If you feel unmotivated to move towards your goals, you have a dopamine problem. Period.

A mouse with no dopamine will still eat (or mate!) if his face is literally drooped into the food bowl. BUT, if deprived of dopamine, he will not move even one single body-length to go get food (and avoid starvation).

If you're failing to feel motivated, there are only five ways to intervene (behaviorally) to fix your dopamine driven motivation system.

1. Vision: Invest in wanting it

Pioneers wagon'd across inhospitable land for 6 months facing death and starvation to reach "streets paved with gold" in the West. McDonalds ads make you visualize slo-mo close-up cheesy melted goodness and laughing with friends.

Have you invested in your fantasy at even 1/10th that intensity to cement your desire for it?

2. Milestones: Create undeniable proof

Waking up and wagoning across a continent day-after-endless-day must feel like an eternal purgatory. But, crossing the Mississippi means you're half way.

Do you want to get fit, or "check in at the gym 30 days in a row?"

3. Progress: See the it coming closer

Dopamine mediates motivation to make sure the amount of effort you expend is "worth it" based on how much progress your brain perceives.

Do you have a way to see yourself moving towards the horizon? Or are you watching your feet?

4. Encouragement: Link action to identity

You can't wait to arrive to the other shore to tell yourself you've done a good job. There's too many reasons to be discouraged along the way.

Do you remind yourself while you walk, "this step, is a step towards progress. Good job!"

5. Celebration: Make action worth it

The brain produces drive to pursue behaviors that have been rewarded in the past.

Do you celebrate a good day's effort and small victories?