How do you stay motivated, to start or continue something, or does it mean you don't really want it?

Have no idea, but certainly know the feeling. Should be studying charts, planning trades, but I ‘m playing on the computer. Nothing constructive. And, I am in emergency mode, I have to do something before my money runs out. I don’t know if it’s fear, up against a wall or what. I haven’t slept in two days. Seriously trying to meditate my way out but don’t know. If you come up with a way let me know.

I don’t think that when motivation falters it means you don’t really want something. It just faltered. The deciding factor is if you choose to recognize this hurdle and overcome it. It’s those who get past the hurdles who really want something.

When I am doing something I really enjoy, time races past, I never need ‘motivation’.

I worked in a job for 15 years where I constantly had to motivate myself. It was the wrong job for me. However, the money I earned from doing it, became a new motivator.

Some procrastination is useful. It can weed out passing fancies and stuff that needed more thinking, to the point that you figure out it wasn’t such a good idea or that attractive.

If you know you need to do something, just take another step in that direction. If the next step seems to big or imposing to carry out, figure out how to take a smaller step.

Motivation is key. Picture something great that you will be able to achieve once you do whatever it is you are struggling to do, make it count too. Keep it on your person – written down, or in picture form if that’s possible – at all times, and rename all your pc games to “What the hell do you think you are doing?!” ;-)

Life is all about cycles, and cycles within cycles, to infinity and beyond.
We all must employ SOME discipline, to keep our lives functioning, keep our homes clean and in order, our cars running, the bills paid, our pets and families cared for properly, but aside form the basics, IMO everything else is should be approached with genuine desire not forced resignation.

I don’t do anything that I truly do not wish to do. If I have to force myself it means that there is not a genuine, inner motivation. This applies to work, all relationships as well as any goals.
I quit trying to fit my square peg into round holes years ago.

Knowing yourself and honoring that knowing is the most important work a human can ever do.

Focus on the goal, and always bear in mind that often the journey isn’t an easy one.

Nothing will work if the goal isn’t worthy enough.

Imagine motivation as momentum in a certain direction, or perhaps directions. Those people launching into their goals, dreams, pursuits, clearly have that momentum; you can see it, as they barrel on past.
That doesn’t, however, mean the people standing motionless, or more or less motionless, don’t have motivation. Maybe they have very many different motivation ‘vectors’ all with different, conflicting trajectories. Maybe they have other ‘vectors’ conflicting: fear, a sense of obligation, guilt, insecurity, doubt, etc. So the vectors get knotted together, and their net result is much more stagnant, or fleeting, or fleeing, than any of the original factors.
Discipline can be a factor, too, sure, an unwillingness to jump into the movement; but at least for me, stronger are unhelpful habits (which I’m rather disciplined in keeping) and ways of distancing myself, that have the outward, and very real, effect of bad discipline toward my motive.

It’s this idea that the outward may be a lack of overall momentum, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t motivation within struggling to be realized or revealed.

I’m not particularly adept at it, but what @Coloma said, Knowing yourself and honoring that knowing is the most important work a human can ever do. It just can also be scary as hell. If you want an answer, you’ll have to look and see what your knot looks like. And be then willing to sweat through working it to what you need it to be.This is where I’m stuck, currently, and I don’t know what to do with that.
But I like to imagine it as knots, many knots, because of a game my parents used to play with my sister and me when I was little. We would always manage to get our balls of yarn mangled in massive rats’ nests. It became a game to untangle and re-ball them. Often it took days of snaking the yarn through and teasing the mass. The lesson—that knots always do have a way of being undone, just by the fact they were made in the first place. You do have to do it, though.

Hopefully this helpful imagery.