Struggling to feel motivated? A simple switch in mindset and how you spend your time could help.
Motivation is a tricky thing, isn’t it? You wait ages for it to strike, then berate yourself each time it doesn’t magically appear.
But really, why won’t it come when we need it? What causes our motivation – even for stuff we really, truly want to do or that we know is good for us – to go missing without a trace?
Cassie Holmes, a professor of marketing and behavioural decision-making at UCLA, says this may well be a symptom of a larger problem: being so rushed about and overworked that we feel like time is scarce. She explains that there tend to be two types of motivation: promotion-focused and prevention-focus, and that when we feel time-poor and stressed out, promotion-focused motivation is nigh on impossible.
“When striving towards our goals, we can either be promotion-focused (ie looking to achieve a positive outcome) or prevention-focused (ie looking to avoid a negative outcome),” Holmes tells Stylist. “For instance, in the context of taking a test, if you’re promotion-focused, you’re focused on getting an A; if you’re prevention-focused, you’re concerned with not failing. Or in the context of buying a gift, if you’re promotion-focused, you’ll search for a gift you think the person will love; however, if you’re prevention-focused, you’ll buy whatever, as long as you have something to give, so you don’t end up in the doghouse. It’s better to be promotion-focused, because it’s about striving for a good life, and not just concerned about getting by.
“Feeling time-poor makes us more prevention-focused. We feel constant stress from the potential of failing or not getting what we need to do done, without even considering the potential for goodness and enjoyment along the way. When time-poor, we struggle with simply trying to get by, rather than striving to be our best or to live our best lives.”
It makes sense when you think about it. When you’re in a heightened state of alert due to having too much on your plate, it’s hard to get into the mindset of doing positive things for yourself; you think that you simply don’t have the time.
Then, when you do have a moment spare, your brain is either still stuck in that work, work, work mindset or it’s desperately trying to recover from the stress. It’s hard to get out of that headspace and switch to the motivated one. Our minds just aren’t that great at swapping gears.
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“Perpetually feeling time-poor leaves us merely trying to get through each day, without hoping for or striving for experiencing joy or satisfaction in our days,” notes Holmes.
So, how do we break out of the time-poor mindset and get our motivation back? Alas, we can’t just get more time – but we can use the time we have more wisely, to feel like we have more of it.
“Surprisingly, to feel more time-affluent, the solution isn’t to do less… at least not of the things that matter,” says Holmes. “To feel less limited by time, spend time on activities that increase your sense of self-efficacy and confidence. This plays out to increase your overall sense of what you can accomplish with the time you have, thus increasing your time affluence. Ways of spending time that have been shown to increase time affluence include exercise, helping others and seeking awe-inspiring experiences.”
Once you feel like you have more time, your mind will have the space to get motivated again. The things you want to do will feel possible, because you won’t be scraping around for spare minutes and can instead dedicate chunks of time to bigger-picture goals.
To feel like you have more time, you need to get rid of that scarcity mindset. The way to do that? Take a proper look at all the hours you have available and be strategic about how you fill them – doing the mosaic exercise can help. Create firm boundaries to stop the creep of work and other stress-inducing tasks into time that should be entirely your own. And give yourself space for moments when you don’t notice time passing and you can forget, even for a minute, about all the stuff on your to-do list – getting your fill of awe will do exactly that.
The bottom line is this: you can’t feel motivated and energised when you’re working flat-out and are just trying to get through the day. You can’t force motivation to strike by berating and cajoling yourself. You need the proper space and mindset to create a breeding ground for motivation, and that sometimes means clearing your to-do list and doing nothing at all.
Tackle stress and overwhelm first, then leave room for motivation to grow.
Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes is available now (Penguin Life, £14.99).
Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.
Main image: Getty; Stylist
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