Find your reasons

Motivation is an unreliable energy source because it’s unpredictable.

What are you supposed to do when progress requires you to work on something but, as chance would have it, the motivation — the excitement to do the work — isn’t there?

For these occasions, I think it’s important to revisit your reasons for doing the work and its longterm implications: why does it matter to you in the first place? What happens if you consistently do it over time? What are the consequences of not doing it — how do your values or your long-term goals suffer?

For example, I’ve been going to the gym 4–5 days a week for the last 10 years. I’m motivated to exercise maybe 70% of the time; what gets me through the other 30% is reminding myself that I value my health and what it enables me to do.

Good, well-defined reasons for why the work matters can override a lack of motivation any day.