The problem with Motivation

I woke up with zero motivation today!

0, nil, niks, nala!

You'd think that after all these years of working out consistently. I wouldn't have these problems. That feeling unmotivated is only experienced by beginners.

But, no. It still happens!

The problem with feeling motivated, the whole "psyching yourself up" and "go get them tiger" culture, is that the premise that it's not OK to feel unmotivated. When we make not feeling motivated into a PROBLEM and let it stand in our way of taking action and showing up, we make it into something to fix, a problem to solve, waiting for a feeling of motivation to come along...

“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.” Sydney banks quote.

Feeling motivated and feeling unmotivated is part of the human experience. It does not matter how long you're on the journey and how long you have been doing it. You're going to have days where you feel motivated and days that you feel like doing nothing.

I still have days where I lack the motivation to go to the gym. The only difference now is that I have realised it's not a problem. So, I won't spend any time thinking about it, or figuring it out or motivating myself. I'll let my thinking settle and go anyway and always feel great after the workout, proving that the feeling of motivation is nothing more than our thinking.

I can think it, I can feel it, but do it anyway.

The beauty of it all is in realising that motivation and the lack thereof are part of the rich experience of life and not something to deal with, fix and try to get. Just showing up and getting on with things becomes a hell of a lot easier.

Realising this allows us to be grateful when we're up and feeling motivated and graceful enough to stay in the game and get on with life when we're feeling low and unmotivated.

And as Woody Allen says, "Success is just showing up".