Struggling with motivation

Having hope during dark times, part 1 of 3

Setting and maintaining goals while the world burns around you feels silly. What’s the point in thinking far into the future, when there’s so much uncertainty? There are a number of mind hacks you could try to stay motivated. But those imply quite a bit of motivation or optimism. What do you do when you’re just “not feeling it” anymore?

Let’s assume it’s not major depressive disorder or dysthymia. What might it be? “Am I just being lazy?” you might ask. Before you go down the “pep talk” route, or start handing yourself some “hard truths,” I would suggest you take a moment. There’s one thing the common advice for staying motivated seems to miss — more than anything, motivation is a feeling.

Dark times bring up strong emotions, which you may not want to feel.

The world burning around you should elicit strong emotions. People are getting sick and dying. There’s no clear path forward. But you have to keep going and so, instead of taking a moment to feel those feelings, you “move on” to the next thing. “It’s the sensible thing to do.” or “It’s the mature thing to do.” you rationalize to yourself. Moving on means getting things done, but it also means ignoring what you’re feeling. You’re making a subtle, but important tradeoff in that moment, because as Brené Brown puts it:

“You can’t numb selectively. You can’t numb hard feelings without numbing joy, gratitude, happiness…”

So, ask yourself, “If I’m not feeling motivated, what else am I not feeling?”

We are socialized to avoid certain feelings.

In the US, “boys” are socialized to not feel sadness and “girls” are socialized to not feel anger. I use quotes here to acknowledge the complexities involved in the social process of gender identity and to emphasize a conventional “matter-of-fact-ness” about it. As in the often used phrases, “boys don’t cry” and “be a nice girl.” These strong social norms create patterns in what we allow ourselves to feel as adults. So much so, that often when someone who has been socialized as male feels sadness, it comes out as anger and when someone who has been socialized as female feels anger, it comes out as sadness. Are you angry, but only allowing yourself to feel sad? Are you sad, but only allowing yourself to feel anger?

There are plenty of good reasons to be both sad and mad, especially during dark times. So what do you do with those feelings, when you’re told you can’t have them? Again, you avoid them, often by trying to express them sideways (as above) or by keeping yourself busy. Which then leads to a kind of numbness. At first, it can be a kind of soothing numbness, but after a while, it becomes all you have. You may be making progress, but you’re just not that into it anymore. Being productive is never a bad thing, right? After all, isn’t that the reason you’re reading an article about motivation?

It’s called “expression” because it takes effort to let it out.

It’s hard to feel your feelings. It’s an often overlooked first step in growing your emotional intelligence. Learning to perceive your own emotional experience isn’t as simple as it sounds; it takes practice and lots of it. What are you feeling? Angry? Sad? Can you clearly describe it? Are you willing and able to share it?

Here, as with many things, having folks help you can make a tremendous difference. The good news is that the opposite of ignoring your feelings is giving them your attention. Something you have immediate control over (at least to some degree). Honestly sharing what’s going on with you, gives your internal life your attention. It’s a well-established medicine.

Saying what you feel is the task at hand — nothing more and nothing less.

This means that the “mere” act of bearing witness to another person’s emotional experience is, in and of itself, healing. I say that knowing that it’s easier said than done. Even in small social scripts, like when we use the question “How are you?” as a generic, answerless, greeting, we’re developing the habit of not expressing ourselves and not bearing witness to others. We’re subtly learning to ignore and numb our feelings, each and everyday.

Let alone the more complex social norms around jumping to problem-solving (“We can fix this!”) or giving rousing pep talks (“Let’s be happy!”). Neither of these well-intentioned approaches to “listening” allow the speaker the privilege of feeling what they’re feeling. Both cue to them that they shouldn’t be feeling what they’re feeling. One does so by shifting the focus of the conversation to the future, to what can be done. The other does so by shifting the focus of the conversation to another emotion (i.e. to “cheering you up”).

Bearing witness can be hard, because it’s hard to see someone (especially someone you care about) struggling. But the struggle is not something to be avoided; the struggle is part of what it means to be human, both in dark times and in times of plenty. You can lead by example here. Both by cultivating your personal ability to identify and articulate your emotional experience and by bearing witness for others.

If you’re feeling low motivation, feeling a little numb, I think the first important step towards feeling motivated again is learning to feel again.

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