What is the importance of being motivated and what causes the loss of motivation? Four main factors are presented in this article, take a look.
Motivation is the inner force that keeps us continuing daily activities which, in time, will lead to a desired result. Motivation for human beings is like gasoline for cars. Without being motivated for a certain action we can’t perform that action properly, or worse, we can’t even do it. Even if it is really important, being motivated is frequently ignored by most of us, so we find ourselves wondering what is going wrong when we don’t feel like doing something any longer.
The loss of motivation may be caused by different factors, and recognizing them is the main step in the process of regaining the lost purpose. From the large variety of factors, some are very common. Let’s see what they are!
1. Things Didn’t Work Out as we Expected
Well, we face this disappointment frequently in our daily life, from the little things to the greater ones, from the cake that we messed up with too much sugar to the important job meeting where no one could come to an understanding. The degree of disappointment lessens when we adapt to the situation easily, when we accept it as it is, but also not giving up our efforts to improve it. The questions remaining are: is it worth the effort and the time invested, or should I do something else? It is really possible to do something to improve the situation?
We also must never forget that we shouldn’t give up in doing something only because it is much harder that we expected. In time, with a little ambition, we’ll gain the attributes needed in doing that thing, because almost everything can be learned with some work and patience.
2. Our Efforts Aren’t Appreciated
We are created in a manner in which our actions demand an appreciation. From an early age, people, being children, need their parents’ support and encouragement in order to accomplish a certain task. Our first step with our parents’ help is accompanied with applause and words like “well done”, and even if we don’t understand the words yet, we feel their meanings.
The songs that we sing, the homework that we do, the house cleaning on Saturday morning, the new recipe that we tried, the work that we do to bring money for our family, all of these, or shortly, in almost all that we do, we need to be appreciated even if we aren’t aware of this. We all have observed that we tend to lose our motivation when people don’t appreciate our work.
The questions are: Do we really need to be appreciated by someone else in order to go on with the things that we do?
Isn’t enough for us to be content with what we do? And the answer is yes, even if it is harder, but it is possible. We should be happy with our work if it is a well done work. We should have confidence that what we do is the right thing that should be done and it is done in a right way. If we gain this confidence than it wouldn’t matter anymore what the others say, but we should also not forget to listen to what the others have to say and to take in consideration their opinion if it’s a true one.
3. The Lack of Communication with the Team
In almost every field we interact with people, we depend on people, we need people, and we need a team to get a certain job well done. If the relationships between the members of the team are tense, if some members of the team don’t do their work properly, we come to find it hard to continue. The solution would be communication. Making our expectations and disappointments known to the others (which represents the very first step for communication improvement) and try to find a reasonable way to solve the issue.
4. Fatigue
When we feel tired we tend to see the darker side of all things. We shouldn’t ignore the times when our body or mind or both demand a break because if we end up beaten it is definitely more difficult to recover.
These are only four main factors that may cause motivation loss and depending on our personality we can find more or less, however, identifying these factors can make us realize where the problem actually is.