Why You Have No Motivation To Do Anything: The Mistake Everyone Makes

Have there ever been a time in your life in which you felt like you had no motivation to do anything? I believe that we’ve all experienced – at different degrees – this unbearable feeling of wanting to do nothing.

However, the fact that everyone experiences this doesn’t mean that it’s normal and that there is no solution to that problem. In fact, no matter how many people claim that a falsehood is the truth, it will never become the truth. In the same way, I believe that most people don’t even realize that they’re being controlled by their subconscious mind, and hence all make the same mistake.

Let’s learn what to do when you have no motivation to do anything

Why Don’t You Have Motivation To Do Anything?

First, let’s see why motivation is not arising. Throughout our entire lives, we have been conditioned to think that motivation is the work of an external force: that sometimes an event or a speech will motivate us into doing some kind of work. However, it’s nothing more than an impression.

The truth is that motivation comes from within, and only you have the keys to trigger it any time that you want.

There would be tons of different reasons as to why you’re not motivated to do anything, and what strategis to utilize in order to overcome this problem. However, all of this can be solved with the understanding of only one principle: the pain and pleasure principle.

The Pain And Pleasure Principle

Any living creatures are craving for one thing, and one thing only: getting out of pain, and experience massive pleasure, wouldn’t you agree? Otherwise, why would people engage in smoking cigarretes, watching movies, playing video games and similar behaviors?

Understanding this concept is the root towards understanding the solution of the problem: we’re naturally pulled towards what brings us pleasure, and we’re repeled by what brings us pain… or at least the perception we have.

Perception Is Reality

This sentence might sound cool and fancy, but I don’t intend on talking philosophy today! What I really mean by this, is that what brings pleasure and pain is not objective, but more subjective: your brain gets to decide what emotion to link to a certain event.

For instance, a few days ago I’ve had the surprise of being welcomed in a condo by a huge dog rushing at me. Now, I’ve never really been in contact with dogs for a long time, plus the surprise of a dog running towards me made my brain to perceive it as a threat. In that moment, my brain associated pain to the dog. In short, my brain decided that dog = dangerous = pain.

Afterwards, I realized that it was just greeting me and trying to understand who I was. It never had any bad intent, just to identify who I was. Once I got the confirmation that the dog was in fact harmless, I switched my perception of this dog: I started associating pleasure to it.

Why am I telling you this? Because this story reflects exactly how your brain prevents you from doing whatever that you want to get done.

Use Your Brain To Your Advantage

Now that you have a better understanding of how your brain functions, you’re in position to use it to your advantage. Up until now, your brain has been deciding what to link pleasure and pain to, but now that you have enough awareness, you have the ability to take control!

Why do we procrastinate? Why do we sometimes lack motivation? If you’ve been following me so far, then the answer should be crystal clear: because your brain associates pain to doing whatever you want to or must do!

Think about it: if I were to give you this huge task that you know will take you hard work and tons of hours to complete, wouldn’t it be easy to associate massive pain to it? Yes, and that’s what most people do.

You could focus on all the cons of carrying out that particular task, and your brain will easily conclude that this take will take from you: energy, time, money, or whatever. How do you expect to be motivated under those circumstances?

Fortunately, the same principle which can work against us can also work for us.

Associate Massive Pleasure To Your Task!

What better way could there be to motivate you than to think it will bring you pleasure? Remember, why do people smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol? Does it take any effort to do that? Why not?

The answer is simple: because we get pulled by the pleasure what – we think – something will bring us. On the other hand, we naturally want to get away from pain.

What’s the action plan, then? That’s easy as pie.

All you have to do is link massive pleasure to the thing you want to get motivation for.

How to link massive pleasure? Well, it’s up to you and your ability to focus. You can also use the power of asking questions. For instance, ”What do I love about this?” or ”Why do I love this?” and find as many reasons as you can. The idea behind this technique is to tilt the balance of pain and pleasure towards pleasure as much as possible.

I also suggest that you don’t get caught up in your head with intellectual reasons, but start to feel the pleasure it will bring you. After all, human beings are emotional creatures, not logical.

That’s how I get myself to take action when I have no motivation whatsoever. It’s a powerful principle that you can use for virtually anything in your life.