What to do when motivation fails you?

We cannot be 100 % motivated all the time. That’s just how it is. Sometimes when I share my experiment about going 100 % sugar free for 8 months, people start talking about willpower and motivation.

I don’t know about willpower but I know for sure that I wasn’t 100 % motivated for 8 months straight. I don’t think that’s even possible. And it made me think about a tendency I see a lot: Whenever things get a bit rough, we change course immediately. Yikes! Discomfort! Let’s hurry up and do things differently!

But we’re not meant to avoid discomfort at all cost! Discomfort is part of life and it’s part of the process.

Here’s what I do when motivation fails me:

✔ I stay in my marriage even when I find that married life is tough and drowning in every day practicalities and hubby and I are both too busy doing our own things rather than spending time together. I stay because that’s the promise I gave to him those 12-13 years ago.

✔ I keep doing my job even when motivation fails me or I feel like I’m losing focus or sight of the end goal. I keep doing it because it’s my job. It’s how I make a living.

✔ I keep hugging my kids and tell them I love them even when every bit of me wants to pack a bag and travel to a far away country (by myself). I do this because I’m their mum.

✔ I stay on course with the lifestyle I know suits me the best even when my stomach gives me trouble and my pants are too tight.

✔ I keep my diet within “reasonable limits” which in my case means gluten free and close to sugar free, even when I find that it to be difficult and restrictive. I do it because I chose to feel good.

Everything in life goes up and down. If we expect everything to be 100 % perfect or easy all the time, we find ourselves jumping from relationship to relationship, from job to job, from diet to diet…

After rain comes the sun and after sun comes the rain. Maybe your husband or your job annoys the shit out of you today or this week or maybe even these months, but suddenly, one day, you find that things have changed. You start seeing your husband or job in a different light and praise yourself lucky that you didn’t leave when things got tough.

But if you give up the first time you encounter resistance, you’ll never know what it can bring you to stay committed to something in the long run.

Take for instance people who manage to lose a lot of weight! Losing lots of weight takes many months, sometimes years, and the reason why they succeed isn’t that they have more motivation or willpower than the rest of us. The reason they succeed is that they don’t quit when things get tough and they don’t panic or change the course every time they find themselves doubting the process.

Both life and marriage and your diet can do with some adjustments from time to time but starting all over is rarely necessary.

So what do I do when motivation fails me? This is what I do: I accept that things aren’t 100 % perfect right now and I keep going believing that things will change to the better again.

How about you? What do you do when motivation fails you? Please share!