How to Stay Motivated in Tough Times

It’s not easy to stay hopeful when things are falling apart, at home, at work, or in the world. But sometimes that’s just what you need to do. So how?

A week ago, I had lunch with a 91-year-old family friend, Dan Ellsberg, a notoriously influential political activist, who began our conversation by volunteering that his life’s work had no real impact. Despite all his efforts, he hadn’t changed the state of the world.

It’s an old topic between us. We are both romantic realists, a definition of liberal as opposed to a naïve romantic or a cynical realist. No matter how harsh reality gets, we don’t give up. At Dan’s age, he’s still recording TV interviews and writing op-eds, trying to keep us off the nuclear cusp.

Later that week, I spent two days with my best friend, a futurist who does good business and predicts a bright future as practically inevitable. He knows I think that’s more dubious and suspects I’m not as optimistic as I should be. I keep telling him that I’m no less optimistic than he is, although I keep testing his theories against reality.

But am I? can you be Can you face a deteriorating reality without damaging your hope? Who has so much control over their emotions? Can you be as hopeful the day after a cancer diagnosis as you were the day before?

Our feelings determine our behavior more than we care to admit. We like to pretend to weigh ideas on a scale bolted to the flat surface of unbiased logic, when in reality our emotions are tipping the scales like the deck of a heaving ship. We feel more than we think. We rationalize more than we are rational. How then could we brave an overwhelming disappointment and remain optimistic?

Is it even wise to remain unswervingly optimistic no matter how bad the writing on the wall gets? If you’re in a hole, should you stop or keep digging? If you stop at the slightest disappointment, you will get nowhere. If you keep digging no matter what, you risk becoming the kind of fool who calls to the top to keep their optimism up.

Here are a few thoughts on staying motivated despite hardship:

• One unit price at a glance, flexible with the part prices: Have a goal and adjust any sub-goals in response to discouragement. I picture this as having terminal cancer with the sole goal of doing as much as I can to survive. You could pin your hopes on one treatment and, when it fails, nimbly move on to another.
• Neither optimism nor pessimism nor possumism: Romantic realists know they need the news; They don’t play possum and hide from reality. They are romantic like oncologists or criminologists. To maximize their chances of getting good results, they take care of the obstacles. They also know that like cleaning the house, we have to do it over and over again. Disease and crime will always exist. They’re not naive enough to think they can end it.
• Know that the boat will roll: Romantic realists roll with the news. They’re like savvy entrepreneurs who realize they need to believe in their goals, but not so much that they’re blind to reality. Entrepreneurs fail in two ways: they are too self-critical to promote their idea, or they are too self-romantic to adapt their strategies to changing circumstances.
• Motivated despite hope: Humans are social creatures of habit. Habits keep us going more than we realize, especially social habits that are reinforced by what people expect of us. Relying on habit allows us to remain motivated and agnostic of how things will turn out. Hope is not the only motivator. We mostly just keep doing what we’re doing instead of checking how we’re doing every minute. Obama said, “It’s not the end of the world until the end of the world.”
• reveal nothing: People often act like they already know exactly how things are going to end – great or terrible, like people who spoil movies for you. They choose know-it-all instead of anticipation and doubt. They become doomscrollers, collecting evidence that confirms their worst fears, or conversely, dreaming only of inspiring platitudes about how their success is determined. It can feel safer to escape the tension inherent in romantic realism, but it’s not.
• Counter tip of the balance: If you’re feeling discouraged, check out some of the good news about reality. For example news about the technical solutions that we are finding now that we are facing the big problems. And conversely, when you’re feeling hopeful, then you can afford to face harsher realities.
• Use your clutch pedal: When I was raising kids, I stumbled across this Mr. Rogers tune, which addresses a point that’s easy to overlook. Feelings and thoughts don’t make things true. It’s all about whether you act on it. There is a clutch pedal between perception and action. When you’re down, you’re down, but when you’re pumping the clutch, you don’t have to pretend you’re down. At least not as impulsively as without this clutch.

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  Source: Created by the author.

• Bad, but not your fault: There’s a big difference between disappointment and shame. It’s worth remembering that you didn’t make this world. They didn’t design humanity. You didn’t even design yourself and your situation yourself. It’s easier to bear the burdens of this world when you remember that you are a guest here.
• Choose your price carefully: Some people’s ultimate goals are far out there – even in evil. They’re the kind of people we wish reality checks would wake up to. So, a final word on prices to keep an eye on. Your grand goal may sound heroic when you proclaim it, but imagine your enemies proclaiming the same goal. If they felt just as heroic crowing your subject as you did, you don’t really have a clear price in mind and might just be romanticizing yourself by pretending it’s exclusive to you.