A lack of motivation is a mundane and troublesome issue that affects almost everyone.

Sometimes you feel like life is pointless or get depressed and you just feel like you’re not going anywhere.

This general sense of disparity happens to people from time to time and it is very common in a world that moves very fast.

Human nature is a complex amalgamation of distinct characteristics and we, as humans, tend to fall into despair and hopelessness when we feel like we aren’t making any progress.

If you want to motivate or inspire someone, make them feel like they’re making progress.

Look at the MMORPGs, for example. These games can become addicting because you’re progressing, you’re gaining a level, and your character is getting geared up and better at what it does.

Every day that you’re playing you are always making some sort of progress even if it’s a little bit. You are making your way to the next level.

That’s one of the reasons they are successful (World of Warcraft mostly).

So how can you stay motivated?

Simple Steps to Continuous Self-Motivation

No matter what’s happening in your life, always have one thing you’re moving forward with, so you feel good about it and yourself.

It can be great if you can have multiple such things but it’s wiser to have one core thing you’re progressing on.

You can change it later, of course, but it’s important to not divide your attention between several other endeavors.

Here is an example:

If you want to learn JavaScript, make this thing your number one priority. Every day you must read a few pages of your favorite JavaScript book or work on both personal or open-source projects that rely on JavaScript.

Things don’t always go as planned but no matter what happens, you have to make steady progress everyday.

Some days you’ll wake up not being able to write code or being stuck in a chapter in a book. But don’t worry. These things happen to everyone and there are other ways to compensate for the lack of practice.

Reading a JavaScript-related article can sometimes be a thing to look forward to in order to be up to date with your learning process and maintain motivation.

If your eyes get tired you can always switch to other methods of learning. Listening to JavaScript-related podcasts is one of them.

In short, there is always something you can do to make progress in what you want to do.

Think about it.

Every page you read, every podcast you’re listening to, every line of code written is a step forward, every mortgage payment you pay, that’s something you should look forward to. It’s progress.

The more of these things you can find in your life the less despair you’re going to feel.

You’re going to be more hopeful because you’re making progress, you are getting somewhere.

You can do it!


I've recently joined Coding Coach as a mentor. You can reach out and ask me anything about programming or if you just want to talk about the latest technologies.