Motivation. It’s thought that in order to accomplish anything, working out, doing that DIY project, reading a book, one needs to be motivated to be able to complete the desired task. It’s a word that comes with a lot of expectation. If you are the kind of person where motivation easily finds you well done! For some, motivation is like that one friend you have that is late to everything or the friend who leaves without telling you they’re going home. And if you don’t have a friend like that…then you may be that friend (I’m kidding). Is it even possible to complete goals if motivation arrives late or disappears partway when trying to achieve a goal? Yes. Let’s get into this shall we?

Motivation, from a quick google search, is defined as the reason or reasons for acting in a certain way. It’s the general desire or willingness of someone to do something. Using this as our definition, motivation sounds like something that should come easily. For example if we have the goal of cleaning your house. Your motivation could be any number of things:

So these could be your reasons why you want to clean your house. These reasons could contribute to the desire or willingness you have to try to accomplish this goal. What this definition doesn’t cover is obstacles that get in the way of accomplishing your goal. For example:

Any of these events (and others not mentioned) could definitely influence one’s level of motivation. However, the hope to have a clean house is still there, just the desire to follow through (the motivation) may not be as strong given the circumstance. So how do we accomplish the goals we want when life negatively impacts our motivation?

Action. When motivation is late to the party or leaves early, that’s where action comes into play. Let’s go back to our cleaning the house example. We have the goal of having a clean or organized house, and for whatever reason following through with this goal is decreasing. We may not always “feel like” cleaning our house, I mean honestly who does, so our motivation may be low. In moments like that we need to take action. So if cleaning the whole house after work is making motivation turn and leave, its time to take action. That could look like just putting the dishes in the dish washer instead of cleaning the whole kitchen, putting kid’s toys in their bins instead of decluttering the whole downstairs. When we take our goal and break it down into one action we are still working towards our goal even if motivation isn’t present. The interesting part is sometimes by taking action, even a small one, motivation may pop up making you want to do more towards completing or fully completing your goal.

I know you just read through this whole article. Your brain may be throbbing right now. So here are the main take aways, to carry with you:

• Motivation may not always happen when wanting to accomplish a goal or task.
• Motivation is defined as the reason or reasons for acting in a certain way. It’s the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.
• When motivation is missing we can still take action. Choosing something small to do that will help us work towards completing a goal or task.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this post, as I’m just trying to offer a few words of wisdom in a complex world. I hope you found it. Life can have its challenges and I am here to help. I offer therapy services to help your life’s journey. If you would like to set up a time to chat my contact information is below.

Jennifer Bailey, LCSW & RDT

jbaileytherapyservices@gmail.com

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