 Despite how it might sound, being unmotivated and being lazy aren't the same thing. Lazy is the having ability to do it but making a conscious purposeful decision of meh, don't wanna. Causes of motivation loss can be from involuntary sources like depression or other mental health obstacles. They leave you really wanting to do something, but there's this invisible restraint keeping you from it. The feedback from others may still have you fretting that you're being lazy and letting others down though. So let's look at some signs to help make that difference known. 1. You feel purposeless, with a bleak outlook. You might notice difficulties because of a change in your outlook. The comparison of, hey, this kind of thing wasn't a big deal before. Why am I so not into doing this now? Might make you wonder if you're being lazy. What it could actually be is that you've grown to a point where you're looking beyond instant impulse gratification and you're contemplating why you do what you do, where you're going and what you want down the road. This is great and it can also smack you in surprise. It's all too easy to get lost, drift in this feeling, where you start to think, what's the point? So instead of getting excited about your life and your future, you feel lost and look at all things as an imminent fail. Negative self-talk like this can make everything seem pointless, since it's never going to work anyway, which leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of not coming together because nothing was done. 2. You've got that bad stress. Stress is pretty general. You basically need stress to alert you to fulfill a need. There is good stress and bad stress. The bad stress is the kind that doesn't move you towards a goal. An example could be an assigned workload. Good stress. You have the right amount to challenge yourself, so you feel accomplished by the end of the work day. Bonus. Yes. Give yourself a prize. That is a good feeling. You've taken a step towards that raise, promotion or retirement fund. That stress. You've been given so much work that you're working overtime, still not able to get anything done and now all the drive is because you're worried you might be fired. There is no good goal to reach. It's like being beaten up before all the initial bruises healed. Eventually, you accrue so much damage that you can't even do what you did before and progress towards any goals gets derailed. 3. Your surrounding environment is draining you. Don't worry, we're not gonna feng shui on you here. That might be a future discussion. Think about where you try to do your thing. Is it a place where you can look around, breathe deep and feel inspired? Or is it where you get depressed with a wave of anxiety when you observe your surroundings? Surroundings mean the people you surround yourself with too. Do they boost you or are they the kind that feel this urge to always find something wrong with you, your work or anything else you produce? If you start the day with a tight feeling of dread because you know that drab gray office connotes a prison to you and caustic co-workers await like vultures to pick at your bones? Work? We mean work. It's no wonder you'd be unmotivated to show up early and be productive. 4. You have unrealistic goals We hear way too much. Well, you gotta try everything without context. This leads to many often forgetting the key factor of being self-aware of one's limits. In the movement to shout, you can do anything, the fact that humanity and tedious time consuming hard work form limitations. Let's take an example and goal of becoming a marathon runner. This can be an unrealistic goal. If they ignore all the work that training involves, they haven't thought it through or research the subject. So when a week goes by and they can't run 26 miles, they give up because they're overwhelmed and disappointed. Sometimes, that stage of being overwhelmed will stop a person before they even start because they lack any sort of plan or structure. And all that's in their mind now is big scary mountain of things that need to be done with shiny objectives on top. They haven't given themselves small on-the-way goals that are reachable. Speaking of planning, 5. You lack structure and routine Structure? Routine? Who needs it? Well, you do. We do. It's how we work at things to reach a result. Maybe your structure is full of things like go skydiving once a month to feel alive, interjected with spend one hour per day doing something that will get you closer to your objective. And that's still structure, that's still a routine. Think of exceptionally prolific and successful author Stephen King. He has a routine which involves starting the day with a small time frame and giving himself a quota of words or pages to complete by the end of it. No expectations, save for life or death emergencies. That structure and routine serves as your compass. It gives you something to hold on to wherein you can still know I'm still getting closer to my goal. Not having it goes together with not having purpose. You're adrift and since there's nothing to guide you, nor is there an anchor point to grip, there's no motivation to move ahead. Since you don't even know where head is. We hope that these tips have helped your self-confidence, at least a little, through realizing you're not lazy. That crushed self-confidence is a big part of what feeds demotivation. Now that you know it's not a hopeless case of lazy, you can create a strategy to overcome the blockades one step at a time. Don't worry, the mojo's still there, awaiting for you to gather it back up. How do you feel about these points? Recognize any? Feel free to discuss and we'll see you soon. Thanks for watching.