Motivation Isn't Constant — Here's How to Ride the Dips

I’m working on a personal project and was reminded that motivation is in no way a straight line.

I know! It sucks, right! Why can’t every day be filled with jet fuel and unicorns?

Picture it: You’re really excited about this amazing career you’ve chosen. It's inspiring to think that you might be coaching learners, or selling a great new gadget. That's the hype.

You do everything right day #1. You wake, gently stretch your body, take a brisk walk, enjoy some motivating tunes, even meditate before you begin your day. You sip a steaming hot cup of joe and everything’s going great. Auditions are flowing and you feel good. Ahh…the Honeymoon. There’s no reason anything should ever change. I'm King of the world!

Day #2, you try to follow the same routine but it's raining, so no walking today. And you didn’t charge your phone, so no tunes and no meditation. And, you’re out of coffee. Nail. In. The. Coffin. You’re so frustrated things aren’t going as planned. This, my friends, is the Plummet.

Day #3 is a little better. At least you remembered to charge your phone, but the auditions aren’t coming as easily as you’d like. Scripts are unnecessarily dense and it’s slim pickins. Motivation? Maybe that'll make an appearance tomorrow. This is a Lapse…where you’re just waiting for things to get better.

Day #4 comes and things are clicking again. Your morning routine is back on track. Not all the auditions are gems, but you did run across some really nice ones and feel you performed admirably. Surely the effort would at least be worth consideration. You breathe a little sigh of relief with this Surge.

But then after you Surge a bit, your software upgrade doesn’t go as planned, a job you loved and really thought you’d be in contention for is abruptly cancelled, and your cat needs an emergency trip to the vet because he ate God only knows what. Yep, it’s a Slip.

The bad news is that no one escapes the Plummets and Slips. Life happens to all of us.

But the good news is that we don’t have to stay in the muck. And a lot of it depends on our perspective.

So how can you turn your frown upside down?

Try reframing the narrative. Use a negative experience as a lesson, for example “I may not understand the Manifesto read right now, but I’m going to learn how to do it and seek those auditions out.”

Start a daily gratitude habit. I have a notes app on my phone and every night when I go to bed I add one line stating something, anything, that I’m glad went well today. Sometimes I have to stretch. Sometimes it’s just the absence of something horrible, but I do it daily. When I’m feeling stuck I reread what I’ve been grateful for through the year to lift my spirits.

Another tip is to get moving outdoors. When I’m really pounding my head, I don’t care if it’s 1PM on a Wednesday, I take my dog for a walk. That always clears my head!

While motivation may feel like a gift from the fairies, some of it is actually in our control. It really is up to us to nurture our own motivation. No one's going to do it for you, that's for sure. So choose something and take action. Taking some action, any action, is the quickest way to even out your motivational rollercoaster.