When Motivation Isn’t the Problem

A place to rest and recharge on the retreat in May

There’s a quiet shame around “lack of motivation.”

Women rarely say it loudly. It comes out gently, almost apologetically. I hear this a lot in the community around me, both out here in the real world and in the virtual communities I am a part of.

“I just can’t seem to stick to it.”
“I know what I should be doing.”
“I just don’t have the motivation.”

But what if this isn’t about laziness? What if it isn’t about discipline?

What if it’s actually to do with your physiology? What if it’s nervous system fatigue? What if it’s actually the cost of trying to hard for too long.

Motivation isn’t just a mindset issue. It’s also biological, relational and also super contextual. It’s about whether your internal system feels safe enough to invest energy. Or whether it feels it needs to save the energy it has to protect you.

When we look at it properly, there are three layers that start to appear.

Energy Before Effort

From a purely functional perspective, motivation is closely tied to the brain’s reward circuitry and dopamine pathways, something neuroscientists like the brilliant Andrew Huberman often discuss. Dopamine isn’t really the “pleasure chemical.” It’s the anticipation chemical. It rises when effort feels like it will lead somewhere meaningful. It thrives on visible progress and achievable goals.

When the goal feels endless, invisible, or too big, the dopamine level drops. The system starts to disengage.

If you are trying to be productive in every area of your life all at once or all at the same time, health, parenting, work, fitness, relationships then your reward circuitry becomes diluted. There are too many open loops. Too much effort without any closure. The brain doesn’t interpret that as strength. It reads it as overload.

And so it starts to conserve.

One of the simplest ways to rebuild motivation is not to increase effort but to do the opposite, shrink it. Instead of committing to 30 minutes of exercise, you commit to three. And you stop at three. You let your system experience completion. Success. Closure.

Three minutes of rib breathing, when you first wake up - done.
Three minutes of gentle rocking of your pelvis in standing when you do your teeth - done
Three breaths and one Hypopressive apnoea as you make your coffee - done
A slow walk to the end of the street (maybe with the recycling, I do love combination tasks! 😂) - done

Motivation grows from finishing the task, not from forcing yourself to do more.

Identity and Internal Pressure

Modern motivational psychology, particularly Self-Determination Theory developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, shows that sustainable motivation depends on three core needs: autonomy, competence, and connection. This means that: We need to feel that we are choosing something that we also need to feel capable of doing it and we need to feel we are not alone.

When self-care becomes another “should,” autonomy disappears. When expectations are unrealistic for our lives, competence collapses. When symptoms feel isolating, relatedness fades.

The internal voice that just loves the negatives, shifts from “I care about this” to “I’m failing.”

And here’s the paradox: the harder you try from that place, the less motivated you feel. Effort layered on top of perceived failure increases threat. And threat then reduces the drive to do the thing.

Instead of asking, “How do I make myself do this?” try asking, “What would a woman who respects her body choose for five minutes today?”

That question changes the tone completely. It moves you from force to identity and inner authority.

A woman who respects her body might lie down. She might breathe. She might cancel something. She might eat slowly. She might do less.

Motivation returns when behaviour aligns with who you believe you are in the moment you are in, not who you think you should be.

I am so guilty of this, being tired, it being 10pm, I have just finished being pelvic floor specialist, mum, taxi, admin assistant, chef, housekeeper and wife. Everyone has gone to bed (teenagers probably pretending to be asleep) and then I have Abby time… before looking deeper at this stuff, I would have made my body go to the gym and we would have trained for an hour. But more and more I am starting to instead close my eyes, breathe and ask my body what it needs and many times it hasn’t said back at me “lift some heavy weights, you lazy woman!” more often it has asked for rest, no netflix binge, no social media creation, no late night red wine, no deep dive into a book about…no it has simply asked to rest. Sometimes that looks like sleep (and I go to bed), but many times it looks like constructive rest and I have included my favourite one below.

Safety Drives Energy

From a nervous system perspective, particularly through the lens of Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal theory, motivation is inseparable from safety. The body constantly scans the internal and external landscape for threat or support.

In fight-or-flight, productivity can spike. You can run on adrenaline for quite some time. But it is expensive. Eventually, the system shifts toward shutdown. Energy drops. Initiation feels heavy, like me at 10pm. Everything becomes really effortful.

Women who have been strong for years often describe this as suddenly feeling flat, unmotivated, or heavy. It is not weakness. It is conservation.

The body does not invest energy in growth when it does not feel safe. So, before you try to motivate yourself, try regulating yourself first (you may find motivation will become something easier).

Place one hand on your sternum and one on your lower ribs. Inhale gently through your nose. Exhale slowly and hum, just enough to feel vibration in your chest. Let the exhale be slightly longer than the inhale. Continue for sixty seconds.

You are not trying to relax, although it could be a cool byproduct. You are signalling safety.

Motivation comes back more reliably from regulation of the nervous system than from discipline.

When “Unmotivated” Is Actually Overexerted

Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. There is a very high chance that you are not unmotivated. You are instead practically depleted.

Trying harder raises cortisol, increases sympathetic tone, reduces perceived reward, and amplifies self-criticism. Eventually the system protects itself by disengaging. What looks like and feels like laziness may be nervous system intelligence.

The antidote is not more effort. It is strategic rest.

Take time to really visualise when you do this exercise.

Constructive Rest has many forms and the one below is one that really resonates with me.

Constructive Rest: Letting the Sand Pour Out

This is not collapse. It is deliberate release. Take your time over each step, think a slow trickle not fast.

Lie on your back with your lower legs in a semi supine position (knees bent, facing the ceiling and feet flat on the floor) feel like the knees are gently suspended as if resting across a washing line. Arms by your sides. Nothing to hold. You can visualise a magic carper under you coming up to meet and support your body.

Now imagine your body is a soft pyjama suit, socks and gloves on filled with sand.

You are still in your shape. But the sand can move.

Visulaise a tiny opening in your socks. Sand begins to pour out slowly. Your feet soften. Heels grow heavier. The lower legs yield.

A small seam opens at the knees. The sand drains there too. The kneecaps soften. Thigh bones settle deeper into the hips.

Now a gentle tear at the pelvis. Sand pours slowly from the bowl of the pelvis. The sacrum at the back of your pelvis widens. The belly softens. The pelvic floor yields toward gravity rather than bracing against it.

A small opening at each shoulder. Sand releases there as it does the collarbones broaden and sink down the arms lengthen.

Finally, a quiet opening at the back of the neck. The jaw softens. The tongue rests. The eyes settle gently back.

You are not holding yourself up. The ground is doing that.

Stay for three to five minutes. No improvement. No fixing. Just feel the weight of your body supported by the surface under you.

When you stand up, notice how motivation feels. Quieter. Less frantic. More self-led.

If you would rather listen to this - click here

You Know That Fantasy…

You know that fantasy where you disappear for a weekend? Not to escape your life, just to remember who you are beneath it.

For forty-eight hours you are not the organiser. Not the problem-solver. Not the engine.

That is what this retreat is about.

Not productivity. Not optimisation. Not becoming a better version of yourself. It is about returning to the version of you who does not have to force everything.

If you have been feeling flat, overextended, quietly exhausted, if “unmotivated” has been the word you’ve used, this may not be a discipline issue at all. It may be a nervous system that has been strong for too long.

In May, we pause. We let the sand pour out. And we allow motivation to return the way it was meant to, steady, grounded, and self-led.

If your body softened even slightly while reading this, that’s information.

Come and rest.

Reconnect Retreat only 2 spots left - click here