A lack of motivation in your life is one of the most difficult road blocks to initiating meaningful change in your life.

Having a lack of motivation for change in your life is tough. I have frequently struggled with this lack of any internal drive. Without this fire, there is no oomph, no enthusiasm, no interest at all in wanting to begin taking action and taking control of your life. You can have all the resources around you to succeed, surround yourself with all the right conditions, but without reclaiming that inner motivation, nothing will materialize. You have to start with the right mindset.

The best way to kick yourself into gear is to understand why you want to change in the first place. Why are you being lazy? What are you afraid of? You have to ask yourself these questions. What is the reason you are holding yourself back? For me, I kind of saw myself going through the motions of my life and felt helpless to do anything about it. I stopped caring about my job. I stopped caring about friends. I became complacent with my unhappy, miserable existence for a while. Wake up, go to work, stare at the clock until the day was over, come home, watch TV, pass out. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It got to the point where I didn't want to change. I needed to change. For my own sanity I needed to. So I bought a one way ticket 4,800 miles away. This wasn’t an on a whim purchase. I had planned to do so for a few months to allow myself to start saving and making preparations.

As I got in the groove of a different lifestyle and different environment, I finally had the time to reflect on my mind, my mood, my fears, my issues, everything holding myself back from becoming how I wanted to be.

I understood my lack of motivation. It stemmed from my fear of failure. My fear of failing to not live up to my own expectations. Understand your fears. Confront them, challenge them, and grow from them. You will free yourself from them, the more you understand them. When you lack motivation, you make excuses for yourself. You don’t take responsibility for your decisions and circumstances. That ends when you stop making excuses and start taking control of your mindset and life. Start now.

If you want a more scientific definition, lets understand what motivation is. Motivation is a willingness to act. An urge, a want. To be motivated is to be moved to do something, to change behavior or thinking. A motive is an internal biological, psychological, or value push to approach or avoid an incentive. The goal of a motive is to gain an incentive. We have biological motivations for food, water, air, sex as well as psychological needs for belonging, esteem, and higher needs for morality and creativity.

We choose motives to satisfy or incentives to gain. Our behavior satisfies our motives through persistence/ duration, frequency, and intensity. Psychological energy is required for and drives motivation. Increase the motive or reward, and you increase the value. Some people genetically have low motivation. If your motivation is low, increase your ability and you will increase your performance.If you have higher incentives, you have higher motivation.

To lack motivation then is to lack this urge, this internal drive or push towards an incentive.

I believe the best way to regain this urge, this internal drive is to stop looking outside for incentives. Look within yourself to see what your fears and drives are that are holding you back. Tap into your innate creative spontaneity and re-ignite the spark of your internal motives. Start Creating! Get motivated!