Motivational Struggles

For the last few weeks, I’ve been battling something I haven’t had to deal with before, and while I’m not overly concerned, I don’t like it.

My problem is motivation, plain and simple. It feels like for weeks now, I have lacked the desire to work on my projects and activities, whether at work, in my community service, or even my recreations.  Very few things seem to hold my interest, or excite me  to work on them.  Rather, I’ve had to drag myself / force myself to work on them, and even then, I’m doing it without enthusiasm, and more from a sense of obligation to make some effort.  (Even this blog post, being written on a plane where I have little else interesting to do, is being done to help me process this idea.)

This has never been a problem before.  I’ve always had a number of projects working, so there was always something that would clamor for my attention that I would want to work on.  Yes, that would mean that some projects would stall while others progressed, but I’ve been able to make that work, and also make sure that all of my projects got their necessary minimal attention to make progress.

It’s now been weeks, and I have a lot of projects to work on.  Work has been busy (lots of projects there), I have an athletic training schedule, a nutrition program, strength training, yardwork, Scout leadership and education, financial planning, and even a 5K for which I’m the race director coming up in 2 months.  I’ve got a backlist of movies and podcasts that I want to consume, and a few blogs that I would like to write on (or contribute to).  

So that list may indicate one problem – I’ve got too much going on.  I don’t feel  overwhelmed (as one friend says, overwhelmed is nothing more than a prioritization issue), and I’ve always had a project list like this.  I’ve fit in marathon and triathlon training during rough work periods before, which is equal to 2-3 of these projects in time required.  So it’s not overscheduling.  

Another possibility would be some mild type of depression.  I’m not sure where that would come from, but if it was physical, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to trace it effectively.  (That said, this could also be mirroring; where you hear about something and seem to note that you’re experiencing it too– another friend has been suffering from depression and talking about it.  It wouldn’t’ be the first time I had done that).   I would note that this is not any type of hopelessness / depressive state – friends, I’m not in any danger, it’s just a low-energy type of state I’m feeling.

I’ve been telling myself to snap out of it.  That hasn’t worked.  I thought that a vacation to a goal destination (the Grand Canyon) would inspire me.  So far, it hasn’t, but I’m not even home from that trip yet.  There’s the ‘fake it till you make it’ approach that has helped me in the past – that’s my more likely approach for the next two weeks.  I’ve tried that on some projects for the past two weeks, and it got things done, just not with as much energy as I have to give. 

And perhaps I need to apply some self-psychology a la Dave Ramsey – get some small quick wins to develop some momentum.  Right now, I think about half of my projects could generate that with a little bit of extra effort.  Now that work is calming down after a month of intensity (which is a normal schedule), I can carve out a bit of extra time to spend pushing for that extra outcome, and by June, be roaring with output.  If not, we’ll head off in a different direction.