454 Comments (page 5)

Your article gave me the pickup that I needed to get motivated again. I really liked the part when you said "Quality and impatience can't coexist. That's been one of my problems. I am 70 and this is just what I needed at my age. Great article!

Your just a Superman for this post and yes, id jump into the dark too. Whatever drove you into writing is respected, your amazing at sharing wisdom.

Thank you for your article. There is so much false information out there that is written with the intention of inspiring suicide. I like feeling encouraged to feel better. Maybe one day I will no longer become overwhelmed by emotion to the point it dictates my actions. I lose faith sometimes and its those times that bad influences have their best opportunities to do me serious harm. I NEED to be respected by society enough to have a car and the right to not go to jail for being a man in my own house. Your blog helped me to feel ok when normally I panic. Thank you

I didn't find these tips helpful (well the ones that apply to me, mainly "Loss of Interest" & "No skin in the game" ). It was particularly disappointing that you recommend making yourself responsible to someone to give more meaning...that just makes your motivation co-dependant on someone else. Also, you can't fake skin in the game - things either matter or they don't. You can lie to an online app/website in which case, its not going to matter. I've tried a few of these...just ended up a liar instead of more motivated.

I needed this. Thank you.

Thanks-a-ton man!...honestly...you've done such a fantastic job by summing up all the killers...i just noted down em'all and now i'm gonna pin-it-up to the board..just to be aware what not to do instead of searching what to do....commendable..keep working!

thank you, inaction point was the best. I made it till the last. :)

Excellent. Best short positive I’ve read. Thanks. A keeper

Thanks you so much. It helps my blood to run again. Keep it up!

Too unmotivated to read such a long essay.

Thank you very much Kyle, this is such an excellent, helpful post, not only interesting and with great expertise, but also witty, which is rare. I gather you write for MYP (modern young persons), but I am 66, started creating cartoons after being pensioned, and have one (about two philosophers) published in an philosophical magazine where a friend of mine is the editor. Currently I am working on a new cartoon series, I already have a stock of 12. My biggest problem by far is: getting published in the ’real world’. I mean in a magazine where I don’t have any contacts. I don’t have a website, weblog, Instagram or Facebook account, because I cannot manage that and/or dislike it. How do you successfully pitch, and get happily published? Until now I have tried with a few special interest magazines, by sending a concise e-mail, with examples attached, and zero answers. Do they only ever react on established artists? I mean, I am well aware that they may not appreciate my ideas and cartoons at all. But what is the best way to attract any attention? I don’t want to create only to pin the results on my own storyboard. That’s my motivation killer. Marja

Best thing I read so far.

Thank you so much ! Best motivational article I've ever read so far *_*

One of the few posts that has actually resonated with me. Brilliant work.

I loved reading your article!! Thank you so much for the advice. I really needed this, and it really helps me understand why I am not motivated and how to fight back to these murderers!!

Thank you very much for sharing this. I really needed it!

Thanks for checking out the article :)

That’s Fantastic!!! Maybe someone can help you with your punctuation now!🤭

I feel the same way Marq!

Thank you for this great article. It was pretty helpful. For me one of the reasons I don't feel motivated is because I don't feel like interacting with others. Even close family and friends don't seem to understand how I feel and it's as if I am living in a different world compared to them. I am tired of explaining myself to people so I prefer to not do anything anymore. I just feel so done with people and even with this world. I know there are still good people out there and BLABLA but they seem to be hiding in their caves. The funny thing is nothing truly tragic happened to me to feel this way. Part of me feels like I deal with intellectual arrogance. Part of me thinks I am depressed. I do live a pretty unhealthy life ATM with zero exercise and a lot of junk food but it hasn't caught up to me yet because I am still in my 20s. I really want to go to Machu Picchu mountain and scream my lungs out. TBH I am not sure where I am even going with this comment so I will stop now XD

wonderful...eye opener...

Unbelievable!! I got so motivated I could hardly finish the article! Your article is the best I've ever read, and I have done some heavy duty reading. (To procrastinate taking action!) So glad I found your site. Also love the demotivational pics!

Hi Ruby, I feel exactly the same. I would love to talk to you. If you see this, please send me an email: [redacted]

This here changed my life. Thank you Kyle!

Thanks for reading the post :)

I have 0 motivation right now. Time is running out for me. I have had some very upsetting experiences lately and resorted to binge eating. I keep on stating to myself "I will get on track tomorrow." I feel so sick. I know I need to get back on track soon. I know the things I need to do: eating properly, keeping hydrated, exercising, keeping care of my body.....and these four things I need to do all at once. I forgot a very important date; my daughter's wedding anniversary. My terrible habits have turned my brain to mush. I am almost 65, but at times like this, I feel like a child.

Hey Ann, I'm sorry that you're going through so much. I can't imagine how tough these things are that you're dealing with. You are not running out of time, you have the opportunity to change every single day. One step at a time. I hope you keep in touch and let us know more about your progress!

This article was sent to me by someone who recognises my severe unhappiness and depression. They're correct; however lack the understanding of the motions one goes through when leaving a very long miserable isolating marriage and all that follows. Having read your article I recognise I'm already implementing many of your strategies while undoubtedly enduring the most difficult time of my life. I live with the optimistic view that one day this will come to an end and I will again, be happy. It is a long hard road and way easier said than done. Nonetheless, a very good read! I'd appreciate some feedback/conversation if someone reads my comment, thanks.

I've only just read this article and now seen your comment. I'm currently going through the process of very difficult court proceedings and feel very much like I'm in limbo land. I look forward to the day when it's over so I can move forward x

Awesome article!

Thank you for reading the article Wendy!

Great thought provoking reasoning.

Thanks for checking out the article Belle :)

I love this article! Very insightful, helpful and informative to read. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for reading the article Patty!

I know someone that is very unmotivated in life. I try to help them out but they think i am against them. That person told me that they need a house to start feeling motivated of waking up and going early to work , to feel that they are working for a reason "a house." I told them that is wrong thinking because if you need a house to motivate then how will you get there? What advice can you give me on helping someone out?

Kyle, a brilliant piece that gets quickly to the point on each section. The content and layout is excellent. You broke the mold of most articles of writing a 20 page essay describing and not getting to the point. I instantly exit reading massive garbage before getting to the meat. YouTube videos have the same problem. You look up how to repair something and the first 10 min is talking a bout the shipping box. Holly crap I'm out. You brought me in like a great writer should do. I needed some of this info at this time. Great work! Side note you picture reminded me of Chip Gains of Fixer Upper & that is a compliment.

I have a story. I was a poor student all my life. I have a type of add called PREDOMINANTLY INATTENTIVE with these symptoms: missing details and becoming distracted easily, trouble focusing on the task at hand, becoming bored quickly, difficulty learning or organizing new information, trouble completing homework or losing items needed to stay on task, becoming confused easily or daydreaming frequently, seeming not to listen when spoken to directly, difficulty following instructions, processing information more slowly and with more mistakes than peers. Flunked 7th grade, went to summer school managed to make it to eighth grade. I dreamed of college but never thought I could do it. I toiled long years at jobs you do not want to hear about and even served briefly in the military. Finally at age 43 I started college. I made the deans list every semester. I was Phi Theta Kappa. I had to work around my add. I accepted the way I was and just worked longer and differently than other people. Halfway through I became ill with lyme disease, ehrlichiosis and babesiosis. I was on antibiotics for two years. I was in so much pain at one point I used a walker. Instead of graduating in four years, it took five years but I did it at age 48. I graduated with a 3.78 gpa with a degree in fine art and illustration. My marriage failed and I divorced. Fortunately I got the house. Unfortunately it had termites. Fortunately I had two partime jobs. Unfortunately the stock market crashed and I lost most of my savings. I kept trying to work on my artwork, submitting stuff and getting rejected. Then I got a full time clerical job. Then I lost that job. My car was dying. My credit was shot because ex left me with a 50,000 credit card bill and the creditors put a lien on the house. My eyesight was failing. My car was dying and smoking. One day before Thanksgiving I drove it to the junkyard with my bicycle in the trunk. I sold it for $300 and rode my bicycle home. I collected unemployment for two years. I went blind, legally doctor-wrote-a-letter blind. I moved into the basement of my house and rented the upstairs to a person. I packed up all the art supplies, easels, paper and tried to survive. I used the last of my savings to have surgery on my eyes which by then had been diagnosed as cataracts. Eyesight mostly restored! I applied for over 140 jobs, some as far away as NYC. Nothing happened. I worked at fast food places and grocery stores and collected the rent. Most months I just paid the mortgage and electric. I bought a 20 year old volvo station wagon which could not pass emissions. At the grocery store a male customer kept talking to me, going through my cash checkout almost every evening. By now I had been out of college for seven years. I painted a little bit in my spare time but felt hopeless. The male customer kept talking to me. It turned out he was an attorney. He wanted to help me get the lien off my house and he wanted to date me. I was a 55 year old woman working as a cashier. with five cats, deeply in debt and a house being eaten by termites. Did not matter to him. He fell in love and married me. Lien gone, tenant gone, upstairs reclaimed, termites treated and today I am a wife who stays home, keeps house and works on her artwork. My livingroom is now my studio. I am not published yet, but I am not giving up ever. I am 61 years old.

You are not running out of time. You took time to write. You have some right now. Look at your hands. Do they move? You have time. Do not try and do four things at once. Drink a glass of water right now. Go for a huge long walk. I can relate. I am 61. We have to do things differently in order to keep our youth. Sound crazy? No its not. You still have youth, it just has to be prodded out. Youth is not the outside, the flesh part that looks so pretty when we are young. Feed your youth. Drink the water. Take the long huge walk. Send a card to your daughter, apologize and move on. After a solid week of those huge long walks which don't seem to be doing a damn thing, you will feel a little bit perkier. I don't care if you just walk around your livingroom for a solid hour, move. Get checked for thyroid, lyme, bartonella and any other disease under the sun. Scream, beg, yell, nag at your doctor and if they won't listen get another. Be a pest. Women of our age, are not listened to very well unless we appear to have an accute disease. Start believing it is not normal to feel out of it and unwell. That is total bullshit. As far as food goes, everyone has at least two healthy foods they love. They would eat them even if they were not healthy. Start with them. You can have junk occasionally. Every ten days, eat some fun junk. You won't get sick. Mark on the calendar. Make a holdiay of it. The rest of the time eat two good full meals a day and a snack. Not three meals. Don't count calories. Just eat.

💛🧡💯💯💯

I enjoyed the article! It was helpful & made me laugh also.

Is it a true one?

Yes, it is true. If I was going to make this up, I would of made it more exciting.

Hi Michelle, I liked your comment about the lack of understanding by others in what it’s like to go through all that you have had to go through. I’m glad you have people that care enough about you to send you this article. (I can relate to the miserable isolation marriage) I’m not up for really sharing my story, it’s very long and full of ups and downs, mostly downs. Mental disorders rising up to really make things suck, and life more difficult to manage. I have been on a self healing journey for some time now, with up and down results. After reading Kyles article here, I see that I have been searching for “that one thing” that will turn my life around. I too have already been kinda working on some of these strategies, but that I haven’t been looking at myself enough to “see the forest for the trees”. All the odd nasty side emotions that I didn’t think played into my self destructing behavior and thinking. Yup, lots of work. My optimism gets its day in the sun, when I “let it”. I’m still married, and the tug of war in my head is still in play.

Kyle, thank you for your ideas and experiences you have shared with us. I found them to be very (duh)basic and in lightening on a personal note. You brought up ideas that, (I don’t like to admit,) hadn’t occurred to me, during my few years of working towards a better and happier me. I feel my new insight, via your blog, will have a significant impact on how I will achieve my “happier life”. I have already been putting in a lot of hard work on myself, and I think God led me here, to help me identify the areas I haven’t been letting myself to openly see. So thank you again for your words

I totally loved reading your article. Made me laugh and loved the kill points of unmotivated life style. Right now I'm sitting on the couch eating chocolates and reading what ever comes to my mind on the internet. yep! I'm unmotivated atm and stumble across your blog. The point I love the most was the fact that it takes action, big or small. Gratitude yes! we are so lucky to have 5000 things to be happy about. Thanks for reminding me. FB well we all know that's a total "look at me" thing and I'm no different but have killed it. thank god for that!. I was getting a headache from it. A time waster if you ask me. Thank you once again for the great article and motivation. Keep up the great work

Kyle, this is an awesome article. I just discovered it as I was procrastinating on a task and thinking about another whole weekend of getting nothing accomplished. I've been suffering lack of motivation for so long I can't remember when I wasn't. Lots to do with a very long marriage ending and losing much of my life with it. Recovering from that takes a long time. Deep depression involved. One of my MAIN motivation killers is PERFECTIONISM. It's so hard to take action when you feel the project must be "perfect." Also, indecisiveness kills my motivation. These two, separately or together, are murderers. Thanks for the great writing.

Go with them, and be on their side. When someone is not motivated to the level they will never hear you out, chance is, they just want someone who understand. In a way, this goes into psychology, and emotional healing. They just want to feel accomplished in a part of themselves that is not going to fix itself by just going out there and doing work. They probably want empathy, and someone to trust them that they are worthy of this healing. Be there for them, tell them they are right. Start there, then give them your exact same advice, just in a totally different perspective. Don't ever disagree with them on something they steadfast believe in, just yet. Tell them, yes, that is true, and then encourage them in a way that supports that belief. Then, uplift them with encouragement, to motivate them to go further. That is how you take someone out from a rut, which most people might think is pure laziness or unwillingness to be better. It is the opposite, they are just people with high potential but are feeling stuck due to one unsatisfied need. That is their inner self somewhere, it could be emotional healing usually, or whatever it is. This helps a lot because I do this when I feel down for no reason, and don't want to do anything. Despite this, I have always had the biggest dreams out of everyone I know, and that is the biggest clue to why I have been such a downer at times. You sound like a good friend for wanting to help. Now go be a great, amazing, fantastic!!! Friend, by giving them the right kind of advice. Ashleigh

This is an incredible article. I found this by asking google where my motivation was. ( missing for as long as I can remember) You told me where it was Kyle. I was motivated to write in the comment box. I am greatful for this blog post. Reading this has been the best time spent in a long time. So concise. I get inpatient with myself when I’m thorough with a Job and others think it unnecessary. I But am compelled to do it that way because I will result in a better job wether the customer cares or not. I become envious of others their lack of caring as if I had their mindset I’d get the job done faster.

Loved it so much Kyle. The best techniques Ive read so far, and Ive read a few. Thanks so much.

This is what I needed. A lot of it I know and have experienced, but sometimes you need a plink on the forehead to wake you up and get you going. I am almost at the bottom of my particular rabbit hole and instead of crawling my way up, I am trying to dig my way out. It doesn't work that way, I know, but it just feels like so much less of a struggle. My friend (that I have never met) has been posting on FB what she is grateful for every morning. I kinda feel she is a cheerleader and that is wonderful, but I am more of a coach. She is always focusing on good things and making things better, I am looking at what we did wrong and what we need to struggle through to make things better. Our intent is the same but I end up being exhausted and eventually beat and then unmotivated. She is waking up and posting what she is grateful for. I will read this blog again and again and even share it. I'm not feeling it 100% yet, but nothing here is outrageous or stupid so there is hope :) Thank you! Jeane

Kyle ,I read the whole article ,bookmarked it ,created a pdf of it.I have made notes.I am gonna implement each of above points and tell you the result in later comment. Thank You for this amazing article (shown "gratitude" as you have told)

A fantastic article, very well written and offering tons of value for the reader. You are improving lives. Thank you.

Kyle, I read this article myself several years ago and it has stuck with me. I use the concepts frequently to help clients with the issues of motivation in Substance use treatment. Great writing!