How To Draw Inspiration And Motivation When Feeling Discouraged

There will be days when you will feel motivated to do what matters and there will be days when you will not. It’s not easy having a consistent flow of energy and positivity to keep pressing on. Sometimes we suffer from a lack of motivation, inspiration or are just plain exhausted from putting in so much effort into building our dreams. We can quickly get discouraged to move forward. If you feel like this from time to time, I think I got a couple of suggestions for you.

Rest

When are you most productive? At the beginning of every day or just a couple of minutes before midnight? Most would say first thing in the morning. This is because in the morning you usually feel strong, energetic, and more focused. Sometimes we feel demotivated simply because we are tired.

This is the purpose of sleep. It recharges your body and mind. We deal with the tasks we need to accomplish better after a good night’s sleep because our bodies weren’t built to handle work after work without rest.

And by rest, I don’t just mean sleep. Take a nap if you can during the day. Kick back and relax when you are feeling overwhelmed. Tackling issues when you are exhausted is less likely to produce the accurate results you are striving for. There’s an interesting article on rest by ZenHabits called The Lost Practice of Resting One Day Each Week.

Exercise And Eat Healthier Foods

Among the reasons why exercise is essential, is that a good workout gets your blood circulation system working efficiently. Your brain and body need this to function effectively. You are at your best after some exercise.

It’s also a good way to increase your capacity to perform. People who exercise regularly tend to be capable of doing a lot more work before calling it a day. Unhealthy people tend to experience a lot of fatigue throughout a typical day reducing the chances of getting much of the important things done.

Depending on what you eat before attempting a task, you could end up feeling energetic and focused or exhausted and distracted. This is because consuming different foods has different effects on your body. If you are open to testing this out, I recommend the article 20 foods to snack on for enhanced productivity.

Read

A great way to get inspiration is to explore literature. Read books, blogs, magazines, or even listen to podcasts. If you are at a roadblock in your journey to success, chances are there is a book with a solution to your problem. So many obstacles under the sun have been faced by one or two people in your industry that have probably written a book or blogged about it.

The same goes for ideas. Are you looking for ways to become the best marketer for your skincare products? There’s a blog post or two online that has a step-by-step how-to guide on exactly just that. Chances are you could apply the same techniques in selling shoes.

Believe it or not, but a whole list of ideas, suggestions, strategies for helping you develop your dream… is buried in tones and tones of literature that you can get online for a very low cost.

Become A Part Of A Community

If you are a game developer, join game developer forums. If you are a marketer, go to the mingles/events where you can network. Communities in industries play a huge role in boosting creativity, motivation, and self-development. Who better understands your dreams, ambitions, challenges than the people striving to achieve similar goals?

This is similar to reading but more specific. These are usually the best places to get answers to specific questions that your family or close friends may not have for you.

If you want to succeed in your industry, you will need to learn the DOs and DON’Ts of that industry. You will need to network with the players. Keep up to date with industry news, trends, best practices, and a whole lot more.

Get Close To Positive People

Positive people care about your wellbeing. Chasing dreams will take much from you. There are times you will be physically and emotionally drained. But to know that someone cares about how you feel and if you are physically okay can strengthen you in surprising ways, ultimately boosting your motivation.

Positive people are proactive and act in your best interest. I mean sometimes it’s easy to think that you are in this by yourself. That you are doing all the work. But you are not. If you are a web designer, there are people out there marketing your services… for free. There are people trying to “hook you up” while you focus on something else. These people do a lot when you do not notice. These people are precious.

Positive people are honest and encouraging. Sometimes we need people to remind us just what is important to us. To give us a good kick in the ass and tell us that we can do it. To tell us the truth when we have lost focus. Their belief in us can transform our mindset and help us get back on track.

Just an important note. Look, people aren’t perfect and we're not born to solely serve you. If you want to have these kinds of positive people around you, a great place to start is to become that kind of a person yourself. I wrote a post on why you need to lead a positive life to give you some idea of the benefits.

In Conclusion

Always remember what’s important to you. Sometimes when we forget this we allow ourselves to slack off. And after a while, this turns into demotivation and ultimately discouragement. We end up not doing what we need to do to get to where we need to be. Remind yourself of the possibilities you could achieve if you accomplished your goals.

And with that, I invite you to share your thoughts on the topic and if there are more areas we could explore to help get us back on track when we feel discouraged.