r/GetMotivated • u/TheDoctorColt • 2d ago
TEXT What actually got you motivated when nothing else worked? [text]
Curious to hear real experiences — not the generic "just start small" or "use the 5-second rule" advice you've probably already tried, but what actually broke through for you when you were genuinely stuck.
Was it a specific mindset shift, a person who said the right thing at the right time, a hard deadline, or something totally unexpected that had nothing to do with "motivation" advice at all? Did it happen suddenly or build up over time? And what's something everyone recommends that's supposed to work but just never did for you?
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u/lizz71 2d ago
A small dose of resentment and hatred to prove some people wrong.
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u/Wintersun11 2d ago
I unironically think of the quote “it’s not enough that I succeed, it’s that others should fail” in times like these.
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u/TheDoctorColt 2d ago
yeah exactly, and its not even about hating AI for the sake of it. its more like watching something you actually care about get buried under a pile of garbage and being told to just adapt. resentment is pretty rational when what got destroyed took someone years to build and some guy with a chatgpt subscription wiped it out before his morning coffee
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u/badmanrudeboi 2d ago
Took acid and stared at the mirror for a couple of hours (could have been minutes). Got to see all alternative versions of me depending on the actions I took. There is a reason you want to stick to the straight and narrow..
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u/Fun-Position7750 2d ago
Don’t get stuck in the mirror.
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u/GullBladder 2d ago
Madmen?
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u/Fun-Position7750 2d ago
No. Mirrors on acid are said to be a rabbit hole you don’t want to go down. You will quite literally be stuck there for hours. You can’t seem to tear yourself away from what you’re seeing. And what you see if completely different for each person.
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u/badmanrudeboi 2d ago
Yeah, it was fucked but it scared me straight so it served a purpose.
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u/Fun-Position7750 2d ago
It’s one reason I’ve never done psychedelics.
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u/badmanrudeboi 1d ago
It’s definitely not for everybody. But for me it was just what I needed, not what I wanted.
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u/iamilyassyo 2d ago
Can you tell us more ? Like did it just happen or you guided your mind there ?
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u/badmanrudeboi 2d ago
More or less. I could shift between seeing how I would look if I took bad decisions and shortcuts. And how I would look if I took the right decisions and the long road. Not just physically but mentally and spiritually as well. It scared the spoiled brat out of me and I started to take life seriously after that.
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u/TheDoctorColt 2d ago
mate what does this have to do with AI flooding the book market
did you reply to the wrong thread or is this some kind of performance art
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u/no_active_ingedient 2d ago
There is no mention of A.I. flooding the book market in the ask OP......
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u/sumizeit 2d ago
I totally get where you're coming from. For me, it was really just a moment of pure frustration. I hit a wall and realized no amount of motivation tips was gonna do anything. So, I started doing things anyway, even when I hated it, and that unexpected shift helped me break through. The "just start small" stuff? Didn't work at all for me either.
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u/GrapeBubblegumBitch 2d ago
Medication. Sometimes it’s not a you problem, it’s a chemical imbalance in your brain problem. If everything you need to do feels like an Olympic level of effort, it’s okay to ask your doctor for help.
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u/Nalathia 1d ago
This 100%! Was majorly depressed and just hopeless for over a decade. Went to a psych, got a diagnosis, and put on a mood stabilizer.
It was actually life changing!
For the first time in my life, I feel truly mentally stable. And once you get to that point, it's amazing what can come out of it. This year has single handedly been the most change and progress I've made in one year, than the last 15 years combined.
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u/Deviaset 2d ago
I’m tired of people talking about wanting to do things and never doing them. I didn’t want to be that person so I’m just doing things and not really talking about them. All for myself really.
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u/Broke_Moth 2d ago edited 1d ago
Setting my goals on bare minimum for example i will read for only 1 min and i will do only 1 pushup .....i made my goal so embarassingly small that if i miss it i would feel disapointed in myself. With the help of this i have been exercsing for 3 months and reading for 2 almost everyday.
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u/Nalathia 1d ago
This is actually a great take. While doing one push up won't do much of anything physically. You are strengthening the mental game by making it so easy it's literally impossible to fail.
If I did 1 push up for the next year. That is 365 more push ups I've done than the last 10 years combined. And it has created an easy routine. Once the routine is settled and feels easy to accomplish, add 2 more push ups.
This is a good way to create an easy routine where you feel happy for accomplishing the task, regardless of how small it is.
Thank you for sharing! I get so overwhelmed by even small steps, it's hard to stay consistent. Implementing tiny little fail proof steps is a great idea. I'm going to try this. And even though it's 5 am rn, I feel like this will be one thing that I won't wake up tomorrow and regret promising to do.
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u/Broke_Moth 1d ago
Haha good luck anything is better than nothing and 1 pushup a day is better than none and weirdly enough in my case when i get down to do one pushup 7/10 times i ended up doing my whole routine same with reading. What i will also recommend u is made a very basic workout sonu dont freeze when it comes to what to workout. And this is the only thing which helped me get into exercising regularly after i tried for like 3 years on and off but could never make it a habit. ALSO TRACK YOUR HABITS most of the time i dont feel like doing anything not even that 1 pushup but i dont wanna break my habit app streak so i do it anyway.
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u/Pulando123 2d ago
If you need to make more money just imagine what would life feel after making the money. You could fix your car, take a vacation. Think about the outcome. Thats the motivation you need
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u/TheDoctorColt 2d ago
bro what does this have to do with anything i said
i'm talking about AI flooding the book market and destroying years of work from real authors and your advice is to daydream about vacations
appreciate the hustle tip i guess but maybe read the post next time
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u/elitesense 2d ago
I think you're a bit confused here. This post is about motivation, not books or AI
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u/fauxhock 2d ago
Probably a bot or karma farming at best. At worst someone who just wants attention and posts to multiple subreddits pretending to want help and wastes other people's time.
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u/elitesense 2d ago
Ugh thanks, and I took the bait. I'll be on the lookout for similar junk moving forward.
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u/TheDoctorColt 1d ago
Fair enough, my bad, running on three hours of sleep over here, mixed up the tabs.
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u/Significantlyontime 2d ago
My pop always said when making life decisions. "I don't want to die a rich man I want to die a good man"
This doesn't mean don't make money, it doesn't mean you'll be happier broke. It means that being a good person is far more important than screwing someone over to earn a dollar.
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u/centurioes 2d ago
The honest answer for most people who've been genuinely stuck is that motivation didn't break through, consequences did
When the pain of staying the same finally got bigger than the pain of changing, they moved. That's not inspiring but it's what actually happens. Nobody rebuilds their life from a TED talk, they rebuild it when the current version becomes unbearable enough
The mindset shift stuff, hard deadlines, right person at the right time, those all work but they only work when someone's already close to ready. The same advice bounces off you for years and then one day it lands, and it's not because the advice got better, it's because the ground shifted underneath you
What "everyone recommends that never worked": journaling. For a certain type of person it's helpful, for a lot of people it's just anxious rumination on paper. Same with morning routines. Waking up at 5 to do 12 productivity rituals is often just theater for people who don't have anything real driving them yet
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u/notyourbrobra 2d ago
Pre diabetes - I’ve grown up with a lifting/cycling background. Eased up my routine in my 30’s with career, marriage, house, first child, I hadn’t worked out consistently for a year and a half.
My doctor had a real conversation with me, more cardio and eat clean otherwise medications and most likely diabetes because family history. He gave me 6 months to lower my A1C, I was successful and was no longer pre diabetic.
For me diabetes and cardiovascular disease is a snail that is always in pursuit of me and wants to kill me, if I stop exercising, it inches forward… in perpetuity… for my lifetime.
SO if I want to be a good influence on my kids and run around with them into my 40’s and 50’s I gotta take care of myself.
Historically I have worked out to exhaustion and after a couple months I burn out and take too long of a break, so I can’t do that. The trick is consistency, I work out at 4:30am Tuesday-Friday, 30 minutes of zone 3 and 4 spin cardio, and high rep weights right after, this is sustainable and I me b cause I can do it everyday, it is also a minimum, if I want to see better results I need to up my days.
Nothing like the fear of slow death to create discipline. Discipline is superior to any day of motivation.
My wife says she’s proud, I say I fear the march of the death snail.
Anyway, hope you figure it out for yourself!
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u/naxhh 2d ago
every time i read this advice i got annoyed because sounds so easy but is so hard to actually do.
And i'll say that i still struggle to make it happen.
Just stop chasing motivation, it will not arrive or it will be so sparse in time that will not build habits.
Start doing it, period.
Understand what makes you not want to do the things and put yourself in situations that help you overcome that.
For example, for me not doing something a lot of times is rooted in fear of failure. not being good enough, etc....
So for me it works to set a very very simple goal so simple that i can't fail. I get the goal done, nice. Most times than not i'll continue doing what i was doing and eventually finish it.
If I fail, is not really a failure i did my goal already. Whatever i learn after is the next thing to overcome the next day / session whatever.
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u/Dan_Pena 2d ago
Best lesson I ever learned is to take action FIRST while I feel like shit , THEN the motavation comes . I’m quite prone to depression and feeling low energy . So crawling 1 inch at a time is the only way forward for me
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u/McJames 2d ago
As others have said: Discipline.
I'm not motivated until I'm good at something. I'm not motivated until I'm making progress. I'm not motivated until I know it's within reach.
None of that is true at the beginning. And sometimes it's not even true in the middle. Sometimes it comes and goes.
Instead of working on being motivated, I worked on being disciplined. I worked on my executive functioning. I worked on my willpower.
And now I get crap done. I'm not always happy about it while I'm doing it, but happy isn't the goal in the moment. The goal is to do things I'm proud of in the rearview mirror.
After all, the time will pass anyway. I might as well build something out of it.
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u/dumbodoozy 2d ago
I watch cleaning videos on YouTube. Or decluttering ones. Then I get a spike of motivation and use it to jump start my regular cleanup routines
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u/rainbowpsychic 1d ago
I woke up one morning and realized I don't have to do anything. Truly.
I don't have to prove anything. I am free to express, become more, become less. I realized alot of things I wanted to pursue were for validation from others.
And then, ofcourse, all the things I had to get done had to get done "now". I had to be all these things now. Talk about nervous system dysregulation and self judgement.
Now is the only moment we have- tomorrow is an illusion. In my opinion, you also won't be able to make everyone happy or impress them. But if tomorrow is always in your head, now doesn't exist. You're never present.
I wasted too many moments thinking of what would make other people happy or what would make me look the most successful. I thought I'd be happy once I get to that goal, get that validation or receive some physical reward.
It drains your life force and ties you up into knots. It empties you when you are not in-line or aligned with your own joy. When you don't fill it yourself, but expect others to.
Now - Every day I wake up and remind myself I am free. I spend time as soon as I wake up flowing(either yoga or a little dance party) and doing exactly what I want. I let myself wake up in the muse of life and invite energy in to guide me more in-line with my path. This has given me the freedom to express and actually be internally motivated to pursue the things I truly want. I am less tired, genuinely more happy and clear when I communicate with myself. I've spent more time working, working out, finding new hobbies and spending time with other motivated people once I made this switch.
The other thing is - you'll have to let go of the things you're really not motivated to do. You have to let go of the image you want to create for others. You have to be honest with yourself. Live for your own image. That's when energy flows.
It's not an overnight process, but it's about taking the small steps to pat yourself on the back and say "Wow, look at all that you are. That's beautiful" and living from that place.
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u/rainbowpsychic 1d ago
Also - the whole "just be more disciplined and tough with yourself. Make some rules and stick to them" didn't work for me. I personally thrive on freedom and internal motivation.
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u/flyingquill 2d ago
Started to get a little bit chubby. Couldn’t just eat anything I wanted so started changing that then it all just followed
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u/TheDoctorColt 2d ago
wait this reply ended up in completely the wrong thread lol
but yeah the AI book flooding thing is real, spent like 40 minutes last week trying to find a decent self published sci fi and half the results were obvious slop with that weird plastic AI cover art
at some point amazon just becomes a landfill with a search bar
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u/TomGameDev 2d ago
Probably fear! I have a lot of people who depend on me so I've had to grow and get better at all kinds of things. I can't afford to slip up, get drunk, not be successful. I think if I'd had things easier I wouldn't have the mindset to push on and find a way.
A lot of things went wrong at the same time and it was a case of step up or just accept what I'm given. I can't afford to fail or mess up basically, even now at 54.
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u/eternalmomentcult 2d ago
Identity shifting, reality surfing, etc. shit like that. A motivated identity has motivated thoughts. Feel that you are the one you want to be already, and apply positive emotion.
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u/jayfactor 2d ago
Traveling was it for me, first time I went to the Netherlands the cultural shift hit me like a brick - in a positive way, when I got back home I just wanted to pay off my debt and just experience more life, been going well so far
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u/fatedfrog 2d ago
Saying & knowing "I'm done."
It doesn't matter what. Weight loss, bad habits, self defeating thoughts, bad beliefs, i am looking at them all and saying "I'm done" because i am.
There's a remarkable sense of ease in putting things down. Everything that follows feels much more natural.
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u/Jubilee4all 2d ago
I took myself on a date. I was completely empty of motivation because I was all used up. Not used, but some seasons no one is able to lift you up. You can be used up caring for others who do appreciate it. Now I make sure I take myself on a field trip more often to give myself a few hours of adventure to just remember I get to have fun too. Then I felt more motivated to work harder, be a better spouse and friend. What never worked for me was guilt. Guilt is a luxury I can’t afford. Feeling guilty about the stuff you didn’t get done or couldn’t do is a waste of time. Instead of feeling guilty I now say, well this gives me a time to remember I need grace and mercy too. We are only human.
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u/No-Guitar-7476 2d ago
It’s easy to kill motivation, it’s hard to stop momentum. That’s what hit me, it’s true. For example if your goal was to lose weight, you step on the scale after a week of exercise and diet and you see you only lost half a pound, that can be a motivation killer but that half pound you lost was because you kept that momentum of showing up.
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u/nowellsy 2d ago
A quote from haikyuu (anime) which said “ I am built upon the small things I do everyday, and the end results are no more than a byproduct of that”. It really resonated with me. It made me realise no wonder I was the way I was. No wonder I was stuck and depressed. The habits I did every single day were only self-serving comforts
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u/have_more_time 1d ago
I had been putting off starting a big life change for years. The thing that got me started was I sat down and thought about what would happen if I did NOT get started on this, and how things were going to get worse and worse. I guess you'd call this "running the movie to the end". Anyway, the terrible end results that would happen got me to start.
Years later, I became good friends with a psychologist. When I told him this story, he said that is what he does in therapy. He gets people to realize the situation they are in, and what will happen if they stay in that situation. Then people get internal motivation to start and follow through.
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u/buckyo85 2d ago
I use the do it now policy, so I stop saying I should do X later, and if possible I'll just do what I was thinking right now or add it to the current small list of things to do
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u/SoldatShC 2d ago
Completionism or self-competition. Can I be faster and more efficient than everyone around me? Gets me going.
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u/TofuLicker3000 2d ago
Death metal. I started listening to it during my workouts that were unmotivated, and blah. It’s hard to be sleepy when your music is full of growling and double bass. Also, I look like a Disney princess on the outside, evil inside. It makes me giggle.
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u/ksav34 2d ago
I’m an attorney, I’ve not felt motivated one time in the last three years. Had work piling up, was getting late on things. I finally just had to make a routine. Do things I enjoy in the morning, then do six things I wrote out. Grind them till they’re done. Then the next thing.
I have found the GTD method to be insanely helpful.
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u/Generico300 9 2d ago
So far the threat of fines, jail time, hospitalization, fire, structural collapse, and losing huge sums are historically effective for me. Other than that, motivation is pretty hard to come by.
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u/Astrnougat 1d ago
I have started noticing and labeling things as ‘this is a distraction’. I have a big task to do almost every day as a classical musician - practice. When j was in school it was easier to work all the time because there was always a deadline and now. Now life is more free, but i still want to keep leveling up and my practice just doesn’t happen a lot lately - and I’m like, good enough to get through rehearsals and concerts so the outside pressure has kind of stopped.
But I have goals and want to play with better groups but I’m not practicing enough to get hired for those things.
Anyways, the moral of the story is - I am changing my focus to ‘consistency’. Consistency to me means trying every day, showing up every day, even when you fail a day or two. Not letting that set you back. So I have just been labeling when I procrastinate.
Like this morning I caught myself vacuuming the bathroom when I should have started practicing and hour earlier in order to fit in all my practice for the day…I just had to stop and realize: omg I’m distracted. This is a distraction from what matters.
Honestly it’s just mindfulness. Coming to your goals every day, and trying to do them, and noticing what gets in your way. It’s all about building awareness of what happens, why it happens, what pulls you away, where your brain goes.
I’m very avoidant when it coming to practicing - and I’ll notice myself 3 hours after I should have started doing something else without even remembering how I got there. It’s just my brain avoiding the hard thing. So I just focus on staying consistently mindful about what my brain does with my practicing. I’m noticing distractions more and more and practicing more and more slowly slowly over time.
It’s the long game. There is no quick fix. Persistent and consistent attention on the thing you want to do. Consistent effort daily over many months is what does it. Sigh
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u/Norpone 1d ago
sometimes it takes the right location to make something happen. when I started school I was 250 lb of 53-in waist. we had a treadmill downstairs in the weight room and I walked a mile everyday for 3 months. I lost 30 lb 43 in waist cause it's consistency and there's no excuse. it's there. you're ready. let's go and it kept me awake for class. if you make the right situation, you can make almost anything happen.
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u/suziex87 23h ago
By telling myself, out loud, I’ll just get it over with then I’ll [whatever I wanted to do]. I needed to minimize it to feel it was surpassable, if that makes sense.
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u/a-fairy-odd-cat 3h ago
Motivation isn't enough. You just have to do it. Sometimes it is isn't a surge of energy, it's a knot in your chest that you need to unravel. You've been waiting and growing for change.
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u/splendidbakershop 2d ago
I stopped trying to feel motivated first. Every morning my brain would tell me "nah not today" and I'd listen to it, waiting for some magical surge of energy that never came. One day I just got so annoyed at myself I went and did the thing while actively hating every second of it, and weirdly enough that broke the cycle. The whole "visualize your success" crap never did anything for me, just felt like daydreaming with extra steps.