Finding Your Inner Drive When Motivation is Low

I don’t know about you, but my fire has felt a little stamped out lately. Maybe it’s the deep freeze of winter. Maybe it’s the never-ending to-do list that seems to eat up all my time and energy leaving little reserved for myself. Either way, my inner fire—my agni—has been feeling a little weak these last few days.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve been feeling stuck, unmotivated, or just plain meh, you’re not alone. The urge to hunker down under eight blankets and mindlessly scroll is real. But here’s the thing—how we spend our energy matters. And when we’re constantly giving it away to distractions, stress, or obligations, we have little left to fuel our own vitality.

Where’s Your Energy Going?

One of the things I asked my students in class this week was: Where do you send your energy all day long?

If you’re an iPhone user, you probably get that weekly screen time report. And let me tell you, a few months back, mine gave me a rude awakening. Six hours a day on my phone?! Sure, I teach online, so some of that is legit. But four extra hours? Just flicking through nonsense? That’s a time robber.

And the thing is, we all have these little energy suckers in our lives—things we think are giving us a break, but in reality, they’re draining us. We end up depleted, running on fumes, and wondering why we feel so exhausted all the time.

Reclaiming Your Fire

So how do we stoke the inner fire? How do we keep our agni burning so that we feel strong, focused, and able to show up for ourselves?

Well, simply put, it starts with awareness. With getting clear on what’s consuming our energy and what’s replenishing it. Yoga and Ayurveda teach us that everything we consume—food, breath, movement, thoughts—affects our fire. If we want to keep that flame burning, we have to feed it the right things at the right time.

Some of the most powerful tools to do this include:

• Movement: Any kind of movement helps. Be it a specific exercise, or sporting activity, it doesn’t matter. When it comes to yoga practice, core work and twisting postures are great ways to stimulate and support your digestive power.
• Breathwork: Techniques like Ujjayi or Kapalabhati Pranayama which heat, cleanse and energize the body are wonderful practices. But so too is simply pausing and consciously taking a deep breath or two.
• Rest: Rest and relaxation are such an important piece when it comes to one’s health and wellbeing, and yet can so easily be overlooked. Savasana, corpse pose, is one simple way to offer yourself a few moments rest. It’s easy to skip over, but a vital piece of a yoga practice. Then of course we need quality sleep, nourishing food, and time and opportunity to genuinely explore stillness practice (ie. meditation) which all help prevent burnout.

The Hardest Part About Being an Adult…

The hardest part of sustaining your fire? There’s no one there to tell you to put down the phone, step away from the chaos, and do the things that actually fuel you. No one is going to ground you and send you to bed early. That’s all on you.

And I know—it’s so much easier to keep doing the things that don’t require effort. But the reality is, the more we feed our fire with appropriate practices, the stronger it becomes. The more we take those small steps—rolling out the mat, taking five deep breaths, choosing nourishing foods, getting outside—the more resilient, motivated, and alive we feel.

So, if you need a nudge, consider this your sign. Your energy matters. Your fire matters. And you are 100% worth the effort to keep it burning.

Want to put this into action? Join me in my live-streaming classes, each Saturday morning at 8:30am (or catch the recordings in my online library if you can’t make it live). We’ll breathe, move, and refuel our motivation, and drive—together.

See you on the mat.

xoM