You’re Plenty Motivated. You Just Lack the Bandwidth.
Two clients, two scenarios, same challenge: I want to do it but feel uninspired and stuck in the same spot every time.
It's a pattern I keep coming across in my work, driven, accomplished women having a hard time getting the ball rolling on the one project they want the most.
And they're baffled. They want it, they think about it 24/7, make the plan, sit down to work on it, but the "motivation" fizzles away faster than the time it took them to open their laptops and check their emails.
Procrastination takes the front seat and inaction becomes the default setting every time you feel uninspired, overwhelmed, or stuck.
But when we actually dig in, motivation and inspiration are rarely the problem. What's actually happening is that the mind is already full, maybe even overflowing with current and leftover projects, tasks, responsibilities, upcoming deadlines, or—as was the case in one of my scenarios—an expired contract that you somehow are still working under.
As I wrapped up a session last week, a study surfaced in my inbox, part of a weekly roundup I get from a neuroscience program I'm affiliated with, and it explained something I'd just watched happen in real time.
A study out of Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, published in the Journal of Neuroscience and covered in Scientific American, gave people a choice while mentally fatigued: an easy task for a small reward, or a harder one for a much bigger payout.
As people got more depleted, they consistently picked the easier option, even when the harder one promised a heftier reward. Your brain, it turns out, is constantly reshuffling the standards it wants to reference in its choice-making process, bringing the bar lower the more drained you become.
Think of a parent at the end of a long day. Dinner can sometimes stop being about what's healthiest or most satisfying and turn into whatever takes the least effort. Same brain, same love, just running on empty.
Exhaustion doesn't just make you tired. It alters the terms your brain sets for what's worth doing, including the things you actually want most: the business, the course, the trip, the instrument, the workout.
Practically speaking, there's a specific drain in your current life you have yet to address. A project you resent but keep doing anyway; a client or commitment you have full authority to end, but the guilt of dropping someone outweighs the discomfort of confronting it; a responsibility you took on once and never questioned again.
You're not lacking motivation. You're out of bandwidth, and you're spending what little you have left protecting something that isn't even serving you anymore, which leaves nothing over for the harder, more rewarding thing you actually want.
This is one of the most common blocks I see in coaching, and it rarely looks like the usual burnout. Instead, it looks like disorganization, procrastination, tangled priorities. It sounds like I don't feel motivated, I'm losing steam, I don't have time for this.
It's a woman battling an internal conflict, judging herself every time she sits down to start, and ends up in the same exact spot: stuck.
So here's the shift: let go of the self-judgment and take an honest look at what's actually filling up your mind.
Ask yourself, What's running in the background of my life, even when I'm not busy? What's occupying the largest space, and what is it costing me to keep it there?
Pick one thing. A task, a relationship, a project, or a commitment. Get honest about why it's still there, how much control you actually have over ending it, and what's really keeping you from letting go.
All you really need to release is the one item outcompeting everything you actually want.
You never lacked the motivation. It was simply buried under something heavier than you realized. Clear that, and watch how fast it comes back.
If you're curious about assessing your approach to the different aspects of your life, I now offer standalone Energy Leadership Index® assessments, one of the most powerful tools to evaluate how your thoughts and beliefs are affecting your way forward.
Aline—CPC, ELI-MP
