Perhaps you know the situation when a few things are not going at all the way you would like them to. In moments like this, most people find it even more difficult to get up. Maybe something has just happened that is dragging you down and you are not getting anywhere right now. You want to overcome your lack of drive, but somehow you can’t get yourself moving. This is exhausting and frustrating and can lead to dangerous cycles.

So that this doesn’t happen and you get out of your listlessness quickly, I have a few tips for you in this article. After all, you want to get your feet back on the ground quickly and continue to pursue your goals.

First of all, in this article I want to differentiate a little listlessness from laziness. If you want to overcome your weaker self and achieve your goals, then it doesn’t hurt if you know exactly what you are dealing with here. Then I will tell a little about my personal experiences with listlessness. Then there are the tips that should help you to literally pull your own hair out of the swamp.

I also tried to keep it a little shorter in case your drive shouldn’t be that big to read.

It is very important to me to say that the tips in this article are intended for overcoming the occasional listlessness. They should help you to pursue your (sporting) goals and get your bum up, even if other things are dragging you down. However, none of the tips will help you deal in depth with problems that may be underlying your listlessness.

Distinguish listlessness from laziness

Maybe you already have my article on the subjectRead Overcoming Laziness . At first glance, one might think that listlessness would be the same. But there is one crucial difference. I think it’s important to know this one.

Laziness is more a matter of willingness to be active and change. You can be lazy, move little and still feel good about it. If you want to change something in your life and achieve your goals , then you should still do something about your less active behavior.

Loss of drive usually has more effects than just your sport or working on your goals. Rather, it expresses itself in general bad mood, dejection and lack of energy to do anything. Those who are really lacking drive will find it harder to get up to everyday things. If this occurs occasionally for a short time, the following tips can help.

Everyone has a bad day or a bad week … but if such a condition lasts for a long time you should seriously consider visiting a specialist to get to the bottom of the matter.

My experience with listlessness

I used to let things drag myself down again and again and therefore let my training and diet drag on for weeks. These were often things in my private or professional life that frustrated me, that actually had nothing to do with my training or my other (big) goals.

Whether it was trouble with the boss, with friends, in the family environment or simply self-doubt. I have often allowed this to have a profound effect on other areas of my life. That also cost me quite a bit of success and quality of life.

Since I started to deal with personality development and NLP, I have become more and more aware that this is absolutely nothing for me. I also realized how I can effectively counteract such emerging behavior.

Today I have some tools at hand that I use in such situations. This helps me not to completely lose sight of my fitness and other goals despite problems in other areas. In the meantime, mostly automatically, because I’ve made it a habit .

I was just struggling with a little listlessness myself. For this reason I decided to publish this article today. When I worked through my imaginary list, I thought that a few of the points on it could also be helpful as tips for my readers.

I hope the following tips will help you the next time you want to overcome your listlessness.

7 tips with which you can overcome your listlessness

Of course, there are some things you can do to overcome listlessness. An important component is certainly also to deal with the reason for this and to resolve it in the short and, above all, in the long term. But as I said, there are other specialists for this.

In the following, I will focus on a few simple steps you can take that will help you get your butt up with your (fitness) goals. Above all, the following tips should help you to get in tune (again) with your goals and to get moving.

1) Get busy with your goal

Such moments are a good time to deal with your goal or goals. Right now you lack the drive to do something about it. Now the question is whether that is also your goal. Is your goal (still) attracted to you? Is that what you really want?

On the one hand, this can lead to you becoming really aware of your goal again. Often you just ignore it in such situations. But maybe this is also a good opportunity to set your goal and maybe take a look at the goal formulation again.

2) Deal with your why

The next step is the why behind your goal. A lot of people set goals and do things without really being aware of why they really want to. However, this strong emotional attachment to your goal is what creates great attraction. This is what helps you to persevere even in difficult times and to keep pursuing your goal.

I am convinced that you should definitely know your why if you want to achieve your goals. Here, too, you have to make yourself aware of this again and again so that you don’t lose sight of it.

3) Think about what your listlessness has to do with your goal

Without going into too much depth, consider briefly what the reason for your lack of drive is. Why don’t you manage to overcome it? But please don’t worry now. I just want you to ask yourself now whether this has anything to do with your sporting or other goal that you want to do something for.

Most likely it won’t. Then you shouldn’t let it affect you there either.

4) Make yourself aware that exercise is good for you

In case you are not aware of this: Exercise is healthy and is good for you. Sport has a positive effect not only on your body but also on your psyche. Moving around helps you feel better. That can’t hurt you at the moment.

In addition, there is the positive feeling of having achieved something when you have been able to overcome your listlessness. So now imagine how you suddenly feel 50% better after a small training session. At least for a few hours, that’s not that unrealistic. Does that sound good to you?

5) Imagine how you achieved your goal

What always helps me a lot to find the drive to work on my goals is to imagine how I achieved them. It is important that you do this as vividly as possible. Imagine how you achieved your goal. How is the situation for you? How does it feel for you What do you hear? How does it smell?

In this way your goal manifests itself even more strongly in your subconscious. If this imagined situation attracts you really strongly, then your subconscious will support you so that you can experience it in your real life. With a bit of luck, this also includes helping you to overcome your listlessness.

6) Get support

You may not be aware of this now, but you don’t have to go through the swamp all by yourself. If you don’t have one yet, find a colleague. In general, there are many good reasons for a training partner . If you already have one, it’s time to call them for support.

Just tell your training partner that you are not doing so well and that it is difficult for you to get up. He or she will probably be happy to help you on your way and put some pressure on. In return, you do the same if your training partner doesn’t work that way.

7) Do something for 5 minutes

So in the end some more action. Do you know the 5 minute rule? To do something for 5 minutes, you can actually always overcome yourself with a little willpower. So if you have the feeling that you can’t get yourself up at all, pull yourself together for at least 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes you can think about whether you might go through with it. Often times it will be easier for you. But even if you don’t continue after the 5 minutes, you have at least achieved a small victory. Try it out!