[GUEST POST] How to Find Motivation When You Feel Like You Have None: 20 Ideas!

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****** Today’s piece is a guest post from renowned anxiety expert (and dear friend) Tamar Chansky. ******

How to Find Motivation When You Feel Like You Have None: Twenty Ideas for Taking the Shame Out of Feeling Stuck So You Can Get Your Work Done.

I am completely unmotivated. I have no motivation. Why can’t I get myself to be motivated?!?!

Raise your hand…have you said this to yourself today?

If so, welcome; I’m so glad you’re here. You are in very good company. A species worth: A 2021 study found that only 36% of people feel engaged at work, and that was before the quiet quitting movement was even a twinkle in our glazed-over eyes… 88% of remote and 70% of in-person workers report experiencing burnout.

Put that together with the studies reporting the rise in anxiety in the US (42.5 million) and depression (21 million) up about 25% in 2023—not to mention the millions and millions of people grieving the loss of loved ones from COVID-19, and grappling with PTSD (12 million) all of which make it difficult (and unhealthy) to carry on and get things done.

These days, feeling stuck or trying to overcome it is the dominant experience.

But what might make us feel more stuck is thinking that we’re the only ones.

Look around and everyone else is out there happy happy and doing it all.

Ahhh, social media. Damn you.

Whether you are staring down the end of the semester, looking at piles of papers or laundry, or waking up with the terrible weight of I CAN’T on your chest, there’s actually a good reason for it.

You are tired.

You’ve been pushing too long.

You need a break.

Your expectations are too high for anyone to reach.

Perhaps you’re trying to navigate from point A to point Z—without the steps marked out in between.

If we could connect with ourselves about why we feel stuck, we could feel legitimate and understood and determine our next move.

Because, like other feeling-cousins in the emotional family tree—like sadness and anger, feeling unmotivated is actually not a “wrong turn.” It is part of the human experience. And it’s no one’s favorite.

At all.

In fact, feeling unmotivated can lead to a lot of suffering.

But as part of our emotional navigation, we need to know where the unmotivated feeling starts, where it takes us, and how to pivot when the discouraging and demeaning cascade of thoughts and feelings arrives.

I am unmotivated. I am a failure. This will never change. Everyone else is doing things. What’s wrong with me?

This vicious cycle often leads to avoidance and more judgment.

Instead of dwelling, we must remind ourselves that highly successful people can also feel unmotivated, discouraged, and stuck. They just have tactics, which I cover below.

It’s about how we respond to stuckness or low motivation, which determines what happens next.

Before we move on, let’s spend another minute on our relationship to stuckness.

Walk with me…

Close your eyes and imagine a child on a playground sitting on the bench, alone, not joining in with the other kids…do you get mad at the child and say, "Hey, what’s wrong with you—go play”?

I am sure, dear readers, kindred spirits, kind-hearted people if you are here reading this, the answer is no.

You’d lead with empathy—you’d probably sit next to the child and accept them exactly as they are. You would trust them. You might say after a bit, “Hey buddy, things are hard sometimes; what’s up? What’s on your mind? What do you need right now?”

You know where this is going. We are that child. We could get mad and judgy at ourselves when we can’t join others and function well, but that will delay us even more and cause additional pain and unnecessary self-recrimination.

Maybe that child is tired. Feels disconnected. Needs a hug. Wants to sit in the sunshine; is an introvert and needs to recharge alone!

What would happen if we started to see stuck moments as “judgment-optional”?

What if we didn’t add to our internal narrative permanent things about ourselves? What if we recognized that this is a temporary moment in life and doesn’t define our eternal nature? What if we spoke to ourselves like a child having an off day?

The greatest obstacle to our motivation may be the shame we feel about lacking it… fortunately, we can choose not to perpetuate it.

Once we can accept and believe that being unmotivated doesn’t mean we lack moral fiber, we may be able to compassionately figure out our needs and start creating a pathway to get us there.

Some truths and hacks about how we get things done…

1. Name and talk to your parts. Some parts of you feel unmotivated, burnt out, and stuck. Even if you aren’t ready to act on behalf of those other parts, naming them and asking them what they need will put things in context and perspective. Instead of avoiding or pretending you don’t feel what you feel, have this crucial conversation with yourself.

2. There’s nothing wrong with you. Normalize and be compassionate with the “stuck parts.” Shaming yourself becomes an additional obstacle that you don’t need… Successful people get stuck and procrastinate, but they’ve learned to recognize it sooner and don’t pathologize or should themselves. Compassion is a much greater motivator than shame.

3. Know what you’re waiting for: Motivation does not precede action. Action precedes motivation. If you think you must wait until you feel fully psyched and ready to do things, just know it doesn’t happen that way. Midway through doing something, motivation catches up with us.

4. Buy one, get five free! Legendary dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp describes in her book The Creative Habit how she takes just one action every day, which leads to others. Does she want to go to the gym at 5 am every morning? No. But she takes the crucial first step and calls the cab— then she’s going. If we pick up the phone and start dialing—the train is moving. Hop on. We are doing those cold calls.

5. Look for the personal “whys;” Connect with those intrinsic rewards—when you have something sitting in front of you that needs doing, ask yourself: why am I doing this? If you don’t like a professor, remember that you’re not writing the paper for them, you’re writing it for you.

6. Extrinsic rewards help! But wait on them (Grandma’s rule). I want to watch reruns of Ted Lasso for the fourth time—but I won’t do it until I finish the draft of this post. Yes, it takes discipline but I want to feel legitimately good about watching the program, and I won’t if I just do it anyway. Tuck in what you need to do ahead of what you want to do.

That’s Grandma’s rule: you have to have dinner before dessert— even if you don’t clean your plate, so to speak, take some bites of that project before pie time.

7. It’s easier to finish things than to start them. Use the VOILA method! Have low expectations from the start. Gather your materials, gather your cleaning supplies, gather your thoughts in a blank document, open up your briefcase or backpack, arrange your workstation with all the necessary supplies, open the books to the right page, find and open computer files whatever you need, and then… leave.

Leave?

Don’t sit down and think you will GET IT DONE NOW. Yes, for a short period, it will call to you—and then when you come back, voila! Everything’s there waiting for your arrival. A temporary absence makes the heart grow fonder.

8. Start in the middle—be flexible; you don’t have to do life in order—start with the part of a project that has the most meaning to you—especially with writing. Get to the meat (or tofu) of the matter first, the part that grabs you, then write your intro and conclusion. Motivation benefits from meaningful engagement—feel free to do it out of order.

9. Ask for help. One of the reasons we procrastinate and feel defeated is that we don’t know how to do something. I don’t know how to screenshot images (I don’t….). Write down the items you need help with and ask someone.

Contrary to our harsh self-talk about how we should know how to do something, people LOVE to help people—especially when they know how. What’s hard to you is a snap to someone else—let them show you. You’ll return the favor sometime. That’s how the world goes round, faster.

10. Ride the wave of momentum and say “No, not yet,” to distraction… Let’s say you wake up early on a Monday and feel refreshed and ready to take on your week—you could jump into your project but instead, you eye the vacuum cleaner (this is my problem)—“I’ll just do this real quick, it will feel GOOD!” Or the dishes left in the sink. Or the laundry to be folded.

No. No. No. And…No.

Those things may be important but think of your energy and guard your momentum like a hawk.

You know that slippery slope.

Things may take too long or zap your energy and bog you down, and you’ll never get back to that fresh, inspired feeling you had. Allow yourself to connect with your momentum; the other things can wait.

11. Get a buddy. Accountability can be your friend—especially if you initiate it. I will often email a friend and say—I am going to sit down and do that paperwork I do not want to do—I’ll text you in an hour to show I’ve done it… Are they going to make us? No, it just helps to make those commitments aloud.

12. Do a geographic. If you’re having trouble getting moving on something you need to do, but you’re sitting in one place trying to will yourself to do it, and it’s not working… get up and get a change of scenery if you can, walk outside until you see a tree, another person, or a dog.

This changes your biochemistry and loosens you from stuckness in unexpected ways. Then you are ready to do what you need to do. Remember, motivation follows a behavior and doesn’t lead to it.

13. Chunk it. “How do you get up a flight of steps?” I often ask my young patients. Do you fly? Do you take a huge leap? No. You take one step at a time. Research shows that small wins are the way to go with motivation, so write your goal at the top of a page, put yourself at the bottom, and draw the staircase between.

Break down the project into steps. Even if you go out of order (the middle is a great place to start, as we saw above), you now see it’s possible. Reward yourself along the way.

14. Skip the hard parts: Remember the advice we got as kids on math tests? Don’t spend too long on the problems you can’t solve, circle them and move on to the ones you can do—this may help you come back with a new idea later. It keeps your momentum going and that is key. Let go of the harder parts and keep moving.

15. Purpose over perfection: Are you anxious about your actions? Expectations to be perfect or that people will judge you for getting in the way? Get the internal control going rather than the outer critic, and think about what this task is about for you. When I get bombarded with—Is this good? What will people think? I return to a line from a Peter, Paul, and Mary song, “I have a song to sing-o.”

I am here because I have something I want to say—and I hope people will like it and find it helpful, but I can’t control that—I can only control my effort. I am not doing this as a performance or to be perfect; I want to do it.

16. Tunnel vision can be good. Part of what gets us stuck is thinking of ALL THE THINGS we must do. It’s overwhelming. And thinking of it all will likely leave you unable to do any. Narrow it to one thing you’re ready to do now.

That’s how I prioritize my work. I do what is in front of me. Things that are a ”later” thing aren’t “right now,” so they will not be on my radar. I focus instead on what is right in front of me.

17. Music, please. When you need energy, borrow it. Use music to distract yourself from your negative, doubting thoughts and to get a rhythm going. It’s like borrowing the great energy a plane requires to get off the ground. Once you are at cruising speed and your concentration gets engaged, you can turn off the music and deeply focus, fueled by your own momentum.

18. Use time estimates: Time can be your friend. Estimate how long a task will take. When you stop to think about each step, it can override the overwhelming fear that it will take FOREVER. How often have we dreaded and avoided a task for years— THE HALL CLOSET? THAT INSURANCE CLAIM (Ok, that one might have taken longer…) but still, often, it’s a quick time investment to success—things are done so much faster than we thought.

19. Make Executive Decisions; if you can’t, maybe you just can’t right now: You are a whole person in charge of caring for your needs. Trust yourself and invoke your executive privilege. Maybe the reason why you’re “stuck” is that this isn’t really what you need to be doing now. It’s what you think you should be doing.

Maybe you are tired. You’ve been sitting in front of a screen too long. You need to get up and move. See another human IRL. Connect with your cat. Don’t keep sitting in front of the blank page. Excuse yourself. Give yourself a break; wasting time not doing something feels awful. You’ll feel better taking care of yourself rather than deepening your inertia if it’s not the right time for you. Set a timer if you’d like, or leave your supplies and return to them. A legitimate break, rather than a “sneaky” one, will be much more nurturing and maybe just the reboot you need to help you get back to things later.

20. Today is just a snapshot, a moment, and not a defining one. Take the pressure off yourself. Some days even if we have the best intentions and twenty or twenty thousand ideas to help us, we can’t loosen the grip of our bad feeling and it feels like a wash. But it isn’t a wash. That’s just how our “get it done, be ever productive!” culture is narrating the day.

Perhaps you don’t need to do anything today. Please be kind. Please conclude “small” (and accurately) about yourself— “Today was hard. I was really struggling. It makes sense. Tomorrow is another day.”

So there we go. I hope you’ve found some new ideas that resonate and inspire. I hope that when you feel stuck and unmotivated that you lead with self-compassion—connect with your inner kid alone on the bench who needs your understanding.

How goddamn amazing is Tamar Chansky? I am so grateful to my past self for sending her an email introducing myself and my memoir. Four years later, we’re collaborators!

I’d love to hear your thoughts and tips for getting motivated in the comments!

Until next week, I remain…

Amanda

About me: I am an author and a mental health advocate. I’ve published 13 books, most recently Little Panic: Dispatches From An Anxious Life. I sit on the advisory board of Bring Change to Mind and live in Brooklyn with my dog, Busy.