You lost your motivation. Now what?
Everyone needs a future they can look forward to.
Every student in every class I’ve ever taught has, at some point, felt a loss of motivation.
I can relate.
When I was student, it was sometimes all I could do to drag myself out of bed and trudge thru the snow to get to my undergraduate physics lectures.
Even though I wanted to learn physics, there was something blocking me from showing up in class, taking notes, and following instructions.
It wasn’t the difficulty of the challenge. The material was always within my grasp.
So, what was holding me back?
One theory on loss of motivation is related to dopamine (e.g., Wise 2004). According to this theory, learning and memory are more effective when they are accompanied by dopamine supply to the brain. And when your brain is low on dope, it presents such a serious psychological problem that you’ll do almost anything to get it.
The alternative to getting the dose of dopamine your brain craves is to sink into a malaise — a low energy state of apathy — as if the only alternative to feeling bad is to feel nothing at all.
Those are the days when it’s most difficult to get out of bed.
