Motivation
It’s confession time. I have lost my motivation to practice yoga on my own. What!? Yes, me, a yoga teacher struggles with maintaining her own practice. There are weeks that the only time that I get to practice yoga, is when I am teaching. This bothers me, which then makes me feel guilty. When I feel guilty, I get depressed and then I do nothing.
Now, why am I telling you this? To assure you that you are not alone. That everyone struggles with motivation from time to time. There are several reasons why people lack motivation. Erin Eatough, PhD lists 6 possible causes for a lack of motivation on Betterup.com.
- Spreading yourself too thin.
- Doubting yourself and your abilities
- Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety
- Lack of commitment (passion)
- Having a bad attitude
- Not being specific enough with your goals
In this article, she also glossed over two other causes that really resonated with me. One is being a people pleaser. If that doesn’t describe me, nothing does! When I am doing something for others, I put everything I have into accomplishing the goal for them. Obviously, leaving nothing for myself. Moms, in general, do this for our families. We have trained ourselves to put everyone and everything before our own needs.
The other thing that she mentioned as being a demotivator, was social media. First, let me ask you a question – Do you put pictures on Facebook or Instagram with your eyes closed, no makeup on or even of your messy house? (You can even edit pictures to make yourself look thinner!) I don’t; I only share the photos that I deem as ‘perfect’. But we compare our lives to the ‘perfect’ pictures that we see of our friends. This can be demotivating in that we can’t see how we can ever achieve this perfection.
Some people follow motivating pages on social media, which is great. But what happens when you take a break from your phone? Do you remain motivated? Out of sight, out of mind.
I don’t have any answers yet. I am going to take this month of gratitude to find my motivation. I’ll report back to you in January of what I discovered and how it is working.