What Is Motivation?

Talk to your doctor if you are feeling symptoms of apathy and low mood that last longer than two weeks. Sometimes a persistent lack of motivation might be tied to a mental health condition such as depression.

Thinking that one size fits all. Just because an approach or method worked for someone else does not mean that it will work for you. If something isn't helping you reach your goals or is making you feel unmotivated, look for things that will work better for you.

Quick fixes or all-or-nothing thinking. It's easy to feel unmotivated if you can't fix something immediately or if you can't have it all at once. Remind yourself that reaching your goals takes time.

Many of your behaviors such as eating, drinking, and sleeping are motivated by biology. You have a biological need for food, water, and sleep. Therefore, you are motivated to eat, drink, and sleep. Drive theory suggests that people have basic biological drives and that behaviors are motivated by the need to fulfill these drives.6

The instinct theory of motivation suggests that behaviors are motivated by instincts, which are fixed and inborn patterns of behavior.5 Psychologists including William James, Sigmund Freud, and William McDougal have proposed a number of basic human drives that motivate behavior. Such instincts might include biological instincts that are important for an organism's survival such as fear, cleanliness, and love.

Motivation involves the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behavior. In everyday usage, the term "motivation" is frequently used to describe why a person does something. It is the driving force behind human actions.