Why don't people have more motivation?

Concretize:  What do people really mean when they complain about a lack of motivation?  When you complain about somebody else not being motivated, you really mean that the person is not putting enough effort into the things you want done. 

Parents, for example, complain about their teenagers not being motivated.  Ask for concrete evidence and you will hear a list of things the teen is wasting time on.  As you listen, you will realize that this is not a motivation problem.  The teen has abundant motivation to do those things that that the parent is complaining about.  The problem, from the parent’s standpoint, is that the teen is not pursuing the parentally approved goals.

Irregularly conjugated verb:  I am pursuing a hobby. 
You are wasting time.  He is lazy.

So the kid doesn’t lack motivation.  What difference does that make?

None, if all you want to do is complain.  But if you want to fix things, you need to understand the cause. Let’s shift the scene a bit.  We are not going to try to tell parents how to control their teens.  We just used that illustration to help us deal with the paradoxical complaint of people who say that they themselves lack motivation.

Of course, that complaint is only paradoxical to people who don’t understand brain modules and mental conflict.  So we’ll give some links to those matters and provide a quick summary here.

People don’t lack motivation.  They have goals and are pursuing them.  If you want to know what the goals are, don’t ask.  Watch.   What a person does shows the person’s self-direction.  If you don't believe you can have a goal without your language channel being able to talk about it, read the example in the Case of the Missing Goal .

The person’s language channel may claim to have a goal that is different from the goal the person has.  Trouble is, the language channel doesn’t do anything.  It just talks.  A language channel complains about a lack of motivation when it has not been able to get the rest of the head behind the goal. 

So what do you do about a lack of motivation?

We don’t know any quick tricks on this issue.  The main steps are:

Examine your long-term goals.  For help, use the Goals link on the right.

Set priorities and choose one goal to start after now.  Use the Goal-of-the-Month Club if you have trouble choosing a goal.

Start means start planning.  Plan the steps you will have to take and the schedule you need to follow.  You may want to use the Plan Clipit.  Your planning may show you that the goal is more effort that it is works.  So change goals.  That's one of the advantages you get from planning. 

Use your plan to connect your long-term goals to short-term goals.  You need short term goals to stay focused.   You need long term goals to get where you want to go.   Motivation means getting those goals to work together.

I want to know what it takes to get people motivated. 

Un: Start in reverse.  What does it take to keep people from being motivated?

Hunter:  If you don’t have goals, you won’t be motivated.

Networker:  If you don't have a goal, you don't need motivation.

Un:  One of the benefits of not having goals.

Explorer:  People say they have a goal, but not the motivation.

Tooth Fairy: They call on the Tooth Fairies.

Hunter:  Hunters do not talk about motivation.  They hunt.

Vulcan:  Hunters do not talk about motivation.  The Hunter is motivation.

Un:  Hunters do not hunt without a goal.

Hunter:  Without a goal. there is nothing to hunt.