Now just like I know that I have generalized anxiety but EVERYONe has anxiety to, to a certain degree, the same is with motivation.

It would be pretty dumb for me to assume that most people don't have trouble with motivation, EVERYONE does but I really feel that my issues are worse than average at least.

I know the whole feelings-follow-actions (fake it til you make it) which is basically to do something in spite of not feeling like it because more often than not the feeling of not wanting to do it fades almost immediately and you're almost always happier after doing it.

I know that step-by-step thinking can really help projects off the ground. Instead of "I need to get a volunteering job" first I need to go online, I need to find some listings

related to the above: I also know that trying an doing a bad job or even failing is better than not having tried. That goes along with not setting expectations beforehand. I mean a general goal is fine but "I am going to clean this house spotless TODAY" (depending on you) might be a little much


Even with knowing all that stuff I am so lazy all the time. I literally do 0 to 3 tasks a day max (laundry, groceries, dishes) while in ideal conditions, when I was volunteering at a summer day camp I worked 4 days, 6.5 hours a day without ever needing a break. On the last day I had some 8-10 year old boys and girls take turns while I piggy-backed them up a hill, even jumping and jogging a little.

I suppose comparing that to when I am at home is a bit much but still.

The other big thing which is quite a bit more mysterious is a DISTICT fade of motivation with any routine or project I start (that I don't HAVE to do for work)
I've gone through probably a dozen different workout plans. They started grueling and painful but I changed them again and again until they were things I know are fun. But it still fades.
Days 1-3 I go out on my hand-made paralell bars then do 3 standing backflips, quick, easy and fun
Days 4-7 I do them, maybe by 6 or 7 I skip one.
After that I just stop doing it altogether.

This is common in many different things and I'm sorry if I am being a whiny-pants, I'm not looking for sympathy or anything.

One thing that I thing might just be the answer is to FINALLY find a significant other. Especially one who is active and doesn't let me laze-out. I've been trying for the last 9 years and I haven't found someone.. not hopeless, just annoyed that it just never happened.

ANYWAY. Tips on motivation anyone??

I was meditating on some of these issues a few weeks ago. I can tell you what has been successful for myself.

I too have struggled with motivation. For many years it took all that I had to manage my 9-5 job (I'm a child and family therapist, and used to struggle mightily with "compassion fatigue", as well as family obligations (married, one toddler). So much so that I had no motivation or energy to put into the things outside of work that were important to me (namely physical health, creative endevours, intellectual development and a spiritual practice). And, like you, there were countless "starts and stops" to getting these things off the ground, but at most I would progress along for 3 or 4 days before receding back into a kind of exhausted, general malaise.

I tried addressing this through both medication and therapy, and while both had some impact, I nevertheless remained tied to old patterns.

What ultimately had to happen for me was to literally transform my self-definition. As long as I BELIEVED I was "always struggling to motivate", then the result was I was always struggling to motivate. So I needed to truly believe that I was already motivated and making changes, versus seeing myself as always in a state of "attempting to motivate and make changes."

From here, I needed to focus my effort on THE SMALLEST OF CHANGES. Something I practically could not fail to do consistently and successfully. For me, this was forgoing my usual breakfast of a sausage and biscuit from Dumfucking Donuts and instead having a banana and a glass of water each morning. I allowed everything else to remain as it was and only focused on my "banana routine".

This small change became like the smallest of pebbles dropped into the mighty apparatus of cogs and gears that controlled my robotic responses that tied me to unhealthy patterns. Over time, it chipped and wore down the gears until suddenly I was making better choices in other small areas (stopped drinking alcohol, went vegetarian, joined a yoga studio, got off antidepressents, quit TV and instead started drawing each night, reading for 1/2 an hour before bedtime, meditating for 15 minutes each day at work, and on and on).

This was about a year ago. This past weekend I participated in an Open Studios and sold some drawings, as well as launched a website of my artwork. I've lost close to 20 pounds. I am joyful with my wife and daughter, my sex life blows my mind, and I sleep blissfully. Some days still suck nads, but the difference is it no longer throws me off track. I accept bad breaks and move on.

So, in other words. You are already a motivated, enlightened, blissed out angel loved by the universe. You just need to shed a lot of bad programming to rediscover that. So, go find your "banana".

Sat Nam!

Wow, just wow, it's one of the best post I've ever read on the nexus, thank you

Keep busy: Do TONS of different fun things until you are nearing exhaustion.
At least for me it is impossible to motivate myself once i've almost stopped completly doing things.

quantagy, that does make sense. Self-fulfilling prophecies do that but I really have tried SO SO many things like that and they don't seem to work.
Kinda like a lot of things, it is not that I believed these things and re-enforced them when I was down on myself, I just have observed the tendancy of diminishing emotion with EVERYTHING I do and the amount of times I have been so annoyed with myself by stopping another project, being to lazy to report my EI and going 2000 in debt, getting completely out of shape then having a blast playing in the park and getting in better shape than I was before but now I am losing it again, I have gone from 7-10 park visits a week to 0 or 1.

Also I should mention I only work 11 hours a week, I have SO much free time and POTENTIAL energy but I just do nothing.

Doing fun things... that almost never happens. Though I do love my work.
I suppose this could be linked with my anxiety which I can overcome pretty well in social situations, but the it just seems to turn to boredom.
Once again, observed over many ocassions. Not something I believed beforehand. I've tried to challenge the tendancy but it never seems to work...

As of yesterday I took a step in the right direction I hope. I tossed out all my substances but my DMT (and MHRB) and made a rule that I am not allowed to take anything alone EVER.
I've spent countless hours taking stuff in my room (95% of the time getting nasty negative effects, that is a different story thought) and I'm not going to do it again. Even posted it on the wall and everything.

if you dont like the way you behave, why do you allow yourself to behave like that then?


stop whining and get shit done you lazy baby...


as far as i know that's the only way that works

you get rolling and the universe rolls with you

Dude, I have generalized anxiety, aspergers and I'm pretty sure ADD.
Would you tell somebody with schizophrenia to stop being crazy. Would you tell someone with OCD to stop doing things so weirdly? Would you tell someone with depression to just stop being such a downer?

I have learned to function in society with these conditions but I got FIRED from my first 8 jobs despite the fact that I never ever had a confrontation with any other employees or managers and was just blindsided.
It took me a damn while but I getting to the point where I understand what to look for in the categories of appropriate vs inappropriate but I still have a lot of work, I still unknowingly piss a lot of people off from time to time.
I don't have anyone who is "my friend" only semi-friends who I rarely see who come over to see my roommates who I try to like but I can barely stand being around them for 10 minutes.


It has taken me 23 years to get as socially adept as a 13 year old in most ways and in some ways and more like a 4 year old.
I'm now struggling to figure out how to work my motivational systems in a similar way. Frustrated with all I know about the motivational system, and what is supposed to motivated us having read several books on it but still having it taking the same amount of willpower to clean and organize my room and my kitchen then build a flat top on top of the parallel bars in my backyard one day, then the same amount, sometimes more, to just make some food when I've been hungry for hours on another day.

I've tried several drugs, herbs, mediacations and I have extreme adverse reactions, not physcally but mentally. caffeine makes me sleepy as hell, so do DNRIs/stimulants. clonazepam can help my anxiety but causes distinct dysphoria. Weed creates a feeling of my mind being constricted varying from uncomfortable to terrifying depending if it is 1/25 of a joint or 1/10. Yerba mate makes me drowsee and dysphoric. 5-htp does almost nothing, l-tyrosine neither. Harmalas or St Johns wort turn me into a slightly-high dysphoric blob in a chair.
I pursued this chemical methods for a while (while trying many many many other things too) and I've discovered none of them do shit for that


So thanks for your ignorant comments, thanks for showing that you have absolutely no idea what struggling with a mental disorder is like. I highly recommend you seek some literature on depression, anxiety and serious phobias before you assume people can just "get over it"
Ya, I've got over it hundreds of times only to have it come back in a new way over and over and over again.

I'm not posting to whine, I'm trying to get some useful information.

dear friend

actually i dint have an easy time to integrate with "normal" people either for most of my life
always perceiving the way things are quite different, doing things differently, having motivation problems and so on


i also did not mean to offend you more then i felt necessary

regardless if you truly believe it or not, you are very intelligent and able!

Not very stable at the moment i understand, but are you really that sure that lack of personal effort does not play a role in this misery of yours?


What would happen if you were in a very difficult situation that would require you to act permanently or fail and perish?

If it really takes that for you to strive full force to your potential and that is what you truly desire, then you will be confronted to grow.


Being more sensitive and in a way less perceptually limited is not only an obstacle, its a gift which you can use to influence the lives of many people positively.
But such a particular human form takes considerable more skill and discipline to maneuver through this world then the standard edition.

Skill comes through effort, and i dont mean only effort in your head. Thats too easy for you anyways.

persistent floating effort is required . . .



wont say more to it, i dont mind to get hit with the ignorant prick stick but its just bad etiquette to provoke it unasked and repeatedly


before i forget
have you also tried omega3 oil, choline and/or piracetam?



thats really funny

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

You have to change your habits m8. Look at it from a scientific mindset. In experiment X you have variables Y and Z. If you never change Y or Z the results are always going to be the same. Maybe add a third variable or take away one of the existing ones. Then observe what happens. Being aspergers, this should be very easy for you to understand and integrate. The key is sticking to that one change.

quantagy made this point apparent with his banana advice.

I know that you kinda mentioned and your struggles with it but working out is one of the best things you can do to get yourself out of ANY rut. start small. You don't have to go all out. Just start by doing 10 pushups and 10 sit ups each day. Then maybe in a few weeks add in some curls or something. The point is that you will get into the habit and it will potentate from there.

I have struggled just like you and these are some of the things that have helped me. Best of luck to you m8. Feel free to PM me in time of need. I feel for you and can be empathetic not only b/c I've been there but for some reason you remind me of my IRL brother. Very similar philosophies/viewpoints on life.

Kind regards.

P.S. Read anything by Anthony Robbins