If you sit on a beach long enough you notice the water levels rise and fall, waves crash into the land, and the wind swirls around. It’s never the same but it’s always in unison.

It’s like motivation. 

When you are motivated everything flows together; your attitude, your words, even the spring in your step. 

When you are unmotivated it feels sluggish and stagnant. We feel stuck. 

But unlike the unpredictability of the ocean, we can be more predictable when we get into these ruts and get out of them quicker.

We just have to recognize the patterns. 

This is where journaling or other forms of documentation might be helpful. We need to understand the patterns and how we can create that spark again, and keep it going longer. 

As an example, I learned that I get a ton of motivation from feeding off critiques and feedback from trusted friends. When I start to feel unmotivated, I trigger myself to have a conversation with one of them. They give me that spark. It resets my brain and I can get unstuck much quicker.

Your spark could be anything so the first step is to recognize when you begin to feel motivated and analyze how you got there. What got you there? That’s a great place to start.

You want to recreate that feeling whenever you start to get into a low spot.

It’ll help you return there more often and get you out of a rut much sooner.