This article is about getting things done without motivation.
Motivation is one of the most impactful factors in successful people. When successful people recount the stories of their struggles in their youth, they always have a driving force.
![without motivation](https://thrivingindependently.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/how-to-find-motivation-1024x683.webp)
We don’t know what the future holds but we can hope that our future looks brighter than whatever we are doing in the present. When you have been discouraged and underperform, it is easy to become unmotivated and lose hope.
You still have obligations; however, you just can’t seem to find the motivation to address them.
When you build up your discipline and have an effective routine, you can continue without motivation. Yes! you can be successful without a consistent dose of motivation.
If you are reading this article, you probably understand that motivation is fleeting. Here, you’ll find the best tips on how to remain productive without motivation.
How can I do anything without motivation?
The best advice that can be given to someone who lacks motivation is to slow down and break their tasks into smaller pieces.
People can become unmotivated for many reasons; however, work still needs to get done. If you find that you lack motivation, breaking down your tasks into manageable pieces is the simplest way to keep going.
You don’t want your current lack of motivation to stop your progress or your growth. therefore, you must train your mind to find a different perspective.
How can I motivate myself to do something I don’t want to do?
If you encounter things that you don’t want to do, you can use these methods to motivate yourself to do it.
- Time – Do the thing quickly. If you do the task quickly, then you give yourself less time to mull over and complicate the task. You can always evaluate your work later, but doing the task quickly will give you a starting point.
- Reward – Reward yourself at the end of the task. This method takes discipline to stop you from cheating yourself before you have completed the task.
- Make a List – Some people are motivated by the action of crossing tasks off of a list. If you break down the task into small tasks, you should be able to find something that you can start immediately.
- Grab a Friend – Asking for help or to collaborate on a task can motivate you to complete the task. The other person can hold you accountable and be a friendly competitor, which may provide another source of motivation.
How to Get Things Done Without Motivation
“Trust me when you love something you don’t need motivation.” – Serge Nubret
I had always had a love-hate relationship with motivation because it never seemed to come when I needed it. Whenever I had deadlines in the past, the desire to write my papers, study, or go to the gym was never there, and I mean ever.
There was always something to do that was much more enticing and attractive. I thought that something was wrong with me when I compared myself to my friends who built what looked like consistent habits.
If you are having trouble with comparing yourself to others, check out my post here.
It has been more recently that I realized that I had been playing this game backward.
The instances where I did find motivation were when there was another stimulus that got my brain moving. Somehow, I was reminded of where I wanted to be, so the effort it took to get there didn’t seem so bad.
I will just put it like this if you are waiting for the motivation to do something to fall in your lap and stay for a while, you may be feeding your procrastination.
Here are the ways that you can make progress with or without motivation.
If you liked this post, you’ll love these:
- Starting from Zero | Best Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
- How to Stop Overthinking and Take Back Control of Your Life
- How to show yourself love on Valentine’s Day
Make Time for Tasks
One major issue that I found with my lack of motivation is that I never set time in my schedule to actually complete a task.
If it was Monday and I had a paper due on Saturday, I knew that I had six days to complete it and figured that it would get done sometime in the next six days.
This was true and the paper always got done, but it definitely was not the most efficient way and usually left me feeling frustrated Saturday night that I hadn’t started earlier.
If you learn anything from this is that you must have a plan to do something. The more specific the better.
You can break it down in terms of the date and time and if you really want to go there, you can put the location.
Writing it down somewhere that you will see your schedule regularly won’t hurt either.
The point of making a plan is that you set the expectation beforehand that this is something that you will do in the future. You aren’t leaving the chances of completing the task ambiguous.
When the day and time come that you have set, you can prepare your mind beforehand to get into the correct headspace.
Whether or not the motivation comes to do the task is irrelevant because you planned to do it all along, thus you are able to do things without waiting for motivation to appear.
![why do i lack motivation](https://thrivingindependently.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/why-do-i-lack-motivation-1024x768.webp)
Make a Plan
When I say “Make a Plan”, I want you to be very specific. This planning process is more difficult than doing the actual task.
The planning process requires research and documentation about what it is that you want to achieve. Continuing with the example of writing a paper, the planning process would be creating an outline, gathering talking points, identifying gaps in knowledge, etc.
This is the hard “grindy” work that you would want to do before you attempt a first draft because you would have a direction that you intend to go.
The process of writing a paper becomes much more laborious when you attempt to create, edit, and direct your thoughts at the same time. If you try this method, you probably find it difficult to re-read your paper and make edits after the paper is complete.
Figuring it out as you go is exhausting and can drain your capacity to deal with the problems that you will run into.
When you do the difficult thinking required before you do the work, you find many answers to your future questions so you can get into a flow.
Give Yourself Fewer Options
You want to give yourself more reasons to do what you need to do rather than put yourself in an environment that will tempt you.
Being productive is really finding more reasons not to sit on your couch and binge the television and increase the likelihood of doing something meaningful.
I don’t think that motivation and productivity need to be complicated more than that.
Every day you are faced with the scale of likelihood in how you choose to use your time. If your goal is to accomplish many things in a day, you have to give yourself more reasons to do more and add weight to that side of the scale.
Luckily there are many ways that we can make doing difficult things more attractive. Everyone has different incentives, but it also helps if you have a greater reason that would push you to do the difficult things.
If you liked this post, you’ll love these:
- Starting from Zero | Best Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
- How to Stop Overthinking and Take Back Control of Your Life
- How to show yourself love on Valentine’s Day
Change Your Environment
Your environment can be the physical space that you frequent, the things you consume, or even the people you surround yourself with.
Staying in the same environment or in the same routine will produce similar habits.
If you struggle with diverting your attention and wasting time, you might consider removing yourself from your environment. This can be as simple as going to a library to get you to focus on completing an assignment rather than doing it in your living room.
If you surround yourself with others who are where you want to be or people who have similar goals as you, you can expedite the process.
Harnessing the power of social accountability as a motivator will carry you further, especially with new people.
Being real for a moment, you may not trust yourself to do things because of your history of disappointing yourself. This is all the more reason why you should change your environment.
If you put in the work to find and use systems that work for you, your situation can change for the better.
![how to find motivation](https://thrivingindependently.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/how-to-find-motivation-1-1024x678.webp)
Know The Work Comes First
For me, getting a burst of inspiration that would carry me through a whole project was extremely rare. If it did happen, it usually didn’t come out of anywhere. Something else was the stimulus and then I got inspired to try it.
I would get frustrated when I made the effort to do something early and my mind would choose to focus on everything else but what it was that I made time for. Needless to say, I fell into the procrastination trap for years.
Procrastination became a part of my identity. I did it so often, that it was just how I defined myself as a student. The phrase, “The due date is my do date”, was my motto.
Looking back, I failed to consider why my procrastination was “effective”. It was the only scenario that I created where I was forced to produce. If the paper was not done by twelve, there would be no other opportunity.
Procrastination forced me to actually get my thoughts out of my head and onto the screen. It was stressful, but I was never late.
I found that by sitting down and starting the paper, as I typed, more ideas would come. I may have begun with a general idea, but that was just enough fuel to get me through the intro and then the next idea would get me to the first paragraph, and so on and so forth.
It took the first chunk of effort to make me think about other ideas.
If you are looking for consistent results, you are going to have to put in consistent effort. You may not have groundbreaking material every time that you plan to work, but you still have to put it out consistently.
Building the habit of working when you don’t feel like it or writing when you don’t have the material will hone your skills of getting into the flow state.
Final Thoughts
I hope that you can see that you don’t need the motivation to get things done. It is rather inconsistent and fleeting. You would do better to build productive habits of your own and rely on yourself.
To give yourself the best chance at succeeding, you will have to overcome the need to “feel like” doing something. Once you do that, nothing will be able to get in between you and your dreams.
For more content like this, check out my Pinterest!
Let’s Keep the Party Going!
Follow me on Pinterest so that we can share the knowledge!
![how to get things done without](https://thrivingindependently.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/how-to-get-things-done-without-683x1024.png)
![how to get things done without](https://thrivingindependently.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/how-to-get-things-done-without-683x1024.jpg)