When Your Effort Feels Pointless — The (Normal) Seasonal Dip in Motivation

Hello my lovelies, welcome back. This week we are moving on from why it's so hard to let go and instead we're talking about what happens when your effort itself starts to feel pointless and suddenly it's super easy to let go and you don't even know why you were doing all this work in the first place because they're kind of intimately related.

And either way, we sometimes feel like we're doing something wrong.

But I wanted to look at this as part of a natural cycle and part of seasonality, and to help you come to terms with whatever it is that you're feeling.

Where last week we talked about like what about not wanting to let things go or feeling like there's so much meaning in it or we've been working so hard, "I don't want to give it up."

Sometimes when we get to the peak of that, we wake up the next day and we're like, "You know what? I don't even know why I'd want to spend any more energy on this. I can't believe I've spent so much energy on this."

And there's anger and there's this sense of futility about the effort that we've been doing.

This is about trying to come to terms with it when we look at our efforts and feel like they've gotten us nowhere or (we) feel like to put more effort in wouldn't really change things.

And instead of looking at this as like a moral failure or a failure of effort or vision or whatever it is, to go, "Okay, this is a normal thing that happens." In almost every project at some point, we do hit a peak where we're like, "Okay, but why though? Why so hard? Why working so hard on this? Is it going to be okay if I released my efforts?"

And sometimes, I have to say, when I release efforting very hard on something and I find that it is still somehow managing to be okay without my work, without my heart, right? Like working really hard.

I then get really frustrated and sad and angry that somehow it's managing to still exist without how much energy I was putting into it because I had put so much energy. I'm like, why? Why did I do that if it was going to be okay anyway? If this was just going to happen anyway?

Mmm. It's a really hard thing to be with.

And it is something that we encounter. At least, I'd say at least once a year, but probably more than that.

I have come to understand that when I get that way.

Sometimes I need to look back up and look at the system and go, how amazing it is that I put so much effort in that this thing is still running on its own momentum even when I backed off and I've taken my foot off the gas. We're still rolling, and that's because of effort I put in.

I definitely have real feedback for that that I could share with you, in my real life and in my business is that when I had built up a really thriving one-to-one practice with coaching and I had said, "Okay, it's a summer and I need to back off because I've got summer events and activities I can plan for vacation. And then I'll be able to pick it back up again in the fall."

And then I didn't because my brother died and I... I just didn't have it to give.

I found that the business still ran great and I still had people and I was working fine for an entire year. It was okay and it held itself without me over-efforting or putting in more energy when I didn't have it.

I don't want to say, you know, efforting felt pointless at that point, but it kind of did. Like I just had nothing extra to give, and we all hit seasons of life like that where we're like, okay I just need the momentum to hold me because I can't put anything extra in right now.

It took a full nine to 12 months for things to taper and go, okay, I do need to put more effort in or it's going to continue to taper down. Like, you can only push the rock so much and have it roll down that hill before you have to like at least add a little bit to it to keep it moving.

So that's part of a regular and normal, I think, cycle of life is to realize you put a lot of effort in and then things often are capable of holding themselves at least for a little bit of time.

Now, it varies massively depending on what kind of project it is and how much effort you've put in and how much structure you have around something.

So in instances like that where you get angry, like how is it possibly continuing to move when I kind of built my identity around it needing me to do everything?

I think it can be a false conclusion to say that it didn't need you or that it wouldn't have done this without you.

And that can be really comforting. That's something that I definitely looked at in my life and my lived experiences to say, okay.

Some things I worked really hard on and I managed to see massive return on. And then I was actually sad and dismayed that things started changing later or like they held themselves or... didn't adjust fast enough for me, but all of that is because I set it up to be that way.

And that to me gives me great confidence in myself that I can set things up to do a different thing, or I could do it again if I needed to.

I can have faith in myself and my own processes in the same way that you can have faith in yourself and your processes as well.

What you create, it does do more than you think it does. It holds more than you think it does. It touches more people's lives and more aspects of your life than just that one area that you're focusing on.

When we hit this moment where we go, okay, I just I'm tired. I'm tired of even bothering. I'm tired of trying. I don't see that I'm getting the results that I wanted or I've just, I'm done with this goal, and I just don't even care anymore. What's going on?

We need to be able to be okay knowing that that feeling is going to arise. We don't need to judge ourselves for it. I think it's a normal aspect of doing anything. Like we can't do everything always the same way forever because we're not machines.

We don't live that way and nothing does. We start out tiny as little children and we grow up and we develop our minds and our bodies and our emotions and our relationships and then we have this long period of trying out things and adjusting and saving for the future and doing stuff and then, you know, like we have our declines and our ends.

And that's just how everything is. In nature, plants start from seeds and they grow and they bloom and they flower and then they die back and then they reinvent themselves again next year.

Not even reinvent, like they just, they come back the same and different. And that's us too. We come back every year, the same and different.

We've learned, we've grown, we've taken some hits, we've had to adjust, we've been ill, we've recovered.

All of those things. And that's normal and it's okay and it's expected. It's not us failing. It's not us doing it wrong.

It's just part of life. I think that what we're really looking for when we become so detached from a goal that we no longer want it and we're like, why would I even bother anyway, is that we've kind of perhaps disconnected from the meaning of what we were doing or the motivation behind it.

Sometimes we have like existential questioning of like, but why? Why do we do the things that we do?

Or it can also just be the result of an energy drop that's completely natural, because again, we have peaks and valleys and it's always going to happen. So what we want to do is just accept that as with all things we go up and down hills.

When we find ourselves in the trough, that's alright, we will come back up again, but it's not necessarily through efforting. It's not necessarily through trying to forge meaning that isn't there.

Sometimes in the trough, what we need to do is reconnect with meaning and help tell ourselves a story that maybe is a little bit better about what happened and what we're letting go. I have noticed for myself that when I'm in the "why am I even bothering this?" it's really hard. I'm very frustrated.

I'm telling a lot of really angry stories about why I didn't succeed, why it's taking so long, why my effort was futile, why did I try so hard, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's all about why I didn't get something. And I find the compassionate thing for me to do then is to just like, uh-huh, like have the little light bulb go off above me and imagine that and go, okay.

That's one perspective, but I can also look at everything that did happen well, what I did gain.

Where was I going and why did I do that and could I have possibly done anything different than I did really as the person that I am, or did I actually genuinely show up and do everything exactly in the right way at that time as myself? And I think the answer to that is always yes for us.

We're always showing up at the capacity that we are. Everyone's trying our best. Everyone's putting effort in as we can. And I don't think there is a way that we could have done differently than we did.

Because you were in the circumstance and in the moment that you were. And as the person you are, you're gonna react the way that you do, and we do try our best.

So when I think that, I'm like, "Oh, okay, with compassion, Blaze. Everything you've tried this year, you have put the maximum effort that was available to you into it.
And you did it thoughtfully in the way that you do, and you set it up in the way that you felt best. And it's okay that that effort now feels too much, or it feels wrong, or like the wrong direction."

This is a normal course correction. It's something natural and it's okay to allow that and to go through your feelings about it and not judge them. I think it's so important that we allow ourselves to be angry and upset at ourselves at the thing that we were working on at everything without judging it or even the other people are the things that were judging in that moment. I don't know how to say this properly.

It's like through the expression of that feeling and allowing it to exist and getting it out. It suddenly frees up this clear space or lets me look at that and go, "Oh, I actually don't feel that way anymore."

I don't need to keep recreating being angry at it, because that holds me hostage too. And that's part of why I'm so mad at having spent so much energy is that I'm now wasting energy. I'm being mad about having wasted energy.

I think it's like that can be like the dark underbelly of looking in the mirror is you get mad at everything and everyone around you and what's happened.

But I think that the role of looking at our lives and looking at what we've done can be more about refinement.

It can be more about picking up what the true essence is of what you were attempting to accomplish and deciding whether that aim has been met or its time has reached fulfillment.

And finding some kind of peace with that and recognizing that there is meaning and you can carry forward what truly mattered there and it can take a new form and it's probably supposed to.

I think one of the beautiful things about moving through the year a little bit more deliberately and slowly is that I'm able to embrace these tiny changes and subtle changes while still being myself. Going, "Okay, I'm still me. I'm still doing all the things and being who I am. I can't really change that. But how I express it and what I feel motivated to do does change. Minute by minute, day by day, week by week, season by season."

That's okay, it's awesome. And it means that I will get breaks. Oh my gosh! And I feel maybe that's part of it too, is this deep desire for a break by this time.

I've worked really, really hard. I've had so many ideas and I'm just tired and I need a break. So sometimes we're mad because we realize that projects that we started are never going to be complete this fast.

They can't be done in one year or five years or even ten. Like they're the work of a lifetime.

And so when we get tired, if we feel like we're not allowed to rest, if we feel like we have to keep efforting very hard and keep working and forcing things. That's when we just feel like, "Okay, that's futile. I'm never gonna get there. There's always gonna be more to do."

What if the answer to that is yes? There is always going to be more to do, of course.

There's nothing wrong with that. The only wrong thing is to keep pushing just as hard today as I was six months ago.

Maybe that relative level of effort needs to change throughout the year, throughout the season and throughout a project.

It can ebb and flow. It should ebb and flow. No one can keep up the same level of fortitude... like we're not in an Olympic race every single day. We might be able to show up with that level of engagement and training and focus for very brief periods of time, but nobody should be expected or could keep up that level of intensity all days. So why do we expect that of ourselves?

I find so much relief in that thought and go, "Okay, ah, that's where I can start releasing the judgment is." Of course, I can't keep doing everything to the same level of effort that I was doing it when I started. But I will again, if I give myself the break.

We need the ups and we need the downs. We need a little bit of breathing space somewhere within there.

I think maybe what we need as a society is to admit to ourselves when we hit these moments of like, "I can't believe, I just don't want to do it anymore. I'm done. I'm tired. I want to walk away."

This isn't a lack of motivation problem. I think it's a misdirection of energy or a misunderstanding of energy. And what we really need is permission to slow down and to understand that of course there's going to be a seasonal dip.

Of course, in any project too, if you look at the course of it, there's going to be a dip in energy somewhere. We have to embrace that. We have to allow it to exist because powering through it is not the way to complete. It's not the way to feel good about it anyway.

Often, I find when we push too hard anyway, we start to get sloppy and we make mistakes and that's when regrets can come in.

But if we're able to really see things as it is and go, "Okay, energy is low. Motivation feels like it's low. I'm only angry because I care. If I didn't care, I'd just stop. It wouldn't even be a thought for me."

So remember that too. If you have frustration about something that you're working on and you're angry about the effort that's been put in or you don't want to let it go for those kinds of reasons, it's because you care. It's something that feels important to you, that you do want to succeed and embracing the energy and embracing
where you are now, which is that apparently things need to have a pause and re-collect before the energy gathers enough to keep going.

I think of this season as this big well, like a big bowl, and it needs to gather enough energy to continue to pour forward. So like if it was a river pouring down hill, this is where it needs to kind of gather in a pond before I can keep going down that hill.

Otherwise, it just, there's not enough. If we don't allow it to gather... it just kind of dissipates and there's nothing.

So I'm hoping that this week you're able to maybe locate yourself somewhere in there and go, "Oh, okay, maybe some of the things that I'm really super angry and frustrated about just need a moment of pause, and it's not about forcing. It's not about changing who I am or deciding that my effort wasn't enough because it was. Maybe it's just about the landscape of how things are moving through here."

And it's completely okay to just be with that and give it some space, because again, as I talked about last week,

You are going to find motivation again. There's no way that you're not going to suddenly find, or slowly find inspiration gathering and ideas and energy to be able to do all this stuff again.

But typically it cannot do that if we don't allow for this seasonal relaxation, quieting of everything, give ourselves time to be able to feel and think through it and let it just not be the center of our being or our activity right now.

All of that will arise again and it's coming, but for now, maybe it's okay to let go just a little bit.

I look forward to talking to you next week.

I believe I would like to talk about the experience of being in that emptiness. When you do decide it's okay. When you finally hit the like, "Oh, okay, I'm done forcing. I'm ready to let go." I felt through my sads and regrets and all of that. I felt through the frustration and the futility of everything.

And now I've reached this sense of peace. It's kind of nice to be there, but it's also a little strange, and I don't think we're very comfortable with these long bouts of peace and silence.

So let's delve into that while the delving is good. Before the holidays are rushing in, it's a really nice time to touch in with ourselves and with our feelings and be with what I feel honestly is probably the heart of the season and it's what we've kind of been moving towards this whole time through doing that gathering and reflection on everything that we've been doing over the year and all of our conclusions and goals.

It's a peaceful time and let's enjoy it together.

I look forward to seeing you then.

Related Episodes

Continuing the Honest Year Review series:

We're deep in the heart of the autumn arc now — this episode sits between the ache of letting go (last week) and the peace of true emptiness (next week), completing the emotional cycle of the season's reflection.

• Ep 52: Why Letting Go Is So Hard — The Emotional Weight of Ending a Goal, Habit, or Identity — Last week's companion: the futility spike is often what finally lets us release what we couldn't let go of before.
• Ep 51: What Level of Done Is Done? — Knowing When a Project or Goal Is Complete — The structural question underneath this episode's emotional one: is this complete, or just paused?
• Ep 50: What Counts as Enough — Redefining Accomplishment Beyond Society's Standards — The foundation for refusing to judge a seasonal dip as failure: there is no ruler for enough.

Explore further:

• Ep 13: Motivation vs. Capacity — Why You're Not Lazy (And How to Start Without Forcing It) — This episode's "this isn't a lack of motivation problem" is the direct descendant of Blaze's capacity framework.
• Ep 10: Wintering — The Power of Rest and Retreat — The deep-dive companion on trusting that momentum returns when the season changes: winter's lesson, arriving early.

✨ Tired of forcing what used to flow?

If this episode gave you permission to pause, the Living in Rhythm Starter Kit will help you use that pause well. This free resource guides you through identifying your true values and moving with your feelings instead of against them — so when the energy gathers and pours forward again, it's carrying your aims, not inherited ones.

Download the free Living in Rhythm Starter Kit

Or subscribe to Soul Letters, Blaze's monthly newsletter, for seasonal reflections that meet you wherever you are in the cycle — trough, peak, or pond.

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