Energy and motivation are important parts of life. We need energy to go far, and we need motivation to work on our goals and dreams. The problem most people are facing today is that they don’t have enough energy and they lack the motivation to take action to reach their goals. Are you one of them?

There will be times when you feel extremely motivated, and you want to take massive action. There will also be times when you feel lousy, extremely tired and you just want to do nothing.

This is very normal because as humans, we tend to be affected by our feelings, energy, and emotions.

The key is not to turn ourselves into robots that don’t have any emotion or feeling; the key is to learn how to manage our energy and maintain our motivation in our daily life.

I believe that everyone, including the most successful people in the world, have times when they will feel down, no motivation, and tired.

But, extraordinary people know what to do when they lack energy and motivation. They have a different way to handle their downtime. They act in spite of feeling no energy or motivation.

In other words, extraordinary people take charge of their emotions and feelings. They know how to manage their emotions, motivation, and feelings.

On the contrary, ordinary people choose to let their emotions and feelings control them. They follow their emotions and whenever they feel no motivation, they procrastinate and do what is comfortable. When they don’t have the energy, they quit.

Ordinary people do things according to their feelings. Extraordinary people do things according to their principles.

Successful people choose to do it even when they don’t feel like it.

So here are some tips and techniques you can use to get more energy and motivation throughout your daily life.

How to Have More Energy:

1. Do something that will make you smile and laugh

The best way to feel more energetic is to be happy. Do something that will make you smile and laugh. However, don’t overdo it because if you laugh too much, you use up too much energy and it makes you feel tired.

Watch a funny clip or read a funny story that brightens up your day. You don’t have to spend an hour to do this; just a few short minutes will do.

When you are happy, you tend to feel more energetic. And when you have the energy, you can take more action.

Here are 54 ways to remain happy and healthy, check it out.

2. Drink plenty of water

Do you know that 60% of our body is made of water? Your heart and your brain consist of 73% water. Thus, what makes you think you should not drink more water?

Study suggests that we should drink at least 8 glasses of water each day. And this is equivalent to 2-liter of clean water.

I drink plenty of water upon waking up. Within the first hour of waking up, I drink at least 500ml of water, sometimes even more.

You want to hydrate your body functions and water is used to convert food and body fat into energy.

Plus, drinking water also makes you feel fresh. So drink more water.

3. Get close to nature

If you have to work in front of your computer for long hours, like me, this is going to be a very effective method to maintain your energy level.

Go out and take a walk. Research shows that by going outside for 20 minutes a day can make you more creative and refresh.

Staying indoor for long hours is not a good practice. Take time to recharge yourself by connecting with nature. Take a walk in the garden. Go outside and breathe the fresh air.

4. Drink coffee

This is one of my favorite ways to get motivation and energy. Some people say that too much of caffeine is not good for your health, which is true. However, I’m not suggesting you drink 10 cups of coffees in a day.

All I’m suggesting is to get a cup of coffee in the morning. If you feel that coffee is not your choice, go for tea.

Tea is a healthier choice than coffee. But my first choice is still coffee.

It wakes me up, make me energetic, more alert and thus, get more done.

5. Take power naps

I knew about power naps many years ago, but I did not really practice it until one day, I read Michael Hyatt’s blog, and he convinced me that taking a short nap is productive.

Whenever I feel tired and sleepy in the afternoon, I will take a short power nap for about 15 minutes. After the nap, I feel fresh and alert. Sometimes, I will wash my face after wake up.

I don’t do this every day; I only take a power nap when necessary. You can do the same. However, don’t oversleep because this will make you fall into deep sleep mode and make you feel sluggish when you wake up.

You have to recharge and replenish your energy. And a power nap is all you need. Try this and make it your routine if you want to.

6. Move your body

Do you know that your motions create your emotions? Meaning to say that when you feel lousy, tired, or sleepy, your body is in a certain posture? Usually, when you are sleepy, your shoulder will be slumped, your breathing will be shallow, and you may not sit straight.

So how do you snap and change your emotion? Simple, change your motion. Get up, do some stretching and exercise. Move your body.

Trust me, when you do this, you will experience a state change. You will feel totally different. Suddenly you will feel awake, energetic and ready to take action again.

Well, you can try this even now. Just stand up, do some stretching or jumping. You will see how the energy flows to you almost instantly.

7. Take smaller meals

In order to maintain your energy level throughout your whole day, you must take smaller meals than one big meal at a time.

Smaller meals allow your body to digest the food more easily. When you take in a big meal, your stomach has to do more work and will use up more energy.

This is why sometimes you will feel sluggish after lunch. You feel tired and sleepy after heavy lunch.

Therefore, take smaller meals and more often. Instead of eating 3 big meals a day, try to break them into 5 smaller meals.

It will be easier for your body to digest, and the additional breaks can recharge and refill your energy.

8. Play your favorite or uplifting songs

Imagine watching a movie without any music or song in the background, just the conversation between the characters, how will you feel?

You will fall asleep. Music and songs can lift you up.

Whenever I feel sleepy, I will put up my headphone and listen to my favorite song. For example, Fight Song from Rachel Platten is a good choice. As for music, I prefer Two Steps from Hell.

You can make your own songs list. Fast paced music will wake you up and make you motivated.

Don’t listen to slow, sad songs when you are down. It will only make the situation worse.

One more thing, when you’re doing creative work or tasks that require your thinking power, don’t listen to songs with lyrics. Choose music. You don’t want the song to distract you.

9. Get enough sleep

A lot of people underestimated how much sleep they need, including me. I used to think that I’m young and I can sleep less. I used to take only 4 to 5 hours of sleep.

Too bad to say that it did not work out fine for me. It is good in the first few days, but after that, I feel like a zombie. I feel so sleepy and so tired that I cannot focus on my work.

After that, I ditch the idea that I can get less sleep. Cheating sleep is not going to work, maybe just for me. I’m not sure about you. You can try.

I take about 6 to 7 hours of sleep these days. There is no point to stay awake 20 hours a day, but feeling tired and cannot get things done.

It is better to get enough sleep, have the energy and productivity to get things done. Here’s a meaningful quote from Abraham Lincoln:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax. Abraham Lincoln

10. Practice good posture

If you want to maintain your energy level, you must keep a positive posture. Sit straight, walk straight and act like you are energetic.

You may think that this is ridiculous, but it works. Like what I have mentioned above, our motion creates our emotion.

When you are in the right posture, the energy will be there.

Try to sit straight while reading this article. You will feel the difference right away. Act, walk and talk like you have all the motivation and the motivation will come to you.

How to Have More Motivation:

1. Apply the Goldilocks strategy

The Goldilocks strategy is something easy to understand. Imagine you are a tennis player. If you play with a kid, how would you feel? You will quickly feel bored because the match will be too easy for you.

On the other hand, what if you play with Roger Federer? The opponent will overpower you, and you can’t win. The match will be too difficult, and you feel overwhelmed.

In both cases, your motivation will not be high because the matches are either too easy or too difficult.

Thus, you must choose an opponent where his skills level is almost the same as yours. Find someone who plays with you where both have the chance of winning.

And that is the Goldilocks’ Rule.

It is the same when it comes to achieving your goals and living your life with motivation.

When your goal is unrealistic and too big, you will never have the motivation to take action because you know it very well that it will be impossible to accomplish at your current ability.

If your goal is too easy, you won’t feel motivated to do it too. For example, if you are earning $5,000 a month right now, making an additional $50 a month will not excite you.

Therefore, you have to apply the Goldilocks strategy where you choose to aim for goals that are “just right.”

Not too easy and not too difficult. Just nice.

The same goes for your tasks. If you want to have the motivation, do something that is just nice, not too difficult and not too easy.

What you need to do is to make your work excited to you.

When you find that your work is too difficult, break it down into smaller steps so that you won’t feel overwhelmed. And when your task is too easy, try to make it more challenging and excited.

2. Revisit your purpose

In order to have the motivation and to keep the motivation going, you need to always remember your purpose. Why do you want to do it?

Why do you want to achieve your goals? Why do you want to be successful?

Your reasons are the purpose why you act in the first place. Hence, if your reasons are not convincing enough, you will never have the motivation to act.

When your reason is strong and emotional, you will take action no matter what.

Think about it; this is why deadline works. People tend to put things off and procrastinate until the last minute when they have no other options, and then they will take action and make things work.

When something becomes a must, people will find ways and move mountains to do it.

You have to do the same. Find out your reasons. Why do you want to achieve what you want in life?

Why do you wake up in the morning? When you don’t have a reason or something to look forward to, you will never want to wake up in the morning. You will want to sleep until you get up naturally.

So take a piece of paper and write down all your reasons right now. Revisit your reasons every day.

Here are some additional guides you should check out:

3. Leverage the Snowball effect

Everything takes time to grow; your businesses, your kids, the plants, your skills, etc. Hence, have the patience and always start small.

Break down your goals into simple steps that you can act on. You want to make it easy to start, especially in the early phase.

Building momentum is like a moving train. When it is at rest, it requires a lot more energy to push it to move it. It started to move slowly and then moves faster. And once it is moving, it will be difficult to stop.

The same goes for your momentum. If you wake up at 7am each morning and suddenly you shift gear to wake up at 5am, your body will not get used to it.

You will feel tired and extremely sleepy. However, after a few days, you will slowly get used to it, and everything will become the norm. You will not feel sleepy or tired anymore.

This is where the snowball effect comes into the picture. In the early stage, try to break down the task and make it easy for you to act.

If your goal is to do 50 pushups each day, start with 20 in the first week, and then 30 in the second week, and 40 in the third week and do 50 pushups in the fourth week.

You increase the difficulty and challenges gradually. Make it easy for you to begin. Just like a snowball. It started small, like the size of a tennis ball. And then it gains momentum and grows as it travels down the hill.

Read: How to Keep Your Momentum Going and Stick to Your Plan

4. Create the cue

I strongly suggest you read this book, Atomic Habits, written by James Clear. This book is my #1 recommendation on my top 10 success books list.

In the book, Clear wrote that if you want to build a habit, you need to start with a cue, which is a trigger to perform the desire behavior.

For example, before you do something habitually, there is a cue that makes you do it. Just like if you are a smoker and before you smoke, usually, there is something that you will do, and that makes you fall into the smoking habit.

Some people when they get bored, they smoke. The boredom is the cue. As for some people, they smoke when they smell the nicotine from another smoker. The smell is the cue that triggers them to smoke. There are also people who smoke when they are around another smoker. They see other people smoke, and they want to do it as well.

So what does this has to do with your motivation? You can create the cue to trigger your routine.

If you want to work on your task, you can create a cue to trigger you into action.

Let me give you a clear example. I stick to my schedule of writing every day from 10 AM onwards. What I do before I sit on my chair and start my work is that I will make a cup of coffee.

That is my trigger. That is my cue. Whenever I smell the coffee, I know it is time to work and to write articles.

So every morning I will do the same thing. It has become my habit. It has become my morning routine. I will work on it regardless of whether I like it or not. The motivation will come automatically because it has become a routine.

You can leverage this technique to build a constructive habit of working on your goals.

Remember, what you do once in a while is not as important as what you do every day. It is your habit that will determine your success and failure in life.

Here’s what you need to do right now:

Get Atomic Habits and read it. Develop a powerful and productive morning routine. Adopt these 31 good daily habits to improve the quality of your life.

5. Get some inspiration

If you don’t feel motivated, simple, just get some inspiration. Read an inspirational article. Listen to uplifting music and so on. Or get someone to inspire you.

I found that not all materials can motivate everyone the same. Meaning, what motivates you and me can be totally different. It all depends on your current situation.

I’m into internet marketing, and so whenever I read something interesting about internet marketing, I feel inspired. If you are not doing anything related to online marketing, I don’t think you will feel the inspiration.

This is because you just can’t relate and you don’t feel relevant.

Thus, if you want to get inspired, read something that is relevant to you.

For instance, if you are down right now because you have no money, read a story of how people went through a similar situation just like you and became successful. I’m sure you will feel inspired because you can relate.

This is why you need to read the same book a few times. When you are in a different situation and at different points in your life, different things will inspire you.

Now, try to make it your habit to read, especially personal development books and materials that are related to your industry.

I have made it a commitment to read at least 2 books a month, and I averaged 3 books. I spend 30 minutes each morning to read.

You can do the same. Motivate yourself and make it a habit. You don’t have to wait until when you feel no motivation only to seek inspiration. You can make it your habit to consistently charging yourself.

6. Make a public commitment

Another way to create the motivation or the desperation is to make a public commitment.

Try to tell someone what you are going to accomplish, and you will be more committed to it.

The founder of Zen Habits, Leo Babauta said that when he made it his goal to run a marathon, he wrote in his local newspaper column that he is going to do it. And that public commitment left him no other choice but to go for it no matter what.

The entire Guam Island knew Leo’s goal, and he has been held accountable. And he did it.

You can leverage this technique to achieve your goal and work on your task too. Of course, you don’t have to write a newspaper column to have the same effect.

All you need to do is to make a public commitment. You can share your goal or your task with someone who will support you and ask him or her to hold you accountable.

Remember, it is better to choose someone who is positive to support you and not people who are pessimistic.

Read: 10 Powerful Steps How to Fully Commit to Goals That Terrify You

Conclusion

After going through these 16 tips on how to get more energy and motivation, how do you feel? Which technique you think is the most powerful and you want to implement?

Share your thoughts with me in the comment section below. And if you like this article, remember to share it with your friends too.