When Motivation Disappears: What Is Missing From Your Day? — an article by Carl Argent

You used to care about this

You still know how to do the work. You understand why it matters. Yet starting has become harder, and the satisfaction you used to feel is difficult to find.

Perhaps you have responded by making a stricter plan. You get up earlier, organise your tasks and promise yourself that this week will be different. For a while, the pressure gets you moving. Then the same heaviness returns.

It is easy to make this a judgement about your character. Before doing that, it may help to look at the experience you are asking yourself to return to each day.

How much say do you have? Can you see yourself making progress? Do you feel connected to the people around you?

Having some say in your own life

Imagine being given responsibility for a project while every small decision is taken out of your hands. You are expected to care about the outcome, but your judgement has little room to operate.

Even work you once enjoyed might begin to feel draining.

Having a say does not mean getting everything your own way or being free of responsibility. It means having some ownership of what you do: understanding your reasons, being able to express a view and making choices that you can stand behind.

The same issue can appear outside work. You may be following a goal because it looks sensible, keeps somebody happy or fits an earlier version of your life. It is worth asking whether you still have a reason of your own to pursue it.

Where circumstances limit your options, the useful question may be smaller: which part of this can I influence?

Being able to feel yourself improving

You can be capable and still rarely experience yourself as effective. Perhaps expectations keep changing. Perhaps you only hear about mistakes. Perhaps the work never reaches a recognisable finishing point.

It becomes difficult to feel progress when success is always being moved further away.

Consider the difference between “get better at presenting” and practising the opening two minutes of a presentation with someone who can offer useful feedback. The second gives you something concrete to attempt, observe and develop.

Feeling capable can grow through manageable challenges, clear expectations and opportunities to learn. You do not have to prove that you are exceptional before a small improvement counts.

It can also help to ask whether you have the time, information and support the task requires. A lack of resources can make a capable person feel ineffective.

Feeling that you belong somewhere

The missing part may be connection.

You can spend a day answering messages and attending meetings while feeling that nobody really knows you. People may depend on your output without showing much interest in your experience.

A friendly conversation, a shared effort or someone taking your question seriously can change the feel of a working day. There is space to contribute, to receive support and to matter beyond what you produce.

Connection also matters when you are pursuing a personal goal. Learning, changing a routine or starting something unfamiliar can feel different when somebody is interested in the process rather than simply checking the result.

You do not need to be sociable all the time. What matters here is the quality of contact: whether there is room for mutual care, respect and involvement.

Why these questions belong together

A job might give you freedom but leave you isolated. A welcoming group might still make it difficult to disagree. You might be developing useful skills towards a goal you never chose.

Each situation asks for a different response.

Research across 27 European countries found that people’s experiences of choice, capability and connection were associated with their wellbeing and sense of meaning. The findings describe relationships between these experiences; they do not mean that three questions explain every period of low motivation.

They can nevertheless help us move from a broad complaint such as “I cannot get motivated” towards something specific enough to explore. You may need a clearer agreement, useful feedback, a different goal or more support from another person.

Enjoying the task and caring about its purpose

Some activities draw you in because doing them is rewarding: solving a puzzle, making something or learning about a subject that interests you. Other tasks matter because of what they make possible. Completing an application may feel tedious while serving a change you want.

Both can give you a reason to act. You do not have to love the paperwork to choose the opportunity. Equally, a good reason does not automatically supply the energy, attention or practical support needed to begin.

Positive Psychology helps us look for conditions in which you can participate more fully: opportunities to use strengths, notice progress and feel supported. Someone who enjoys understanding people might prepare a presentation around the question their audience needs answered. Someone who enjoys solving problems might make the first step a small question to investigate.

These are experiments in making the work more engaging. They are not instructions to think positively until an unsuitable workload feels acceptable.

When ADHD makes motivation uneven

If you have ADHD, you may recognise a particularly frustrating contrast. You can spend hours absorbed in something that interests you, yet struggle to start a necessary task or stay with it after the interesting part is over. Knowing that it matters may not be enough to make attention available when you need it.

Interest can help you engage, and periods of intense absorption can sometimes support learning or a piece of work you value. People often call this hyperfocus. It is not something everyone with ADHD experiences in the same way, and it is not a reliable switch you can turn on for the right task.

You might get deeply involved in designing a project but struggle with sending the final email. You might find that a new challenge holds you while a familiar task loses you. Difficulty returning later does not make your earlier interest insincere.

It helps to distinguish what interests you from what supports action. A task you care about may still need a smaller starting point, a visible reminder, clearer feedback or someone to work alongside. Necessary but uninteresting tasks need practical support too; your values cannot make every task stimulating.

In my ADHD coaching, we can examine one recent example in detail: what drew you in, where momentum fell away and what made returning difficult. We can try a short work period with a clear stopping point, reduce the number of decisions required to start, and plan how to pick it up again. The aim is less reliance on last-minute pressure.

If you recognise the experience of becoming absorbed but struggling to stop, my article on ADHD hyperfocus and flow explores that distinction.

Choose one thing you can test

Think about one area where you have begun to withdraw or put things off. Which feels most absent: a say in what happens, a sense of progress or meaningful contact?

If it is choice, you might ask to influence how a task is approached. If it is progress, you might agree a smaller milestone and a way to review it. If it is connection, you might arrange time to work alongside someone or ask for a conversation that goes beyond updates.

Some environments leave very little room for these changes. That deserves recognition. Coaching can include weighing alternatives and practical constraints; it should not make you responsible for fixing an organisation or relationship by yourself.

After trying a change, notice whether it helps you feel more involved. If it does not, that is useful information too.

How I can help

I can help you understand what is happening around a goal you keep struggling to pursue. My person-centred approach starts with your experience: whether this is something you want, what makes it difficult and what support would make a difference. There is room to reconsider the goal itself.

Drawing on my training in Positive Psychology, I pay attention to your strengths and the conditions that help you feel capable and connected. We might identify a skill you already use elsewhere, make the first step small enough to practise, or plan how to ask for useful support. My background as a counsellor helps me stay attentive to self-doubt and the pressure to prove yourself.

Together, we can identify whether the difficulty is in choosing, starting, continuing or returning. You could leave with a concrete first step, a way to notice progress and an agreed source of support. I will help you review both what you achieved and how workable it felt. If ADHD is part of your experience, we can build this around your patterns of interest and attention rather than expect steady motivation all day.

What is the thing you keep meaning to do, and what happens when you try? That is a useful place for us to begin. In coaching, we can look beyond another burst of enthusiasm and find a way of approaching it that fits your reasons, strengths and available energy. You can book a free introductory conversation, with no obligation to book sessions, or read more about coaching with me.

Sources and further reading

Martela, F., Lehmus-Sun, A., Parker, P. D., Pessi, A. B., & Ryan, R. M. (2023). Needs and Well-Being Across Europe. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 14(5), 501–514. First published online in 2022.

Deci, E. L., and colleagues (2001). Research on supportive working conditions and wellbeing across cultures.

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. ADHD and motivation: practical ways to support action.

Hupfeld, K. E., Abagis, T. R., & Shah, P. (2019). Living “in the zone”: hyperfocus in adult ADHD.

More coaching reading

Becoming Yourself: When Your Life No Longer Feels Like Yours

Feeling Good and Living Well: Making Room for Pleasure and Purpose