Motivation and inspiration

If you are feeling low, anxious or stressed, you will not be motivated to keep moving forward, but rather feel stuck, confused and unsure what is going on for you.  

Motivation comes from within yourself rather than outside, other than the demands and expectations put on to us by other people, to meet their needs rather than ours! So finding your drive and reasons, the purpose and the values that move you to achieve, learn and progress at home or work can be difficult to do without the energy to search.

Values are the things that are most important to you in your life, in living. It could be family, love, work or achievement, status or financial security for example.  

The beliefs that influence motivation for you could be cultural - where you live, your community and social interactions, or people around you. It could be religious or spiritual beliefs that drive you and give you the purpose you need to grow and keep moving on.

If you don't know what drives you, then you can't find the motivation to achieve your dreams or your goals, and when this happens you lose direction and meaning so you become more lethargic, even tired and listless. If that happens, it gets harder and harder to keep trying, especially if you don't know why you should!

Recognising what makes life worth living (your goals, purpose, meaning and intention) is so important, and keeps us all on the move - onward and upward! Once our basic needs of food, water and shelter are met we move on up the hierarchy of needs put forward by Abraham Maslow, to find love and belonging, social status often through work or meaningful activity, and finally to the peak of our experience where life flows and we feel content and fulfilled doing what we are doing. This could be happiness and contentment for many, without striving any further, or it could mean achievement that keeps driving other people on.  

Find yours and the options you can use to maintain it for yourself, and you can keep moving up to meet your needs that are ever changing!