same way computer work does. I also studied basic advertising and they deliberately try to engage your senses in every media you can find actually.

 

[Laissez_Faire_Farming]

I am not sure what kind of life you are living. @Luceat
I don't know who you are.
However, I would love you to watch a movie if you have some time. – hope to help you self-reflect for yourself or self-examine yourself.

Watch Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) – you can find a free movie somewhere in the internet
This includes burnout, dealing with loss of motivation and discouragement

Also, commentary of the movie: – you could study it.

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[FlyingCatPhillips]

My daughter loves Kiki's Delivery Service! It is a fantastic movie. My personal favorite would be Howl's Moving Castle. I think that it incorporates more of accepting things the way they are as opposed to how you want them to be. But then most Studio Ghibli movies are really good and have a lot more depth than you would think an animated movie would have. I get why you would recommend Kiki's Delivery Service though, it's mainly about self discovery and has a realistic quality. That's a good choice, even if it does not help with what they are going through, it is a really great movie!

 

[haywud]

In case, i'm very sad at the moment; got no energy for anything. Nor gaming, drawing or fotographing.
I'm think, i'm only going out of bed .. for work.

*sigh*

I can relate unfortunately. I don't want to bore anyone with details, but for me things just keep happening and keep dragging me down. Seems like whenever I start to lift myself back up, something else happens. It's a pretty crappy feeling, and for me it's been too long since I actually felt any motivation. I feel the same as you, as if there's a void and no idea how to deal with it. Wish I could suggest something that would be helpful, but yeah unfortunately as I said it sounds like you're in a similar boat as me.

Then again if I could suggest something that may at least temporarily take your mind off of things, try writing something or at least typing something out. I stopped doing it because I just lost interest in it, like I do with so many other things, but I used to try writing poems to take my mind off of things. I started to notice that if I put my thoughts and feelings into words, that at times it could at least temporarily ease my mind for a while. I have a text file of about 15 or more that I wrote and sometimes I go back and read some, so maybe you could try writing something (not necessarily poems, but anything really) and see if it does anything for you. Who knows, maybe writing something could end up giving you motivation.

Either way, I hope you can find your motivation soon.

 

[Kreeate]

Well, i wanna know, whats your source of motivation. In any kind.

For standing up in the morning / going out of bed and so on.

In case, i'm very sad at the moment; got no energy for anything. Nor gaming, drawing or fotographing.
I'm think, i'm only going out of bed .. for work.

*sigh*

I can strongly recommend "The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris". Essentially breaks down and explores how modern society sets us up to have unrealistic expectations regarding life and being happy and motivated, and therefore never being able to reach "true" happiness and realistic motivation.

We see wealthy people, supermodels, successful actors and musicians, and think, "I need that to be happy..." but that is rarely the case.
Mainstream media mostly only shows us the good bits. It's not often that we see behind the scenes and it's not always "rosy".

As some other members have mentioned, happiness and motivation can be a very personal thing.
For me personally, the best motivation is to focus on me, with realistic goals, and not trying to emulate those things the world tells me I should become.
Setting small, realistic and reachable goals for yourself is a sure way to build motivation.

 

[LRangerR]

We see wealthy people, supermodels, successful actors and musicians, and think, "I need that to be happy..." but that is rarely the case.
Mainstream media mostly only shows us the good bits. It's not often that we see behind the scenes and it's not always "rosy".

I've also noticed that many people say the same thing about social media. It's like, people only see the best of other popular figures online, and then they put themselves up to that standard trying to be like them, but then forget that those people are real people too. What they're seeing is only a snapshot of who they are, and that snapshot just happens to be only the highlights that they wish to share with the world. And then when said person fails to live up to THAT unrealistic standard they've unknowingly set for themselves they get depressed or a host of other issues that can develop because of it.

 

[Ellajoy]

Well, i wanna know, whats your source of motivation. In any kind.

For standing up in the morning / going out of bed and so on.

In case, i'm very sad at the moment; got no energy for anything. Nor gaming, drawing or fotographing.
I'm think, i'm only going out of bed .. for work.

*sigh*

My God!

 

[Daikon Ocelot]

Source of motivation? Overall, that's hard, since I can barely take anything as motivation. Most things is just too depressing. But if it's about hobby, then it would be my favorite cartoons (including animes) and games, and my families (nothing beats my parents saying "oh, yes, you can do that, Son!" to motivate me doing something).

 

[imnvs]

I'm a simple person. Dopamine.

 

[FlyingCatPhillips]

I love to learn, and learning new things is fascinating.
Did you know that dopamine wears off and only provides momentary happiness which will fade within a couple hours? This is some cases may span what would feel like days or even weeks but in reality, is only minutes of time. Such as the new tv will only make you happy when you think about it, and then the cat pees on the carpet...

Serotonin is a mood stabilizing happiness hormone which comes from having a healthy lifestyle will promote long term happiness. This hormone is contingent on your eating the correct foods or type of foods in order to have this hormone produced. Such as a fiber-rich plant foods with meat and fat in moderation, is just one type of diet which would help to produce this hormone in abundance.

Oxytocin is a hormone created by feeling trusted and bonded to other people, its effect builds up over time. Such as hugging people you care about, in fact this action produces oxytocin! While initially you may not even feel the presence of the hormone it helps to promote long term happiness and when it disappears the effects are immediate. This is felt when you miss someone and generally start to feel sad. What is being missed, other than the person, is the bond that existed with that person. This means the laughing together and the feeling that someone cares about you, in fact it's why we miss people even if you talk on the phone every day. This hormone not only comes from that bond, but also physical contact with that person, such as hugging that person.

Endorphins, this hormone is pain relief and relaxation. This is temporary, just like dopamine, but is not tied to a reward system. Endorphins is tied to physical activity and exercise. This means it can provide just as much happiness as dopamine but costs less money, the tradeoff is that you need to actively work for it, in the form of crunches, sit ups and running. The more you exercise the more you get, however like dopamine there is a limit. Just because you cannot move your body does not mean you will be any happier than you were when you did that 30-minute workout routine. This should mean to only exercise within your limitations and to work out in a responsible manner.

 

[Fippfopp]

Well, i wanna know, whats your source of motivation. In any kind.

For standing up in the morning / going out of bed and so on.

In case, i'm very sad at the moment; got no energy for anything. Nor gaming, drawing or fotographing.
I'm think, i'm only going out of bed .. for work.

*sigh*

Okay, this might sound silly, but.. Going on walks in the woods/hiking completely changed my mental health. Being in nature reminds me what life is really about - my life isn't in an office/overworking myself for school, it's about engaging with the world and enjoying the time I have with it. Before I started hiking, I had a very hard time getting out of bed in the morning to do anything. But after I started trying to get out a few times a week, everything changed.

If you work a job that requires you to be inside during daylight hours, try to give a little bit of your weekend to it. If you don't get a day off, find trees nearby and walk around near them during lunch/right after work, or try to leave the house 30 minutes earlier and stop at a trail on the way in, even if you just get to spend ten minutes there. If you don't live in a forested area, go be with nature however you're able to.

I also recommend not using headphones for music. When I don't have anything but the woods on my mind, I usually find myself using the time to process what's happening in my life. It feels kind of like meditation after awhile, and I think that using that time to really contemplate what's going on in my life, to spend some time thinking about what I really care about and am grateful for, has drastically improved how I feel on a day to day basis.