Motivation is the great engine of our daily life. Facing each of our days as an exciting challenge to overcome, loaded with new experiences and opportunities, makes us face life with a positive and proactive attitude.
Motivation is necessary to overcome daily obstacles and to get up again and again since it moves us to achieve our goals. However, an exhausting or boring routine, lack of objectives, and excess stress lead us to the loss of this driving force.
Life has its stages, its ups, and downs, and we can experience it ourselves as well as perceive it in our closest circle. Lack of motivation is a feeling that any of us can experience and we must know that, in the same way, that it comes, it can also go away.
If we ourselves are going through a difficult stage, in which we feel unmotivated, we can motivate ourselves and start taking small steps to get out of the stagnation in which we find ourselves. Since motivation depends on each one of us, the real challenge lies in how to motivate others.
If you have someone around you who lacks some motivation in their day-to-day, we give you the keys to help them recover it.
Active Listening
A person who is going through a stage of demotivation tends to keep many feelings and thoughts within himself. The apathy that characterizes this state even pervades aspects such as communication.
However, we will have to encourage this person to express himself, and free himself from thoughts and emotions that, really, weigh him down a little more every day. In addition, through active listening, we help the person feel more valued and understand that their problems matter. In addition, we will be transmitted to her that, above all else, she is not alone.
Active listening is the first step in helping a person who has lost motivation. It will allow us to identify the problem to direct the rest of the advice in that direction.
Respect The Spaces
Once we have understood the reason for the demotivation and have made it known, through active listening, that they have our support, we will keep our distance, respecting the needs of that person.
The last thing we want is to overwhelm you even more than what it already means not finding motivation, not having defined goals, or not knowing where to direct your life. We will have extended our hand and we will have told him that, when he needs it, we will be there, but always respecting the personal space of each one.
Empathize And Help Him
This last idea leads us to the all-important ability to empathize. Empathy will allow us, on one hand, to connect with the emotions of the people around us and, on the other, to identify what they need and how we can best help them.
It is of little use to tell an unmotivated person: “what you should do is…” “the best thing for you is…” “I know how you could cheer yourself up” or, perhaps, the worst “your problem is not that bad”. These types of affirmations do not lead to any constructive ground nor will they help a demotivated person to get out of the situation in which they find themselves. We will replace those phrases with others like “what do you need?” “how could I help?” and “Can I do something to make you feel better?”.
It is worth remembering that motivation comes from oneself, we cannot impose on anyone to feel motivated. As a good feeling, it is born from the interior of each one. For this reason, his needs and desires will also be born from that person.
Be An Example
The famous phrase “I sell advice, but I don’t have it” is most useful to explain this point. The truth is that we spend a good part of our lives advising, suggesting, or even ordering what each one should do to improve their lives.
However, what about us? We should ask ourselves if the person we are advising and saying what they should do to feel better considers us a reference. Otherwise, it is more than likely that all our advice will fall on deaf ears.
Therefore, more than advising or scolding, become the example to follow. If we take the path towards which we become better people, more passionate, positive, and excited, the other person will catch that energy and want to feel the way we feel.
While it is true that it is much easier and faster to give advice, this way of dealing with the situation – and life – is much more powerful and effective.
Extol Achievements
In case of sharing your work with a person who is going through a time of motivation, emphasize their efficiency or the importance of their role within the work team.
Remember situations in which that person was a true lifesaver or, simply, from a cohesive team perspective, that each and every one of you is equally important to make the company work.
A person who experiences a feeling of belonging to a group tends to feel motivated because they understand their importance and their role.
Do Not Abuse Motivational Phrases
Because less is more, even in this type of situation. The overload of motivating phrases such as “you will be able to handle this”, “you will see how you can do it”, and “you are capable of anything”, in addition to being ineffective, since a demotivated person rarely feels identified with them when they are going through that situation, they can even be counterproductive.
Excessive and constant motivation loses effectiveness over time. The mechanical repetition of the phrases mentioned above, or similar ones, will not produce a profound change in the person.
Changes occur when we feel identified because they move us to act. In the case of using motivating phrases, since they are not universally valid, adapt them to the personality of the one to whom you address them so that they generate a real and effective stimulus.
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