6 Steps for being productive with low motivation

Being productive with low motivation can sometimes feel like an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps you want to improve your life – no matter what this change may look like– make an effort to enhance your life by learning new skills, starting a new adventure, or chasing that business idea you have in mind. I get it; we want to be productive for plenty of reasons. Many would wait until they feel motivated to finally get up and be active to make the first steps towards their new reality. Are you one of them?

Then this blog post is for you.

We all have individual perceptions about what a dream life should look like. And this is perfectly fine. This is how life should work. A genuine dream should be unique and perfectly fitting to your desires. But to live the dreams which you already have in mind, you will likely come across these questions:

“When should I start with the first step of my new project? When is the perfect moment to start representing the new version of myself?”

The answer to this question is as easy as shattering: The perfect moment does not exist.

There will never be a perfect moment whereby you won´t have scruples about your actions. A moment where you won´t think about if it is worth the effort and the pressure: you won’t find the perfect time when you can´t find excuses or procrastinate on your new project. 

Never wait for motivation to show up.

If you consider yourself as one of those people who want to wait for their motivation to appear magically before they can get productive, then listen carefully: motivation will never occur and lead you the whole way through the path you want to pursue to the destination of being successful in any way that matters to you.

Feeling motivation is a very uplifting experience; concurrently, you must be willing to act without it since you will likely not feel motivated whenever you start a new and unknown journey. Motivation is more likely to appear whenever you must satisfy urgent needs, like eating when hungry to prevent your body from starving. 

Therefore, be prepared to get active without feeling motivated if you want to get productive and don’t want to count yourself as one of these people who wait almost their whole life to live the life of their dreams. 

There won’t be some particular situation somewhere, someday, where you can overnight evolve into a brand-new person, and suddenly, you can consider your life as ‘perfect.’ You must get active to create this new reality in your life that you already have in mind.

Why would you feel motivated to change your current life? 

With this question comes a somewhat complicated answer. What is powerful enough in your life to motivate you to change your life or parts of it? 

If you think about it precisely, you may conclude that as long as you are somewhat satisfied with your current life situation, you won’t feel pushed enough to change anything. Why would you? The cost compared to the outcome would not match. 

To change some parts of your life with whom you’re highly unsatisfied, the cost or the effort it costs you to achieve that change must be lower than the actual outcome. Or, better, the part you change in your life that has the potential to satisfy you must be more important to you than the effort it costs you to get to this point of satisfaction. 

You won’t change anything as long as you’re happy.

As long as you are relatively happy with the life you live right now, you won’t change anything, and you won’t get active whatsoever because it may feel unnecessary. Therefore, you first must discover the parts of your life you are unhappy with if any exist. Then, find your strength to change these parts for the better. And to find this force within you, which you have, you don’t need motivation. This feeling is not the first thing you will feel whenever you decide to change something. 

First, you will always feel some discomfort. This comes from the part of your life you’re unhappy and unsatisfied with. Later, there will be the inspiration, the motivation to keep acting according to your desire. But you will likely always start acting out of your comfort zone out of the urge to avoid discomfort or pain in any other form. This is natural and is usually called evolution.

If this term confuses you, think about how much you evolved throughout your life, from being a child and learning the basics about living life to the person you are today. You can be so damn proud of yourself for how far you’ve come, for how much you’ve evolved!

Get your act together!

If you’ve concluded that there indeed exist some parts of your life with which you are highly unsatisfied. Still, you’re unsure where to begin, or if your demons (aka. anxieties) haunt you in your mind whenever you think about changing something, tell yourself it’s okay to be nervous; it’s okay to be anxious. Change is always new and unknown; therefore, it is an uncomfortable and challenging undertaking. 

Change is always challenging for everyone.

Everyone has their demons in their head, but it´s up to you how much power you give those demons. It´s your decision if you take responsibility for yourself today or if you let your inner demons keep controlling your thoughts.

Be proud of yourself for thinking about change and the unknown. Rather than focusing on the change itself, which can be frightening, focus on what you’re pursuing: a self-love journey towards a new, more satisfying reality.

Allow yourself to be free.

To support your self-love journey and finally be productive in any way that matters to you, I created this guide with six steps for being productive with low motivation.

1. Start with journaling

The habit of writing down your desires and the new reality you envision in your mind is enormously powerful. By bringing the thoughts and words you maybe only ever think in the privacy of your mind to paper, you tell the universe a direct message. This dream, this desire that keeps living rent-free in your mind, is important enough for you to be written down. 

With the act of writing things down, you give them space. You transform them from a thought that may only be a fleeting thought into an active conversation with yourself. By making your thoughts and words an actual issue, you make it more accurate than it could ever be by solely existing in your imagination.

Most people call the habit of writing down positive and meaningful thoughts and words on a paper ‘journaling’. You may as well have already heard about it. Even though it seems to be in trend lately, it’s famous for a reason. It works and is a powerful supporter on your journey to creating a new reality of being productive with low motivation.

It’s okay to be sceptical.

If you’ve never tried to write your thoughts and desires down, you may be slightly sceptical about whether it could work for you or waste time and energy. Let me tell you this: I was also sceptical in the beginning. 

Before I started journaling years ago, I never thought this simple habit could make such a massive difference to me, and I have to admit, the first time I tried journaling, I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. Frankly, I wouldn’t say I liked it. The reason was not the action of journaling itself, but I felt embarrassed for simply writing down my feelings and thoughts. It felt weird, and I could only see it as a joke. So, I quit my first attempt.

Cross the finishing line.

But as you can imagine, I gave it another try after some time. This time, I tried out The 6-Minute Diary. For the first one to two weeks, I again didn´t feel a difference, and it was just a burden to sit down in the morning and the evening to write down what I was grateful for and the affirmations I truly believed (at that time), that could never make any difference for my life.

After a few weeks, something changed. I suddenly felt joy while envisioning my ideal day in the morning and, in the evening, reflecting on all those fantastic things that I experienced during that day. Even if it was just a delicious coffee or the weather was great, I could be genuinely thankful for that experience. Now I know what all those people mean by journaling: It is an essential tool for personal development and significantly impacts my well-being, and this habit has the potential to do the same for you.

With this anecdote of my journaling journey, I want you to know that it’s crucial that whenever you try something new, give it an honest, proper try. Don’t quit just because you feel uncomfortable; walk the line until you reach the top of your mountain.

We are what we think.

Whenever you stop focusing on everything going in the opposite direction of what you envisioned and start shifting your focus to positive thoughts, being grateful, and recognising all those fantastic things life can offer, this is when change can happen.

Get active.

Today is the perfect day to start your journaling journey. This habit will support your journey to being productive with low motivation and will be enormously helpful in creating a new reality for your life. But it would be best if you get active today. 

Also, I highly recommend getting yourself a guided journaling notebook like The 6-Minute Diary. This way, you don’t have to overthink the new and unknown task of journaling as long as it’s uncomfortable because, with a guided journal, you only have to follow orders instead of getting creative in the first place.

Start by writing down your best vision for the day. Write down precisely the ideal day you envision in your head. The way you see your advanced version acting, talking and thinking. Also, write down your tasks and plans you plan to accomplish today.  Get creative and slightly delusional. Focus on the parts of your life you want to work on and improve today.

But most importantly, be kind to yourself.

Everything you write down is perfect for you; only focus on how you want to pursue your day. You want to be productive and improve your life, so you should only care about yourself and your desires. For you, only your wishes are of interest. Don’t mind what other people like to do with their time. 

Stop comparing your visions and dreams to others. It does not make any sense to keep the negative self-talk alive since you live a completely different life from anybody else. Also, while learning a new skill like journaling, remember to be kind to yourself. You are a student of life, so keep it slow and easy.

2. Envision your new reality

The next step implies your emotions. Since you want to be productive with low motivation, you must know your ‘why’ precisely, and the easiest way to gather a strong reason for changing is that the things you want to change make you truly happy. Therefore, focus on the emotions you link with your new project. 

Feel the vision you create in your mind. Make a movie about your perfect day and how you envision accomplishing the plans for the day. You want to connect some positive emotions with the visions you’ve created to make it part of your reality. 

Create a movie in your head.

The easiest way to connect with your desired thoughts is to create a movie in your head about your dreams. The key is your imagination. You can be as creative as you want. And once again, everything you create in your head perfectly fits you! You can be as detailed as you wish. Your dream, your rules!

Whatever you’re journaling about in step one, the most important thing is that you get to the point where you feel something positive about it. It could be pure joy because your vision is so fantastic or gratitude for the life in your head that differs from your present life. Only you know where the limit of your imagination is!

3. Avoid any distractions

By now, you know how powerful the habit of journaling is for being productive with low motivation, and you’ve learned about the importance of your emotions. What´s next?

Now, we practice doing nothing.

Think about the last time you did nothing—simply sitting there, being alive and enjoying the silence surrounding you. 

We live in a world where it´s tremendously easy for us always to be busy or entertain ourselves in one way or another. Our schedules can be fully packed with many tasks and deadlines that want our attention if we let them. And if we don´t think about business, we tend to fill our time with hobbies, friends, and family. 

Many people seem to overpack their days and are addicted to being busy. We tend to chase distractions to avoid being surrounded by silence and doing nothing. As if being any less than the most productive would be a bad thing. Which is not the case.

When is the time to not be productive?

By practising doing nothing, simply sitting and enjoying the silence around you, you can admit with this simple action that you deserve some time off and times of being unproductive.  To solely focus on being for a specific time. 

By doing nothing, you give your thoughts space. Sometimes, it can be healing to save some intentional quality time with yourself where you actively surround yourself with silence and nothing to do. This way, you can practice recognising any distractions you implemented in your routine that help you procrastinate your preferred goal. 

We are our thoughts, words and actions. 

The person you identify yourself as is all the thoughts you think, all the words you speak and all the actions you take daily. And if you want to consider yourself a productive person with no or low motivation, it can benefit you if you start being curious about how you pursue your day. 

How can you be productive in parts of your life that truly matter to you if you keep distracting yourself with irrelevant as much as you can daily? This is when practising sitting in silence can be supportive to attain your goal of being productive. 

With this method, you can learn to differentiate the crucial tasks of your daily routines from the ones that are counterproductive for reaching your goals of being productive with low motivation. 

4. Create healthy habits

To be productive with low motivation, the next step in reaching your goals is to create habits supporting your primary objectives. To get your preferred outcomes, you need to become someone who pursues their days as productive.

Therefore, it is best if you make yourself a plan for the day. Maybe you already know what keeps you from being productive, and you know exactly what it is you will work on. But even if you don’t know what new habits or routines you could implement to become more productive, you can still begin acting according to your desires. 

Here is a list of a few habits and routines you perhaps want to consider implementing into your routines to become more productive with low motivation:

• Keep your body hydrated throughout the day.
• Fuel your body with healthy food. 
• Practise Yoga
• Move your body more frequently.
• Start with meditation.
• Quit coffee or substitute it with healthier solutions like Matcha.
• Get into intermittent fasting (16:8 method)
• Writing down affirmations daily
• Practise journaling
• Going for a 30-minute walk daily
• Recognise the importance of taking breaks.
• No screen time every morning and evening
• Read a book daily.
• Start your day 1 hour earlier for a healthy morning routine.
• Learn proper stress management strategies.
• Prioritise high-quality sleep.

Consistency is the most important habit you can cultivate if being productive with low motivation is your goal. Also, let this remind you that consistency is even if you perform a task for just five minutes daily.

Make it a habit, a routine.

A Routine is „a usual or fixed way of doing things.”

That means you must repeat specific tasks regularly to call it a routine. Therefore, a routine is nothing you do for one time only and then never again. Instead, it’s something you perform daily or regularly and also in the long term. 

Implementing new routines is especially tricky but doable because you must be willing to practice them even though you won´t see any results after the first few practice times. You must stick to your new routine and repeat the task daily or regularly. If you do so, you will see results over time. 

5. Train your willpower

Training your willpower can be massively beneficial for being productive with low motivation. Why is it necessary, and what is willpower?

Willpower is „the ability to control your thoughts and behaviour, especially in difficult situations.”

It´s the ability to generate strength within yourself and maintain resistance – to do something you don´t feel comfortable with or restrain temptations.

To be productive, and especially whenever no or low motivation is involved, we require a certain amount of strength and willpower to master the unknown and unpleasing task for every new challenge in life, especially if it´s new and unknown to you and different from your already existing routine.

Your comfort zone means safety.

Naturally, our brains tend to resist when we do something unknown. Our brains do not understand why we change something. Why this change is necessary. Acting within our very well-known comfort zone means safety. 

Staying in our comfort zone, we know exactly what to expect from specific behaviour and what behaviour leads to danger. Therefore, our brain is not interested in implementing anything new or unknown.

If we now want to adapt our daily routines to fit our desired goals more decently, we not only need to go through the experience of creating something new and unknown, but we also need to convince our brain that it´s helpful to change our lives for the better right now.

We do so by proofing our brain that what we do is worth the effort. That what we want to achieve is a good thing. Every time we repeat a new task, we can convince our brain a bit more to believe that we are that new person and that this new and uncomfortable task belongs to our new and unique perception of ourselves – that this new task is the new standard. 

Change happens in small portions. 

There will be times when you won´t see any progress at all. That´s okay. It´s normal. Just get soft around this feeling and enjoy the moment as best as possible. Progress does not happen in a linear line. Instead, it’s more likely like a rollercoaster with many ups and downs. But rest assured that after any low will come a high. 

With any new skill or routine you want to implement into your daily life, it’s crucial not to overdo it. The more you overthink the unknown task, the higher the likelihood you won’t perform it long-term. It’s more efficient if you take one tiny step every day; the emphasis is one ‘every day.’ 

Consistency is the key to success.

Take my word if I tell you that consistency is much more critical for creating healthy habits than your effort per session. What I mean by this is that you will likely be successful if you prioritise consistency, showing up for yourself every day rather than putting in hours of effort once and never again. 

Especially when implementing a new habit, you will need lots of willpower and resilience. That’s normal, and, therefore, it is better if you show up daily for a small amount of time but focus on doing it repeatedly rather than using all your willpower and energy once to force a new habit into your life. 

Acting with kindness and gentleness and being soft while doing so is much more efficient for reaching your goals, at least in my experience. And be sure you will notice the difference after a while if you show up for yourself daily. The progress will come. But you must be consistent with your goal—every day. You can do this!

6. Get active and do the first step

Now is the time to get active and become productive with low motivation. It’s finally time to take the first step towards your new project. Also, remind yourself that it’ll be uncomfortable, and you probably don’t want to act. But this is the moment you should get active to improve your life.

You will see progress on your journey whenever you’re consistent with your actions. Therefore, go and take the first steps—one by one. But always remember never to rush or force the trip to move further. You have more than enough time; it’s best to take your time and slow down the process to experience every step towards your goal intentionally. 

Also, always enjoy today’s experience – enjoy every step you take to become more productive with low motivation.

The journey is the reward.

On your journey of becoming a productive person and reaching your dreams, it’s always best to focus on every step you take. There will always be another mountain you can claim and another top you want to reach. Whenever you accomplish one goal, another one you want to hit will always occur.

Therefore, please focus on the journey itself and start taking every day as it is. Try to stay in the present moment as much as you can. This way, you will first enjoy the journey much more, and you’re also more likely to reach your goals more effortlessly since you focus on small bites instead of huge chunks.

Do it slowly but consistently—step by step. There is no reward for being the fastest to reach all the mountains in life. The slower you progress, the more you can enjoy the growth process, and the more likely you want to be on your life path – the more grateful you can be for your experiences.

Being productive with low motivation is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Instead, it’s a choice you make for life. It’s all about the person you want to define yourself as. Also, being productive is a highly personal point of view. 

You won’t be able to compare one’s productivity level with one another since everyone has their tempo and very own way of performing in life. But be sure that you’re already doing just fine. 

Also, remember, you don’t have to change anything as long as you’re happy with your life. Nothing is more important than feeling content with who you are and the life you experience daily.

It´s your journey, and you walk the path alone.

You are already extraordinary and the person you’ve dreamed of in your past. There is nothing you have to force, nothing to accomplish, except the things you truly desire. It´s your choice. You decide who you want to be and can make it happen today. Today is the only day important to start turning your dreams into reality when tomorrow arises.  

Get active today!

Today is the perfect day to get active. Don’t wait for tomorrow; most definitely, never wait for your motivation to show up. Do it today, and do it uncomfortably, do it imperfectly. You will feel motivated someday, but this day will never be today. Therefore, head into the unknown today – show yourself who you are. 

Until next time,

Keep evolving into your most glorious self!