Unmotivational Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Unmotivational. Here they are! All 100 of them:

They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do just as well — you just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.
Bill Hicks
To live entirely without a goal! I have glimpsed this state, and have often attained it, without managing to remain there: I am too weak for such happiness.
Emil M. Cioran
Most humans manage to squander their free time, as free time makes them dysfunctional, lazy, and unmotivated—the busier they get, the more active they are at other tasks.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder)
When you feel perpetually unmotivated, you start questioning your existence in an unhealthy way; everything becomes a pseudo intellectual question you have no interest in responding whatsoever. This whole process becomes your very skin and it does not merely affect you; it actually defines you. So, you see yourself as a shadowy figure unworthy of developing interest, unworthy of wondering about the world - profoundly unworthy in every sense and deeply absent in your very presence.
Ingmar Bergman
I'm so bored I could do something, but can't be arsed. I'm unmotivated as well as bored. It's a killer combination.
Gillibran Brown (Fun With Dick and Shane (Memoirs of a Houseboy, #1))
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
I concluded that the best thing for me and for those around me was to want nothing, to be enthusiastic about nothing, to be as unmotivated as possible, in fact, so that I would never again hurt anyone.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Deadeye Dick)
Don't hang out with people who are: Ungrateful Unhelpful Unruly Unkindly Unloving Unambitious Unmotivated or make you feel... Uncomfortable
Germany Kent
She had never felt so unmotivated. Existing seemed like such an unfair demand.
SenLinYu (Manacled)
There are no arguments. Can anyone who has reached the limit bother with arguments, causes, effects, moral considerations, and so forth? Of course not. For such a person there are only unmotivated motives for living. On the heights of despair, the passion for the absurd is the only thing that can still throw a demonic light on chaos. When all the current reasons—moral, esthetic, religious, social, and so on—no longer guide one's life, how can one sustain life without succumbing to nothingness? Only by a connection with the absurd, by love of absolute uselessness, loving something which does not have substance but which simulates an illusion of life. I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing.
Emil M. Cioran (On the Heights of Despair)
We often view ourselves as procrastinators or lazy or unmotivated. When in reality, we’re simply unwilling. We put things off or avoid them completely because we tell ourselves we just don’t want to do it or that we can’t do it.
Gary John Bishop (Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life)
The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
Edwin H. Friedman
The destructive effects of video games are not on boys' cognitive abilities or their reaction times, but on there motivation and their connectedness with the real world.
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Energy can have two dimensions. One is motivated, going somewhere, a goal somewhere, this moment is only a means and the goal is going to be the dimension of activity, goal oriented--then everything is a means, somehow it has to be done and you have to reach the goal, then you will relax. But for this type of energy the goal never comes because this type of energy goes on changing every present moment into a means for something else, into the future. The goal always remains on the horizon. You go on running, but the distance remains the same. No, there is another dimension of energy: that dimension is unmotivated celebration. The goal is here, now; the goal is not somewhere else. In fact, you are the goal. In fact there is no other fulfillment than that of this moment--consider the lilies. When you are the goal and when the goal is not in the future, when there is nothing to be achieved, rather you are just celebrating it, then you have already achieved it, it is there. This is relaxation, unmotivated energy.
Osho (Tantra: The Supreme Understanding - Discourses on the Tantric Way of Tilopa's Song of Mahamudra)
If people lived to be a thousand years old, there’d be extreme inequality, based not on class like now, but on genetics. Think how far behind unmotivated and lazy people lag now after only 65 years on earth, and then multiply that by 15.

Jarod Kintz (At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.)
The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client, or boss to shape up, stay connected while changing yourself rather than trying to fix them.
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
The destructive effects of video games are not on boys' cognitive abilities or their reaction times, but on their motivation and their connectedness with the real world.
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Which was what love was: unmotivated respect.
Toni Morrison (Paradise (Beloved Trilogy, #3))
If we fail to provide boys with pro-social models of the transition to adulthood, they may construct their own. In some cases, gang initiation rituals, street racing, and random violence may be the result.
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Sometimes he'll chuckle at something, but rarely. Whenever somebody asks how come everybody's laughing at something and he isn't, Horst explains his belief that laughter is sacred, a momentary noodge from some power out in the universe, only cheapened and trivialized by laugh tracks. He has a low tolerance for unmotivated and mirthless laughter in general. "For many people, especially in New York, laughing is a way of being loud without having to say anything.
Thomas Pynchon (Bleeding Edge)
You are conditioned to believe that if you let go, if you surrender, you will either be a victim of circumstances and not assertive in your own being, or you will be viewed as being lazy, lacking in willpower, and un-motivated. Yet will and power cannot exist alongside one another. Motivation does not come into question when you surrender fully into the present moment. Motivation to do, to take action, to make moves, comes naturally from this surrender.
Kelly Martin (When Everyone Shines But You - Saying Goodbye To I'm Not Good Enough)
Judy's friend that she has known the longest has just broken up with her boyfriend and is depressed. Judy likes her more now that she is depressed and feels unmotivated in life. Judy feels unmotivated in life.
Ellen Kennedy
Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them. It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power to make their own choices are unmotivated.
Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child)
Fat" is a small word which belies its size in the girth of its connotations. Fat implies a certain ungainliness, an inefficiency, a sense of immobility, a lack of industry, an unpleasant, unaesthetic quality; unmotivated, unloved, unnatural, unusual, uninspired, unhappy, unlikely to go places or to fit, under the ground with a heart attack at fifty-five. In short, fat somewhat paradoxically involves the lack of many attributes which, you must concede, are generally held to be good.
Mohsin Hamid (Moth Smoke)
Mirabelle is not sparkling tonight, because she works only in gears, and tonight she is in the wrong gear. Third gear is her scholarly, perspicacious, witty self; second gear is her happy, giddy, childish self; and first gear is her complaining, helpless, unmotivated self. Tonight she is somewhere midshift, between helpless and childish.
Steve Martin (Shopgirl)
I just can't live an ordinary life, I can't pass the time. I can't organise myself, I don't have ordinary motives any more. I can't even manage my body, when I go to bed I don't know where to put my arms.
Iris Murdoch (The Green Knight)
But what is clear about pain universally is this: To the extent that we are motivated to get on with life, we seem to be able to tolerate more pain; in other words, our threshold seems to increase. Conversely, to the extent that we are unmotivated to get out of our chair, our threshold seems to go down.
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create....The great achievements of humanity were born out of the deadlines imposed by death...if he lived forever , chances are he would be rendered boring, listless, and unmotivated, robbed of life’s richness, by dull routine.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
No matter how lazy or unmotivated a person is, if he feels his life is on the line, he will devote every available resource to not being killed. Civilization goes out the door, and pure survival kicks in. When people are that awake and that focused, they intrigue me. So you can say I have a job that brings out the best in people.
Frank J. Fleming (Superego (Superego, #1))
Many rookie software managers think that they can "motivate" their programmers to work faster by giving them nice, "tight" (unrealistically short) schedules. I think this kind of motivation is brain-dead. When I'm behind schedule, I feel doomed and depressed and unmotivated. When I'm working ahead of schedule, I'm cheerful and productive. The schedule is not the place to play psychological games.
Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software)
Well, that's pretty much what the schools are like, I think: they reward discipline and obedience, and they punish independence of mind. If you happen to be a little innovative, or maybe you forgot to come to school one day because you were reading a book or something, that's a tragedy, that's a crime―because you're not supposed to think, you're supposed to obey, and just proceed through the material in whatever way they require. And in fact, most of the people who make it through the education system and get into the elite universities are able to do it because they've been willing to obey a lot of stupid orders for years and years―that's the way I did it, for example. Like, you're told by some stupid teacher, "Do this," which you know makes no sense whatsoever, but you do it, and if you do it you get to the next rung, and then you obey the next order, and finally you work your way through and they give you your letters: an awful lot of education is like that, from the very beginning. Some people go along with it because they figure, "Okay, I'll do any stupid thing that asshole says because I want to get ahead"; others do it because they've just internalized the values―but after a while, those two things tend to get sort of blurred. But you do it, or else you're out: you ask too many questions and you're going to get in trouble. Now, there are also people who don't go along-and they're called "behavior problems," or "unmotivated," or things like that. Well, you don't want to be too glib about it―there are children with behavior problems but a lot of them are just independent-minded, or don't like to conform, or just want to go their own way. And they get into trouble right from the very beginning, and are typically weeded out. I mean, I've taught young kids too, and the fact is there are always some who just don't take your word for it. And the very unfortunate tendency is to try to beat them down, because they're a pain in the neck. But what they ought to be is encouraged. Yeah: why take my word for it? Who the heck am I? Figure it out for yourself. That's what real education would be about, in fact.
Noam Chomsky (Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky)
Did he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby didn't know that he did know. Did he at all know what he wanted to do? He was equally uncertain, but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to be quite free of any profession.
E.M. Forster (Howards End)
That can also include feeling fatigued and unmotivated. These bad habits are primarily caused by disrupted activity in the striatum, which is an ancient subcortical region deep below the surface that we inherited from the dinosaurs.
Alex Korb (The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time)
If you took organic chemistry in college, you’ve experienced the Dip. Academia doesn’t want too many unmotivated people to attempt medical school, so they set up a screen. Organic chemistry is the killer class, the screen that separates the doctors from the psychologists. If you can’t handle organic chemistry, well, then, you can’t go to med school.
Seth Godin (The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick))
In some businesses there’s a real stigma around staying home when you’re sick, like it means you’re weak or unmotivated. (I have to admit early in my career I saw it that way, but I have evolved.) Coming in when you’re sick doesn’t show dedication, it’s selfish. And kind of gross. And not fun for your coworkers or for you. That
Gary Vaynerchuk (#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness)
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues;
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
Though he felt a little guilt over disappearing, it wasn't even guilt, just sadness over not even wanting to call her.
Catherine Lacey (The Answers)
A Lonely Place Is an Unmotivated Place
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
Murray observes further that we have entered a peculiar age, an age in which physicians and lawyers are more plentiful than good plumbers.
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Motivated employees are 87 percent less likely to leave an organization compared to an unmotivated employee.” —BILL HYBELS
John C. Maxwell (Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently)
More kids are finding real sports too demanding.
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Manhood isn’t something that simply happens to boys as they get older. It’s an achievement—something a boy accomplishes, something that can easily go awry. If we ignore the importance of this transition, and fail in our duty as parents to guide boys through it, then we will learn the hard way why traditional cultures invest this transition with so much importance.
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
(W)e must - precisely in order to see the world and to grasp it as a paradox - rupture our familiarity with it, and this rupture can teach us nothing except the unmotivated springing forth of the world.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Perception)
Instead, he was still acting distant from her in many subtle ways, and although they continued to sleep in the same bed, there had been no intimacy whatsoever. Such behavior raised an old concern of hers that Daniel was either incapable or unmotivated to offer the kind of emotional support she felt she needed, particularly in period of stress, no matter what the cause or whose fault it was. (Stephanie)
Robin Cook (Seizure (A Medical Thriller))
A mountain of recent data on open-plan offices from many different industries corroborates the results of the games. Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
With an inability to maintain focus, many ADDers require intensely stimulating situations to maintain alertness and attentiveness. Without this stimulation, attention wanders, and many of us are told we’re unmotivated.
Kate Kelly (You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults w/ Attention Deficit Disorder))
Feeling unmotivated or depressed doesn’t make you less of a person than you were a few days or weeks ago when you were happy and enthusiastic. Give yourself a break. Take it easy. Release the pressure and allow yourself to relax for a while.
Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions & Motivation: 2 Books in 1 (Mastery Series) (Mastery Bundle))
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
series of studies over the past seven years has demonstrated clearly and unambiguously that the more time your child spends playing video games, the less likely he is to do well in school—whether he is in elementary school, middle school, high school, or college. This
Leonard Sax (Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men)
Agape means understanding, redeeming goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. It is not set in motion by any quality of function of its object. It is the love of God operating in the human heart.
Martin Luther King Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story)
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
Neither parenting, Christian education, heritage, nor fine church involvement can alter anyone’s essential sin nature. To lie, make self-centered choices, be destructive, or be deeply hurtful to oneself or others may be “out of character,” but it is not outside of any human being’s nature.
Rick Horne (Get Outta My Face!: How to Reach Angry, Unmotivated Teens with Biblical Counsel)
mountain of recent data on open-plan offices from many different industries corroborates the results of the games. Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin—like its multitudinous, hard-boiled descendants—is a catalogue of violence. This is explained by the nature of Mrs. Stowe’s subject matter, her laudable determination to flinch from nothing in presenting the complete picture; an explanation which falters only if we pause to ask whether or not her picture is indeed complete; and what constriction or failure of perception forced her to so depend on the description of brutality—unmotivated, senseless—and to leave unanswered and unnoticed the only important question: what it was, after all, that moved her people to such deeds.
James Baldwin (Notes of a Native Son)
Much of the back row of America, both white and black, is humiliated. The good jobs they could get straight out of high school and gave the stability of a lifelong career have left. The churches providing them a place in the world have been cast as irrational, backward, and lacking. The communities that provided pride are dying, and into this vacuum have come drugs. Their entire worldview is collapsing, and then they are told this is their own fault: they suck at school and are dumb, not focused enough, not disciplined enough. It is a wholesale rejection that cuts to the core. It isn’t just about them; it is about their friends, family, congregation, union, and all they know. Whole towns and neighborhoods have been forgotten and destroyed, and when they point this out, they are told they should just get up and move (as if anyone can do that) and if they don’t, then they are clearly lazy, weak, and unmotivated.
Chris Arnade (Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America)
Children surrounded by fast-paced visual stimuli (TV, videos, computer games) at the expense of face-to-face adult modeling, interactive language, reflective problem-solving, creative play, and sustained attention may be expected to arrive at school unprepared for academic learning—and to fall farther behind and become increasingly “unmotivated” as the years go by.
Jane M. Healy (Endangered Minds: Why Children Dont Think And What We Can Do About I)
When you feel lazy and unmotivated, the simple reason is that you’re feeling disconnected. You’ve fallen out of alignment with truth, love, and power. When you recognize that you’re in this state, stop and reconnect with the real you. Remember who you are. Reconnect with what excites you. Revisit those times in your life when you were on fire—not because of external events, but because you were aligned with your truth, your love, and your power. Turn your gaze within and ask yourself: Where is the path with a heart, and what can I do to honor that path right now? Whatever answer you come up with, summon the courage to take immediate action. Growl ferociously if you think it will help, but get yourself into motion no matter what.
Steve Pavlina (Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth)
While many think I have a dream career, it is hard work, with long solitary hours both in the field and at home in the studio. Often we complain of not having enough time to achieve our personal goals, and when we get off track we can get discouraged and unmotivated. But finding time is often just a re-examining of your priorities, and deciding what really matters to you.
Robert Rodriguez Jr. (Insights From Beyond the Lens: Inside the Art & Craft of Landscape Photography)
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others. Indeed,
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
The Cartesian Theater may be a comforting image because it preserves the reality/appearance distinction at the heart of human subjectivity, but as well as being scientifically unmotivated, this is metaphysically dubious, because it creates the bizarre category of the objectively subjective—the way things actually, objectively seem to you even if they don’t seem to seem that way to you!
Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained)
As the non-AD/HD person continues on through life, the pieces continue to make sense. They don’t get A’s one day, and F’s the next; they aren’t called creative one day and lazy, unmotivated, and irresponsible the next. When people without these difficulties try to do something, their efforts usually pay off. In other words, there’s a direct relationship between the effort and the results.
Sari Solden (Women With Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life)
The professor husband of a friend of mine has likened children to the insane. I often think of it. He says that children live on the edge of madness, that their behavior, apparently unmotivated, shares the same dream logic as crazy people’s. I see what he means, and because I’ve learned to be patient with children, to tease out the logic that’s always somewhere there, and irrefutable once explained,
Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs)
Whereas emotional parents are obvious in their immaturity, driven parents seem so invested in their child’s success that their egocentrism is hard to see. Most of the time, you wouldn’t notice anything unhealthy about them. However, their children may have trouble with either initiative or self-control. Paradoxically, these very involved, hardworking parents often end up with unmotivated, even depressive children.
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
been a day i miss her the way she care for me the way she look into me evrything that makes me feel great about life whenever u sad whenever u feel so unmotivated whenever u feel countless and hopeless she's there for u she comfort u with love and passion with the greatest love deep in her heart she always care about u that is my mother the one who always be by my side in whatever situation she always be there for me
augelicht
Choral reading opens up the possibility of using newspapers, magazines, all manner of high interest books, comic books, and personal letters…it makes reading accessible to adults and students who are completely unmotivated by the simplistic fare at their tested reading level. While participating in choral reading, the student repeatedly sees words in context. Repetition in context is a key to dyslexic reading. Practicing
Yvonna Graham (Dyslexia Tool Kit for Tutors and Parents: What to do when phonics isn't enough)
When students doubt their own competence, they typically respond with two behaviors: they either hide (hoods over faces, heads on desks) and try to become invisible, or they act out to prevent a scenario unfolding in which they will not be able to perform and will once again be proved "less than." Teachers frequently misinterpret both of these behaviors, usually inferring that the student is unmotivated, uninterested, or behavior disordered.
Lisa D. Delpit ("Multiplication Is for White People": Raising Expectations for Other People's Children)
He says that children live on the edge of madness, that their behavior, apparently unmotivated, shares the same dream logic as crazy people’s. I see what he means, and because I’ve learned to be patient with children, to tease out the logic that’s always somewhere there, and irrefutable once explained, I’ve come to understand that grown-ups, mad or sane, ought really to be accorded the same respect. In this sense, nobody is actually crazy, just not understood.
Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs)
Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and whatever else that—with a smattering of emotive images and strains of maudlin music—can move the average citizen to tears or violence, the pessimist is invisible in both history books and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, he could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause. Pessimists are indeed lackadaisical as partisans in the human drama.
Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race)
If you find yourself in a funk or feeling unmotivated with life, make a small goal. Start with a small area of chaos in your life. Make a short list of two or three things and check them off. This may help you feel like you are progressing. Wash the dishes, clean the closet, sweep the porch, organize your food pantry, or clean out your car. You don’t need to go out and run a marathon. Instead, set a smaller goal. Walk 5,000 or 10,000 steps. In order to do that, you must start with one.
Eric Overby
Embracing their inner reader starts with students selecting their own books to read. The freedom is not a future, perhaps-by-spring goal for them, but our first accomplishment as a class. Why does choice matter? Providing students with the opportunity to choose strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power to make their own choices are unmotivated.
Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child)
Every successful artist starts before they’re ready. They show up to the studio even when they feel uninspired. They send that marketing email even when they don’t feel motivated. The inspiration comes from creating the art. The motivation comes from doing the work. The confidence comes from riding the wild horse of fear even when your brain tells you it’s a bad idea. The reason you don’t feel ready is because readiness isn’t a feeling. You’re feeling scared, unmotivated, or uninspired, but the story your brain tells you is that you’re “just not ready yet.
Miriam Schulman (Artpreneur: The Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living From Your Creativity)
A God who knew the answer to that question would indeed know everything and have everything. For that reason he would be unmotivated to do anything or create anything. There would be no purpose to act in any way whatsoever. But a God who had one nagging question—what happens if I cease to exist?—might be motivated to find the answer in order to complete his knowledge. ... The fact that we exist is proof that God is motivated to act in some way. And since only the challenge of self-destruction could interest an omnipotent God, it stands to reason that we... are God's debris.
Scott Adams (God's Debris: A Thought Experiment)
You were an important part of my life, and I feel an overpowering grief and sadness over your loss. My life is affected in simple and profound ways. I am hurting emotionally, physically, and mentally. I am often distracted and unfocused during my regular workday. My sadness over missing you leaves me numb and unmotivated. What are the things that I miss the most, now that you are gone? What are my thoughts and feelings as I try to perform daily activities? What are the responsibilities and items on my todo list that I can put on the back burner while my attention is diverted by your death?
Linda Anderson (Saying Goodbye to Your Angel Animals: Finding Comfort after Losing Your Pet)
They think along unusual lines and feel a persistent drive to build, develop, or create something, anything, from a business to a boat to a book to a balustrade. It’s like an omnipresent itch to make something. If that itch goes unscratched, we tend to feel listless or depressed, unmotivated and at sea. If we pour our energies into something that is beneath our creative abilities, we tend to lose interest. Remember, boredom = kryptonite. If we find ourselves in a job that doesn’t draw on that creative strength but instead demands a skill set we just don’t have, we will falter—and we’ll feel the crush of that defeat harder than others do.
Edward M. Hallowell (ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood)
The ceiling is actually the jungle that keeps most people away from the hidden treasure. And if you’re ready to work on the skills category of your Career Savings Account, this is a tremendous gift. Author Seth Godin calls it the “Dip.” He says, “The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out. If you took organic chemistry in college, you’ve experienced the Dip. Academia doesn’t want too many unmotivated people to attempt medical school, so they set up a screen. Organic chemistry is the killer class, the screen that separates the doctors from the psychologists. If you can’t handle organic chemistry, well, then you can’t go to med school.”2
Jon Acuff (Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck)
But the truth is, the multicultural movement, especially as presented in our educational institutions, isn't really about fostering greater respect among people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. It's about building the self-esteem of certain ethnic groups while shaming those who have the audacity to prefer a distinct American culture. And most of all, it's about manipulating the expectations of an entire generation so they'll abandon our nation's heritage of American exceptionalism and benevolent hegemony and instead go marching into the glorious sunset of our republican form of government toward unambitious, unmotivated, uninspired, unexceptional socialism.
Marybeth Hicks (Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left's Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom)
We worry so much about negative peer pressure- whether from the toxic coworkers who infect us with their pessimism, the classmates constantly getting our kids into trouble, or the wealthy friends who pressure us into taking vacations we can't afford- that we often forget all about the power of positive peer pressure. Just as being around negative, unmotivated people drains our energy and potential, surrounding ourselves with positive, engaged, motivated, and creative people causes our positivity, engagement, motivation and creativity to multiply. In my work with companies, I created a formula to highlight the basic principle at the heart of this strategy: Big Potential = individual attributes X (positive influences - negative influences)
Shawn Achor (Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being)
Composed of the same dross as all mortals, the pessimist cleaves to whatever seems to validate his attestations. This fact would come as a shock to no one. There is no scarcity among us of those who not only want to think that they are right, but also expect others to affirm their least notion as unassailable. Pessimists are no exception But they are few and do not show up on the radar of our race. Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause.
Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race)
The doctors found one electrode contact that greatly relieved the woman's symptoms. But the unexpected happened when the electric current passed through one of the four contact sites on the patient's left side, precisely two millimeters below the contact that improved her condition. The patient stopped her ongoing conversation quite abruptly, cast her eyes down and to her right side, then leaned slightly to the right and her emotional expression became one of sadness. After a few seconds she suddenly began to cry. Tears flowed and her entire demeanor was one of profound misery. Soon she was sobbing. As this display continued she began talking about how deeply sad she felt, how she had no energies left to go on living in this manner, how hopeless and exhausted she was. [ . . . ] The physician in charge of the treatment realized that this unusual event was due to the current and aborted the procedure. About ninety seconds after the current was interrupted the patient's behavior returned to normal. [ . . . ] Why would this patient's brain evoke the kind of thoughts that normally cause sadness considering that the emotion and feeling were unmotivated by the appropriate stimuli? The answer has to do with the dependence of feeling on emotion and the intriguing ways of one's memory. When the emotion sadness is deployed, feelings of sadness instantly follow. In short order, the brain also brings forth the kind of thoughts that normally cause the emotion sadness and feelings of sadness. This is because associative learning has linked emotions with thoughts in a rich two-way network. Certain thoughts evoke certain emotions and vice-versa.
António Damásio (Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain)
I see how dance transforms the bodies of the stars on the show. I need to lose weight--can it do the same for me? I’m so unmotivated! Absolutely. Dancing you enjoy, so you forget that you’re working out. We associate working out with work and with pain. But dancing is fun and you should go for it if it motivates you to move. All consistent movement helps your metabolism. But I’m not going to say don’t change anything else in your life. You have to be consistent with how often you move, and you need to eat healthily. You can’t dance in the morning and eat cheeseburgers and fries for lunch. What you see on DWTS is a combination of people dancing and changing their habits and their whole lives. In order to do the show, they need to be stronger and they need to be fueled. Your body is your machine; you’ve got to make sure it’s well-oiled.
Derek Hough (Taking the Lead: Lessons from a Life in Motion)
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others. Indeed, excessive stimulation seems to impede learning: a recent study found that people learn better after a quiet stroll through the woods than after a noisy walk down a city street.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
People work, not me. I look out the window, look out the window, out the window. Outside it's winter, and it's sunny. The doors don't shut properly, they don't shut, they're old. A phone rings through the wall. How come it takes such daunting effort to do what one likes? It's daunting, daunting to begin. I find it daunting to get started, and that seems not to be a fixable thing. The road to success, the road to success. Who knows? I get tired of myself. As pleasant as I find it here, as pleasant as a I find it. Did anyone pick up? In any case, the phone stopped ringing. What works better in fiction? Past or present tense? Weekends make me cranky, I don't like them, that imperative to have a good time, do things, do something special, the notion of free time. I prefer to seek out those things while other people work. People relaxing tend to look ridiculous, like out of place, grotesque. I'm unmotivated, a little, I realize, bored, overly calm, almost comfortable. I don't like where I live anymore, I'm fed up, I'm fed up with where I live. I want, somehow, to live differently. I'd take care of it, I'd take care of that baby if he gave it to me, if he wanted to give it to me, if he wanted.
Romina Paula (Agosto)
#25. Valuing Yourself and Your Needs (As a Parent): This is about taking care of your OWN needs as a parent because when you consistently put yourself last to be taken care of and habitually continue to sacrifice your basic necessities to make everyone else happy…Essentially, what you’re teaching your children is that they’re here to be of service to others, then themselves. In other words, you’re teaching them to take advantage of you and use you as they please, which in turn communicates to them that they’re most likely to be used. To prevent this from happening, you need to set consistent limits that protect you from demands that could be overbearing and unfair. That way, you’re communicating that your basic needs are just as important as theirs. It’s true…often times parents that are constantly sacrificing themselves are idealized and praised by other parents. You know… the ones that have no hobbies, no friends and no avenue of enjoyment. Is this really desirable? Parents constantly stressed about the needs of others in the family are usually irritable, and unmotivated to try anything new, fun or exciting. How can parents do this long term with no outlet? Instead, us parents need to enjoy ourselves and focus on being re-energized. When you take good care of yourself, you provide the means to take better care of your children. Going out to dinner or cocktails, trips to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, date night with your spouse or even some alone time reading or going for a walk allows you to be a more productive, interested and patient parent.
Brian Tracy (How to Build Up Your Child Instead of Repairing Your Teenager)
In this day and age, there is a limitless plethora of readily available distractions just waiting to take your mind off what you were supposed to be doing, and instead keep you unproductive and unmotivated. With distractions so easy to come by, and society so geared towards instant gratification as opposed to “Hard graft” for results, it is little wonder that many people suffer from a condition most commonly referred to as laziness.
James Frankton
The Driven Parent Driven parents are the type that tends to look most normal, even appearing exceptionally invested in their children’s lives. Being driven, they’re always focused on getting things done. Whereas emotional parents are obvious in their immaturity, driven parents seem so invested in their child’s success that their egocentrism is hard to see. Most of the time, you wouldn’t notice anything unhealthy about them. However, their children may have trouble with either initiative or self-control. Paradoxically, these very involved, hardworking parents often end up with unmotivated, even depressive children.
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
He was also a distinctly unmotivated student at Northwestern University. He nevertheless set out to make enough money to buy a professional sports team, so that he might make the decisions about who would be on it. “Every week he’d take a sheet of paper and write on top, ‘My Goals,’” recalls his then-girlfriend, Ellen, now his wife. “The biggest life goal was, ‘I’m going to someday own a professional sports team.’” “I went to business school,” said Morey, “because I thought that’s where you had to go if you wanted to get rich.” Upon leaving business school, in 2000, he interviewed with consulting firms until he found one that got paid in the shares of the companies it advised.
Michael Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds)
....My Worst Enemy in my mind makes me lazy, unmotivated, mean, isolated, anxious, an overthinker, and a procrastinator
Basimah Rasha (The Epitome Of Truth)
People who have never been in this downtrodden, impoverished situation can be very unsympathetic because they don’t realize what’s happening inside. From their secure position—usually in the middle or upper classes—it’s easy to call the poor lazy or unmotivated. Such people do not understand the psychological dimension of poverty. The poor have little chance of changing their state without some help from outside.
Richard Rohr (What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self)
36. We All Struggle With Motivation Sometimes Shock, horror…yes, even I feel unmotivated occasionally! I am human. So don’t worry when you feel a little demotivated - it is normal. Just give yourself a short break, take a nap, go for a walk, make a cup of tea, then pick yourself up and make the conscious decision to get charging. It is always best not to deny to yourself that you might occasionally suffer from a little bit of stinkin’ thinkin’ - so give it its moment, then boot it out! So don’t beat yourself up about having a bad day - I have had loads of them and will have many more in the future. Take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back for being human after all, then get out there and get moving again. Champions don’t stay down for long. Oh, and I have a good trick for doing stuff, like exercising, when I really am not in the mood…I tell myself that I can quit, but only after three minutes. I have to at least begin. Invariably after three minutes of running, I find I am in the groove and want to keep going. The hard bit is always getting going, so I commit at least to start, with my ‘three-minute-get-out clause’…which, of course, then doesn’t get used! Whatever works for you…but keep feeding the motivation into your brain and soul every day. Remember the previous chapter on armpits!
Bear Grylls (A Survival Guide for Life: How to Achieve Your Goals, Thrive in Adversity, and Grow in Character)
I suspect that when we’re feeling lazy or unmotivated, it’s either because our to-do list is too long or we’re surrounded by so many menial tasks that we can’t get around to doing what’s important. Giving
Fumio Sasaki (Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism)
when it comes to motivating the unmotivated, fear and guilt are effective tools.” “Spoken like a true Catholic.
Pam Godwin (Lessons in Sin)
If you are weak, tired, depressed and unmotivated, your whole reality will appear dark.
Marc A. (Hypochondria Anonymous: Find the Power in You to Overcome Hypochondria)
Given the mental health stigma within the Black community that precludes many Black women from identifying themselves as needing help, the groups were advertised as women’s wellness groups, rather than as mental health treatment. The brochure listed common symptoms of depression, such as feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and irritable; having difficulty paying attention or concentrating; feeling tense or on edge; feeling unmotivated; having difficulty sleeping; and feeling fatigue. Women saw themselves in these symptoms, even when they adamantly denied being depressed.
Inger Burnett-Zeigler (Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen: Exploring The Emotional Lives of Black Women)
Feeling unmotivated or unprepared for tough sessions but doing them anyway.
Simon Marshall (The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion)
The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out. If you took organic chemistry in college, you’ve experienced the Dip. Academia doesn’t want too many unmotivated people to attempt medical school, so they set up a screen.
Seth Godin (The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick))
Overthinking —> Write Uninspired —> Read Scared —> Take one risk Stuck —> Walk Tired —> Sleep Confused —> Ask Frustrated —> Move Burned out —> Day off Impatient —> Review progress Unmotivated —> Remember your "why
Greg Isenberg
The laziness we’ve all been taught to fear does not exist. There is no morally corrupt, slothful force inside us, driving us to be unproductive for no reason. It’s not evil to have limitations and to need breaks. Feeling tired or unmotivated is not a threat to our self-worth. In fact, the feelings we write off as “laziness” are some of humanity’s most important instincts, a core part of how we stay alive and thrive in the long term.
Devon Price (Laziness Does Not Exist)
I do not just meet people and have them stay in my life. They need to earn their spot. I just keep myself away from unmotivated people. If you want to mess with me, remember that I've lived my life drinking with skeletons.
Abhysheq Shukla (KARMA)
a thought in itself isn’t enough to manifest things or circumstances. It must be fueled with an energy in the form of emotion, such as enthusiasm, excitement, passion, or happiness. For this reason, someone enthusiastic about his or her dream will achieve more than a pessimistic and unmotivated person. Successful people constantly focus on what they want with positive expectation while unsuccessful people focus on what they don’t want or what they lack. The latter are afraid of having a lack of money, talent, time, or any other resources they may need to achieve their goals. As a result, pessimists accomplish far less than they’re capable of achieving.
Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))