Last Updated on May 25, 2025 by Michelle
It’s natural and normal to go through periods of down time with no inspiration. We can’t always be full of inspiration, raring to go, 100% motivated. And this is more than ok as it just means we have been too hardworking and it also means our brains are healthy.
There are 2 ways our brains protect us in their messaging, one is giving us pain and the other is in giving us a burnout/demotivation. This is our body’s defence mechanism to protect us when we are overworked. Hence, feeling demotivated is a sign that our brains are telling us to take a break which in turn prevents us from getting unhealthy.
Given feeling demotivated or down is a signal for us to stop overworking, we should absolutely take the signal instead of getting agonized over it.
1. Tell yourself it’s ok. Take a break
As mentioned above, you need to understand this is a signal from your brain to protect you from becoming physically sick from overworking recently. Hence taking a physical and mental rest from the task is key. This also means, no feeling guilty about taking the break as that produces stress hormones.
2. Do something small (under 5 minutes)
Motivation often disappears when a task feels overwhelming. Small wins trigger a sense of achievement, kickstarts momentum and motivation.
For eg, if your goal (overwhelming task) is to write blogs, write one sentence. If your goal is to exercise, put on your workout clothes.
3. Go back to basics – question why you started doing what you decided to do
This step will help you get get re-inspired, especially if the basic motivation and inspiration still stays. If it no longer stays, it is also a good trigger for you to rethink or mark to market what else inspires you more.
Remember, it is 100% normal for humans to go through periods (not just one) of down time with no inspiration. This is healthy and neccessary for you to rethink if what you’re focused on is really what you want to be focused on.
4. Write affirmations
After step 3, you’d have some ideas of what you want to achieve. Simplify the small actions and write them down as affirmations as what you’d do every day. Repeat the affirmations daily.
It’s through times of challenges, that you grow the most. Why? Because it’s a trigger for you to think and rethink. Through repeated thinking, you would get some new inspirations, motivations even if it’s completely different from your initial motivations.
Without such times of thinking, you would not have such renewed conviction for what you want to do.
Speaking for myself, I started blogging just about 1 year ago and as you can feel from this is my first post, I was clearly full of motivation. However, within the past 1 year, I had about 3 times when I was in down time with no inspiration.
Each time though, I sort of followed the above steps and came out stronger ◡̈
Remember, good things take time.
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