How to live on if you have no strength and don’t want anything? Determining how to live can be quite easy if you have desires and goals, but the same question is perplexing if you lack desires and motivation. Such a condition can be temporary and occur quite easily, or it can take on a chronic form called apathy - it is a medical term that reflects disorders in the mental sphere. There is no need to immediately diagnose yourself; for many people, apathetic moods are a periodically encountered norm, and these problems can be solved quite independently, without turning to doctors or medications.
It is important not to confuse the lack of desires and strength with simple laziness. This can be easily distinguished - laziness disappears as soon as a sufficient stimulus appears, followed by a surge of strength and activity, the person’s eyes light up. In a state where there really is no strength, not a single stimulus will make a person jump, and when the sphere of needs and desires is frustrated, there will simply be nowhere for the motivational component to arise.
In case of malfunction of any organs, the onset of a viral disease, or at the time of exacerbation of a chronic illness, the body’s reserve reserves are aimed at eliminating these problems, so there may simply not be enough energy for everything else. Lack of vitamins in winter and chronic lack of sleep undermine the body's strength. Moreover, it will not be possible to fight such problems by increasing motivation and working through willpower - the lack of sleep will need to be compensated by establishing a routine over a long period of time, and not just one night, and the lack of nutrients will need to be restored in consultation with doctors. Physical exhaustion from prolonged work requires rest for the body, otherwise more serious health problems will occur after a lack of strength and desire.
Often you don’t want anything and the presence of a feeling of powerlessness is due to emotional burnout, which is characteristic mainly of people in helping professions or workaholics, and is often reflected precisely in the professional sphere, without affecting the rest of life. In the case of emotional overload during communication, powerlessness in any form of contact can occur, and long-term monotonous work can completely kill aspirations and creativity. Depression and moments of crisis can plunge a person into a similar state with the same ease as physical disorders. Among the many reasons, it is necessary to single out the one that sucks all your strength and initially concentrate on eliminating it.
Reasons for loss of motivation
The desire to preserve life is inherent in us by nature. The instinct of self-preservation is one of the most powerful, present in most living beings, including humans. Loss of motivation is an unnatural condition that must be dealt with. If for some reason there is no motivation for life, a person should consult a psychiatrist, since this is one of the symptoms of depression. Lack of motivation to survive can be a symptom of other mental illnesses. In this case, the specialist will prescribe special medications and prescribe therapy.
Lack of motivation may also be a sign of chronic fatigue syndrome. The main symptoms are apathy, constant fatigue, and reluctance to do anything. In this case, you need to rest first. It is advisable to take a vacation for this purpose.
Motivation to live may temporarily disappear in severe stressful situations, for example, after the loss of a loved one or divorce. In this case, the person not only does not want to do anything, but there is also psychological discomfort. It will be useful to contact a psychologist who will help you find strength and meaning to move on with your life.
How to spot burnout? Four stages of change
The easiest way to tell if you're burning out is to remember what kind of person you usually are. Write a list of statements: “I am a person who...” For example: “I am a person who loves Elsa’s Ocean.” And if you haven’t listened to “Elzy’s Ocean” for a long time, you haven’t had the time or energy - this is an alarming sign. Take the test.
A more accurate self-diagnosis tool is the Maslach Burnout Inventory test (MBI, $15). It is based on the theory of the same name, which is considered the gold standard in the study of burnout. A free analogue is an online test from MindTools. But its reliability and validity, unlike the Maslach Burnout Inventory questionnaire, alas, have not been confirmed by research.
Burnout, like illness, has its stages. And each stage has its own distinctive features. The MBI theory talks about three stages of burnout: exhaustion, loss of purpose and cynicism, disgust and depression. At Deva.School we like to add an earlier stage that precedes visible symptoms: idealism and excess.
Here's the main thing you need to know about this and other stages of burnout.
- Idealism and excess.
A time of enthusiasm, energy and initiative. You look like the ideal manager or employee: you want to do as much as possible and in the best possible way. To everything that is offered to you, you answer: “Yes, this is a cool task, I want to do it!” Everyone wonders where you get so much energy and love for your work. However, sometimes this is a normal mode of operation, and not the first stage of burnout. To distinguish them, take a closer look at how you relax. Weekends, eight hours of sleep and vacation in place? Do you manage to disconnect your thoughts from work in the evening? Do you have time and energy for family, friends, hobbies and reading a good novel? If work and personal life are balanced, everything is fine. If not, your idealism will inevitably lead to excessive energy consumption and the development of burnout.
- Exhaustion.
Your strength is diminishing, your enthusiasm is fading, but so far you cannot admit it even to yourself. You still appear to be a good performer, but you are less likely to come up with fresh ideas and less involved in the processes within the company. New projects are no longer so exciting: “Yes, this is a cool task, but I probably need more time for it.” Perhaps you don't meet deadlines that you set yourself, and you don't understand why this is happening. The reason is actually simple: you expect to work as productively as at the idealization stage, but you no longer have enough strength. Or do you turn to bad habits to achieve equally high results: excess caffeine, working in the evenings and nights, and so on.
- Loss of purpose and cynicism.
Resources are sorely lacking, and the brain is trying to save them. To do this, it devalues the thing on which you spent the most energy - work. This is expressed in cynicism: if it works out, it’s good; if it doesn’t work out, that’s also okay. The tension inside is growing, you are becoming more and more irritated, and it is becoming more and more difficult to restrain your emotions. Cynicism can also manifest itself in the way you treat clients and members of your team: the principle of equality disappears, some become more important than others due to social status or personal sympathy. Interest disappears not only in work, but also in close people and important activities. You used to love to draw, listen to music and go to exhibitions with friends, but now you don’t. There is simply no desire. All this is not your choice, but a consequence of a lack of resources: the brain saves energy.
- Disgust and depression.
You can't bring yourself to open your laptop and use a variety of strategies to avoid work. Either you need to check if the door is closed, or you want to eat, or your attention naturally focuses on minor details of the project, and there is no time left for important tasks. The results are significantly lower than usual, even if you work all day. At the same time, you feel that you are sick of sitting at your desk. Sometimes you literally feel sick: the symptoms can also be physical. Or you might arrive at a meeting with colleagues and suddenly feel so sleepy that you can't stop yawning. A sign that is easier to notice from the outside is that you cannot clearly and correctly formulate tasks for other people. You seem to think that everyone should read your mind.
Motivational literature
How to find motivation on your own? It is worth reading some literature. Sometimes ordinary quotes about life that can be found on the Internet are enough, but books have a greater impact. There are good motivator quotes about life in Osho’s books. The wise words of the master manage to change people’s attitudes towards themselves, the world, relationships and much more.
For many, someone else's positive example becomes the motivation for action. You should read inspiring literature. An excellent choice would be Nick Vujicic's autobiography, Life Without Borders. The story of a man born with a rare diagnosis of tetra-amelia (congenital absence of both arms and legs), but who found the strength and opportunity to live happily and fully, motivates action. The vitality of this man is admirable and inspiring.
The famous psychologist Viktor Frankl also has good motivational books. This man survived imprisonment in a concentration camp, but retained the will to live and the desire to help other people. If you suffer from a lack of desire to live, you should familiarize yourself with his autobiographical works.
Believers are often motivated by religious texts. It makes sense to read the Lives of the Saints. You can learn a lot of useful things from such books describing the life path of saints.
If you have no desire to study serious literature, it will be useful to read a light story with a happy ending. Sometimes reading a light story about how life is good can be motivating. This will be especially effective for people with chronic fatigue syndrome, since such stories calm the nerves and help restore energy. Motivation to live arises after reading books by Jojo Moyes, Cecilia Ahern, and good works about animals.
Spiritual and physical practices
Another answer to the question of how to find motivation is a variety of spiritual practices. They help you think about life and find new meaning in it. Practices like yoga disperse apathy and laziness. It has been scientifically proven that the more activity a person does per day, the more strength and desire to live he has, so moderate physical activity can have a significant motivating effect. In the absence of movement, a person, on the contrary, often feels tired.
Meditations during which a person turns to himself can be useful. An excellent option would be special trips for several days with a group under the supervision of experienced trainers.
It will be useful to turn to positive thinking techniques. The ability to enjoy life has a positive effect on the nervous system. Optimists are less susceptible to depression.
A professional psychologist can help you find motivators. By choosing the right words, a competent specialist is able to point in the right direction.
Cardio exercises have a good effect: running, swimming, rollerblading, skiing, cycling. The load should be selected individually. If there are no contraindications, you can add strength exercises.
If you lose the desire to live, it will be useful to go on a trip. A change of place often has a beneficial effect on an overloaded nervous system. The new environment encourages activity and exploration of the place.
What effect can you expect from psychotherapy or medications if you have no strength to live?
Psychotherapy can help eliminate the very cause of the painful condition. It may take time to study how a person “gets” into an exhausted state, what exactly weakens him, how tension is created and accumulated.
With the help of psychotherapy, a person can realize how he “creates” his problem, how he himself, without realizing it, maintains his painful state, what he can do to change the current order of things.
With a psychologist, a person will figure out how his problem can be resolved or significantly alleviated, and he will learn to independently cope with the state when “there is no strength to live.”
In situations of an extremely acute condition, when a person has endured for a very long time and “did not notice” his condition, he usually delays receiving psychological support. And then, first of all, you have to contact a doctor in order for psychotherapy to become possible at all.
Psychotherapy and psychiatry can work successfully together rather than in opposition to each other. Tablets prescribed by a doctor can help alleviate a person’s condition and keep him in a stable condition so that he can live normally and not lose social adaptation.
However, medications cannot replace psychological and psychotherapeutic assistance. They will not eliminate the cause of psychological problems. Taking medications, the person himself and his way of thinking will not change.
If, for example, you only take pills, but do not change anything in your ways of interacting with the world, then when you stop taking the drugs, the old state may reappear.
The person will return to the usual way of contact with the world and people around him.
But it was precisely this method that “led” him to that very difficult state when he had no strength to live. Therefore, only awareness of your behavior patterns and changing them can help you feel better without medications.
Where to look for the desire to live
Where to find motivation? To ensure that motivation does not disappear, you should find the meaning of life for yourself and make plans. You should have a far-reaching goal that motivates you to take certain actions. It’s good if this is your own aspiration, and not an idea imposed by society. A person motivated to succeed often has a plan for bringing these projects to life.
There are many resources in spiritual development. It is useful to spend part of your time in prayer and meditation. The motivation for life that religion provides is very significant for a sincere believer.
You definitely need to find time for a hobby. Any activity that brings pleasure relieves the nervous system. Development in an area of interest can become one of the motivating life goals.
A good way to motivate yourself is to find inspiring people. There should be several such role models so as not to lose inspiration due to disappointment in the idol.
3.Diagnostics for loss of appetite
If the patient himself cannot determine the reasons that caused the loss of appetite, and there are no obvious accompanying symptoms, then the examination should be comprehensive and cover all possible causes. Basic studies, as a rule, reveal violations of certain processes and allow us to move on to more thorough diagnostics in a certain area. The required initial diagnostic minimum includes:
- general blood analysis;
- blood for hormones;
- Ultrasound of the abdominal cavity;
- urine test;
- HIV test;
- pregnancy test;
- liver tests;
- thyroid examination.
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Practical methods
How to develop motivation? Keep a diary of achievements. In a difficult moment, realizing how much you have already done will give you strength to move on. Many successful people also keep a goal diary, where large tasks are broken down into small steps that will tell them what to do at each specific moment. This simple step will allow you to avoid disappointment if you fail to implement your plan for a long time.
You should constantly discover something new. These could be new places to travel, hobbies, practices and much more. It is useful to constantly expand your circle of acquaintances. You should choose positive-minded people for communication, since the environment largely shapes your living space. Depressed people who have lost their motivation for life can negatively affect your worldview and attitude towards yourself. On the contrary, communicating with a motivated person can increase the desire to live.
How to motivate yourself? Start inspiring the other person. In the process, there is a high probability of finding something that will help you specifically. A word spoken to another is better stored in the head, forming the person’s own experience.
Children often provide the impetus for life. Caring for a small child prevents you from sinking into depression and forces you to constantly do something. But you shouldn’t make a child the only meaning of life. It should be understood that parenting is not the only area in life. It is imperative to find time for your own development and relaxation, to enjoy life.
Weakness: what to do?
If weakness is not accompanied by any disturbing symptoms, you can improve your well-being by following these recommendations:
- provide yourself with a normal amount of sleep (6-8 hours a day);
- keep a daily routine (go to bed and get up at the same time);
- try not to be nervous, relieve yourself of stress;
- exercise, provide yourself with optimal physical activity;
- spend more time in the fresh air;
- optimize your nutrition. It should be regular and balanced. Avoid fatty foods. If you are overweight, try to get rid of it;
- make sure to drink enough water (at least 2 liters per day);
- quit smoking and limit your alcohol consumption.
