Am I Motivated Enough?

We are not yet fully back to the way things used to be prior to COVID-19, but what I have come to realize is - neither am I. This past weekend I looked at myself and the way I was feeling and realized that I don't feel the same way that I use to.

I was able to pinpoint that this is all stemming from my lack of motivation.

Lack of motivation

For the last few months, I have had a lack of motivation to get out into the world and really explore new things and create new memories and experiences. Don’t get me wrong - I still have fun and explore my surroundings, but I realized that I have not tried anything new and exciting.

Have any of you felt this way? Have any of you felt like the things you are doing on a regular basis are not exciting you anymore?

A stagnant personal life

Lately, it feels like I have stayed stagnant in things like my professional life and my personal life. In my personal life, I still hang out with friends and I am a very social person, but it no longer feels the same.

I am not trying new places and meeting new people like before. I hang out at the same spots, eat the same food, and talk to the same people.

I have been feeling less motivated to try out new environments, especially with the new variant of COVID-19. I was hoping that things got back to normal by now and I could start traveling again comfortably.

Why I lack motivation to travel

One thing I really enjoy doing is traveling to different places, whether it be to a new state or a different country. I do understand that we can still travel even though there may be some restrictions and guidelines that we need to follow.

My lack of motivation comes from not wanting to explore a beautiful new country and must wear a face mask in all of my pictures. My lack of motivation comes from not wanting to make strangers feel uncomfortable in other states if I try to talk to them and make conversation.

My lack of motivation comes from not being able to see the smiles of beautiful new people I just met at these places I explore.

Feeling stagnant in my professional life

As for my professional life, I am always motivated to do my job and excel in my career, but the lack of motivation comes from not being able to work properly with my team. I work at a very large organization where many employees are still working from home, many days throughout the week.

Missing the energy of in-person collaboration

I am a very social person and enjoy human interaction so only talking to coworkers over Zoom is not the best for me. When my coworkers and I have Zoom meetings, I do not feel the meetings are as successful in planning things like events as they would be when we are all in 1 room bouncing ideas back and forth. When we are all in 1 room for an hour or so, we can really come up with some great ideas.

Regardless of how I am feeling, I am still putting on events for the community. But as for the size of the events or how many people we are allowing at the events? It's still on the small side. One thing that always motivated me was having large-scale events that the community could enjoy with their families.

Not being able to have that many people in 1 place makes me not want to invest so many funds and time into it. My lack of motivation truly comes from not seeing an event full of people who are having fun, getting tested, and educating themselves on their sexual health.

Find something that keeps you going

I guess what I am saying is that my lack of motivation is from an array of different things. I want to get back to the time when I didn’t have to hesitate to hug a friend or get rejected when I try to shake someone’s hand when I first meet them.

The level of motivation that you have will always fluctuate over time for many different reasons, but only you can truly understand what you need to do to boost your own motivation. I have expressed to you the reasoning behind why I have had a lack of motivation lately, but what I want to express to you all is you must continue trying to find things that motivate you or continue to motivate you.

Acknowledging is the first step

It took me some time to acknowledge that I have not been very motivated lately, but I knew that I could not sit in this space of feeling uncomfortable with myself. I started thinking about ways to start motivating myself once again, back to the way I was before or even more motivated this time around.

During the downtime when I would just lay on my bed, I started looking at new places that I could travel to starting from 3 months up to 3 years from now. I started saving screenshots of places on my phone as well as different hotels or attractions I wanted to visit.

Instead of sulking in my lack of motivation, I started to create a folder of images and content that I could look at and look forward to in the future.

Reigniting passion in other areas of my life

By doing this for my personal life, I started to think about how this could also work for my professional life as well.

I started thinking about events, and instead of planning them a few months in advance, I should look into a year of planning and really see how more beneficial it would be to the community. I still will plan the smaller events throughout the year, but 1 or 2 major events can really bring in the community - not only for HIV testing but to build community as well.

One thing that I want you all to take from me venting about my lack of motivation recently is that 1 simple thought could really reignite the passion that you use to hold and create a new way of thinking.