How to Overcome Setbacks and Regain Motivation?

This week I faced my first setback in motivating my blog's goals. It was an emotionally challenging week. I didn't feel motivated to do anything more than hide inside my shell.

I have a list of blog tasks that I have to complete this week, all of which are finally launching a formal business, so this is a big step for me, an exciting step that took weeks to prepare, so what happens when I suddenly lose momentum and activity and I only want to turn off the computer and give up? How to overcome this setback and regain the motivation to keep moving forward?

One of the most obvious ways is imposing deadlines on myself, which is at the top of my to-do list to finalize my weekly essay. While I think of ways to get back on track, I'd finish this essay first. I am writing this Sunday evening a few hours before the scheduled publication time.

Let me tell you: It took a lot more than just imposing a deadline on myself to unlock my laptop and start typing again. I had to go through the list of tricks I use to get my motivation back when I'm not feeling it.

5 tips to overcome setbacks and regain motivation:

1. Take a break:

The first thing I did when I realized I wasn't emotionally ready to focus on this blog was to accept that I wasn't in a good mood and simply let myself get away from the computer.

It was challenging for me to do this as I mentioned earlier. I had already written my priority weekly to-do list for what to complete by Sunday evening. I am still working through the week and don't always have much time to devote to this article. My to-do list is the key to efficiently focusing on my goals and keeping my progress, and to break this timeline, I had to accept delays, further loss of momentum and a lack of compliance with deadlines.

As a full-time mom, competence is the key. I must realize that sometimes staring at my computer screen with a complete inability to focus on anything but the level of stress and emotional disturbances is useless; it doesn't help to complete my blog, goals, or emotional well-being. In this case, forcing myself to try to progress only keeps delaying everything else in my life.

I gave myself a minute to honestly assess how I felt and what I needed as soon as I realized I had been distracted for too long. I needed some calm to process everything that was confusing me. I needed to reconnect with the people who were supporting me and to get the moral support I had missed, and I needed time.

I gave myself only three days to worry about nothing but taking care of myself and my family, and I allowed myself, besides, not to stick to the to-do list and admit that whatever was planned would be postponed for a few days. At some point in the future, I may not have a choice to do this, but now it was convenient. I even took the time to reevaluate how I felt at the end of my three days to decide if I needed more time or not. By thinking about this earlier, I knew it would be easier for me to accept more delay without adding more stress.

2. Reconsider why:

While this advice doesn't directly apply to the setback I was talking about, it's often an essential step to regaining motivation. So, whatever your goal, it's important to understand your primary motivation to be successful.

Your primary motivation comes from your reason. Why is this goal important? Just  saying you want to lose weight isn't enough to maintain motivation. it's not enough to overcome setbacks - like making a mistake and eating too much ice cream after a bad day at work - or to maintain motivation to keep monitoring your calorie intake and exercising when you want to give up just because you're not making progress. Knowing the reason is what will motivate you to continue.

Why do you want to lose weight? Maybe because you want to be able to run alongside your little girl when she learns how to ride her bike without training wheels, be able to run with her on the field, and be healthy and fit while raising her. The reason gives you an incentive to keep going through tough times, even when you don't want to.

So, if you're experiencing a setback or poor motivation, take the time to reconsider why, remember why you have this goal and how important it is to succeed in achieving it, imagine how you would feel if you stopped now and gave up, and then imagine how you would feel when you commit to it and achieve success, how your life would be different and better when you succeed?

After all the effort I put into this blog and all the reasons I had to start it in the first place, giving up would be devastating for me; My purpose is so great that even after taking a few days off, I know I'll be able to come back again, with better focus and progress than I did before the required break.

3. Assess the underlying cause of relapse or decreased motivation:

When I stared at my blank screen and realized that I was never in a good state of mind to get the job done, I began to think about why I was having such a hard time. Once I stepped away from my computer and realized I needed a break, I paused to think about the cause of my distress.

The cause of my deal was clear, but how I dealt with it was not clear until I better understood my feelings and began to process them. I knew I would need to be more useful in most other areas.

So, if you have a relapse, take some time to evaluate its cause, and accept that it's okay to have relapses, even if it's caused by a mistake you've made. Mistakes are opportunities to learn and be grateful for that. As long as you take the time to understand how the relapse happened, you can figure out how to prevent it from happening again. Once you know what not to do, you're one step closer to figuring out what to do that will work next time.

If you're experiencing a decrease in motivation, take a moment to assess the underlying cause of this shift in motivation. Are there other stressors in your life that are consuming your emotional stamina? Have you lost sight of your overall purpose and why it matters to you? Or is it as simple as an unstructured, chaotic workspace that distracts you? The underlying cause may be very simple or big enough that you have to reconsider and adjust your overall goal. Unless you assess why your motivation is decreasing and make the appropriate corrections, you are unlikely to recover and get back on track.

4. Take care of yourself:

I think this is one of the most significant tips. You can not get anywhere without small energy and activity. If you do not take care of yourself, it is challenging to take care of anyone or anything else.

If you continue to experience setbacks, take some time to assess your condition. Do you feel healthy and happy? If  the answer is no, take some time out of your day to take care of yourself, and you'll be amazed at how productive you are when you feel emotionally and physically better.

Start with simple things and then make it a new routine, wake up a little early and go for a walk, replace a bad food habit with a good one, take a break from all that, and give yourself some time to spend alone. These small steps will get you big as you abide by them.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, weak, or unproductive, try to rest for a few days to focus on your health and happiness. Take three to five days off for healthy eating, exercise, and enough sleep. I find it hard to get started -I understand how easy it is to eat anything and everything that is unhealthy when under stress - but every time I spend these few days to regain my health, I discover that it's much easier to refocus and restore activity. I'm just happier and more productive.

5. Break your goal down into small, actionable steps:

If your goal is too big and tiring, it's hard to know where to start or how to make any progress, and once you feel like you're not making progress, it's easy to give up.

Instead of giving up, break this goal into many small, actionable steps you can focus on. Identify the most priority step of these steps and focus on them one by one. Once you've written them all down and arranged them, each one gets you closer to your ultimate goal. There's no need to look forward to the next step until you finish the one you're about to take. It will go a long way toward reducing burnout.

All you have to do is focus on one small step at a time. You will soon be amazed at how far you have come.

Conclusion:

We all face setbacks in life and a decline in our overall motivation to attain progress on goals and ambitions. still, those setbacks have not defeated us, so use these five tips to overcome those setbacks and regain motivation to achieve progress on your goals successfully.