Lack of motivation in life

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Does anyone else experience this? I just sort of coast along and go with the flow of things. I'm definitely employed below my intelligence level and also under educated for my intelligence level. I don't have the "get up and go" to work hard at my job because it really doesn't interest me at all but I also have a hard time motivating myself to go out there and find a new one.

It's basically how my life goes with everything. Friends, relationships, etc. I want those things desperately but I don't have the motivation to go and get them or to maintain them when it does happen.

Anyone else feel that way?

Yeah I can relate to some extent. According to the internet (so it must be true ) I should be a professor or a surgeon with my IQ scores. Now I don't think my brain is way up there but I'm definitely employed below my abilities. The thing is, I hate stress. I like to do a job where I can just do it, go home and forget about it. I can be very motivated if I want something enough but as far as work is concerened I'm not interested at all, it's just a way to pay the bills. I'm not materialistic so I don't feel the need to earn more money so why get a better job when I'm happy where I am? So long as people don't assume I'm an idiot because I clean houses for a living then happy days. I do get spoken down to sometimes by people who think they can treat domestic staff like crap but that's their problem. If they want to make assumptions about me or anyone else based on their job then they're obviously rather stupid themselves.

rant over

In some areas of my life, yes. Aspies tend to give up on the world pretty early on. I remember I used to be determined and motivated like no one around me, until I started maturing and saw no point in most of it. There's things I'm motivated to do, but they're few and far between. Not sure if it's a phase or something permanent... time will tell.

I used to feel that way until I went on a gluten-free/casein-free diet. If you can't fully digest the proteins in wheat and milk, they act like opiates. I think high levels of opiates is what used to make me unmotivated but a couple weeks after I started the diet I wasn't as content being alone and I started spending more time around other people. Probiotics help with digestion and may reduce or eliminate the need for the diet. Any inability to digest wheat and milk doesn't cause any digestive symptoms so probiotics can help even if you think your digestion is normal.

At the moment I am completely un-motivated.
This is a shame as I could be doing great things that have a purpose.

I used to be very motivated as a child and a pre-teen. When I was about 13-14, I started to lose my motivation...now I am 16 and feel that I have none left. It's almost like, my mind has just given up trying and just accepted my fate.
I am moving out of home soon. I am still jobless, not in study, have no real life friends and basically am too tired to get out of bed most mornings. I find it silly, that I sit and complain about my life, yet do nothing to improve it.

To answer the question...yes, I am un-motivated.

I also lack motivation. I have a poor job, and feel I am destined for better things, yet I don't have the motivation to fulfil this. I really don't want to try some GF/CF diet, though.

I've never really had much movitation to do anything. Any time I am actually motivated, it's usually for something very important to me personally, regardless of whether or not it has a practical use outside the narrow interest. I have an IQ of 110 (as of 6-7 years ago when I was tested), but I don't really put it to use. Pity and/or scorn is generally what you get when you explain to somebody that you have no motivation to get a job, make friends, get a higher education, become self-reliant, etc. Doesn't make it any less true, however. Besides, when NTs always treat you like dirt in a job, what's the point in trying to get motivated?

A gluten/casein-free diet would be wonderful to try out and see if I get motivation, but I'd end up starving because it's the main part of my diet. No control over what food gets bought, and no income of my own to buy for myself, heh.

yes. wich makes me appear lazy when i really am not

You may want to try some inexpensive probiotics. The cheap brands are less than $5 for one month. Yogurt contains some probiotics so eating it may help. Even if it doesn't help, it should at least help make your immune system stronger. I've been off the gfcf diet 3 weeks now and don't think I will need it anymore thanks to probiotics. I think my life would have been so much better had I taken them sooner.

I've tried several times to be motivated, and met up with impedance the majority of the time. Like everybody else, I've given up most of my drive and settled.

It kind of bothers me that this has to happen to us. So what I propose is this: Instead of asking "How low is your motivation?", I suggest we ask ourselves, "How can we change this?"

Pardon my minor rantings, but I just think that there should be a solution to this.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my biggest hurdle to staying motivated is that everything seems so much HARDER for me to accomplish than it does for "normal" people. It seems like anything I want out of life, it takes ten times the amount of effort it would a normal person. Things that are no big deal to most people take me a year of planning, twice the normal time investment, and then an exhausting amount of upkeep. In addition all the change and effort makes me super anxious and stressed. It seems like I am perpetually stuck in low gear while everyone else is in overdrive, and I can't "shift". If I try to go too fast, I just grind the gears and break down.

In a way I have given in to my limitations. I have decided to do what I want to do, and what I can do, and not what everybody else is doing or accomplishing. When I try to hold myself up against my peers my own age, I fall flat every time. Still, it is NOT an excuse to give up. Do what you can, you know? I used to be very unmotivated, but I don't allow it to happen anymore. I have finally convinced myself I am worthy of the kind of life I'd like to lead and am taking steps to make that happen. As soon as I accomplish a goal, I create a new one. The key for me is setting goals that are within my capabilities. Then when I accomplish them easily, it really encourages me and I'm ready to move on to the next thing!

Once I stopped making excuses about why I couldn't do things and just started DOING them, I have accomplished a lot more than I ever thought possible.

+1

Although I have to say, there are lots of things I'd like to do, that I think I'd enjoy doing, that would pay more than the hammering away at a keyboard I do now. Problem is, all of them require more human-to-human interaction. A lot more, in the cases of the things I'm interested in - I tried to do fundraising with an opera company, completely crashed and burned, it's just not something I can do. My theoretical underpinning and understanding is good, but in person, not so much. Similarly, I did toy with the idea of being a councellor (don't laugh). I'm actually really good at helping people understand what their problems are and where they're going wrong in life. Online. Ask me via IM or E-mail, be open with me, I can help. But in person, I miss the nonverbal cues that mark out people who're really good at that job. I'd need to seem honest - lots of eye contact. You need to be able to make people feel comfortable in a way that I'm just not capable of. Or politics. I love politics. Yeah. Again, needs people skills.
It's like the universe set me up with interests that are impossible for me to use in the workplace because each of them requires more and more subtle human interaction skills than I have. So I sit infront of a computer, don't talk to anyone, and listen to music and podcasts for crappy money. Oh well, I guess it could be worse.
It doesn't even seem worth trying to find something I'd enjoy - I don't believe that job exists.

Excellent attitude kitschinator! That's pretty much the formula for a successful, happy life.

I feel strongly unmotivated, I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to ever attend any post-high school education of any sort (unless its like a 2-day course for some sort of job training). I can barely stand going to work as it is.

I think lack of positive feedback is one of the biggest causes of my lack of motivation. And even if other people are giving me praise, a lot of the time I tend to brush it off, unless I make the concious effort to accept it..

I think every time in the past that I thought I had found a new career that maybe I could do, I would get motivated.... Eventually, after hitting brick wall after brick wall... I don't feel motivated much any more...