Motivation is like a drug.

When we’re motivated, it feels like we could conquer the world all by ourselves. But that feeling doesn’t last long. Then, when our “motivation meter” drops to low, we lose all interest in doing the work.

And so, while procrastinating, we might suddenly bump into motivation again. This time we say, “Yes! I’ll finish all my work today!” But then? Well… back into the same loop we go.

The picture looks like this:

High motivation = work gets done

Low motivation = no work

Most of us suffer from this problem. If we’re motivated, we work; if not, we don’t.

For example, you hear from someone that learning Excel is necessary for getting a promotion. The moment you hear it, you get motivated — “Yes! A promotion! I’ll start learning Excel right away!”

But within a few days, you no longer feel like learning Excel. Your motivation has vanished.

From this, it’s clear that our motivation is often unstable. The reason is, to keep motivation high, many factors have to align: your body has to be healthy, your family needs to be well, you need positive interactions with colleagues, appreciation from seniors, good results from your children, and so on.

If even one of these factors is off, your motivation can drop to zero.

Notice that most of these factors are beyond your control — yet they influence you all the time. As a result, you keep spinning inside the “motivation loop.”

Motivation itself is good. But being dependent on motivation to get work done is a serious problem.

We’ve seen that motivation always fails at some point. That’s why we need to remove our dependency on it.

We must train ourselves so that our work requires very little motivation to complete. Whether motivation is there or not, the work must get done.

Once we build such a system, our motivation-dependency problem will disappear, In shā Allāh.

Of course, building this system requires effort — it won’t happen by itself.

Personally, to solve my own problem, I’ve been changing my habits and developing effective ones, alḥamdulillāh. Habit building isn’t easy. The brain needs to take on a lot of cognitive load to form new habits and eliminate old ones.

That’s why I’ve included myself in a complete system. Using the Productive Muslim framework and the PARA method, I’ve created a Notion LifeOS or productivity system for myself. Alḥamdulillāh, it’s been beneficial.

For those of you who are tired of the pain of motivation dependency like I was, I’m sharing this template with you.