3 Ways I Deal With Loss of Motivation

I find myself constantly losing my motivation for writing due to many reasons. These would include burn out from my job, my mental health, illness and writer's block, to name a few. Writing a book is a very hard task to stick to, especially when you are into the editing process.

I find myself in the editing hole that involves throwing myself into the fiery pit of hell that my first draft is. I am reading these horrible words that sounds like a child could have written better and I am losing all of my motivation to turn this pile of $h*t into something that people might actually want to read.

It's a slow process that drains me so quickly that I can’t even stand to start knowing that once I do I won’t even make a valuable bit of progress before I give up.

Yesterday I planned on writing for a total of two hours and split this time into two different projects. An hour for a personal project and an hour for editing my book but I only managed to do the hour for my personal project. I told myself that it was still a win because I was writing for an hour but it wasn’t productive for my book. I also told myself that tomorrow is another day.

But tomorrow came and I still find myself unable to edit my book for even ten minutes.

So I’m here instead.

I want to share a couple of my ways that I get myself out of an black hole of procrastination and hope that maybe I will take my own advice.

The three things that I typically do are as follows.

1 - Find an alternative project

This could be anything, honestly, so for an example I am currently avoiding editing my manuscript (if you haven’t guessed that already) but I want to feel like I am still doing something productive with my day. So yesterday I worked on my personal project, I cleaned my house, I went for a walk and I watched a movie that has been on my TBW list for years.

These things made me feel like I was checking things off a to-do list that I had but wasn’t very effective in me wanting to be a writer in the future. But hey…at least my house is clean.

2- Write an article for my Vocal page

This one is a lot more beneficial for my writing journey as it makes me feel like I am making a huge impact on my craft. I get the chance to develop my writing further and get back some constructive criticism from my friends who read my articles. This usually always brings me a huge rush of motivation that I always jump into doing my original task so I don’t doubt that after I write this I will be immediately going to edit some of my manuscript.

I always believe that the more time I spend writing the better my writing will be and the more motivation I have to do it.

3 - Watch AuthorTube videos on YouTube

Watching Authors on YouTube was the thing that made me realise that I want to be an author so whenever I am in a rut I go back to my favourite channels and I watch their videos while working on whatever I am doing.

I understand that this isn't for everyone but I feel like if you're a musician you listen to music for inspiration, if you’re an artist you look at art for inspiration so if you want to be a writer you can read books or watch people talking about the book publishing world.

To summarise I feel like I need to surround myself with motivational content to allow myself to feel like I can work. I need to have something going on in the background so I have a video on in the background so if I zone out from my work then I can listen to someone talking about having a book published and my motivation bars build right up. I also have multiple projects going on at once so if I get tired of one then I can jump to the next.

What are some of the ways you get your motivation back?