Having a high level of motivation is not necessary. According to Joshua C. Klapow, PhD., a clinical psychologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, “The key to staying motivated is similar to fuel in a car – you don’t need the “motivation tank” to be full to drive, you just need to prevent it from running empty. This means that people should not waste their time and energy to be highly motivated because motivation has its own natural rhythm. Most people see a drop in motivation as a sign of failure but it’s clearly not,” he says.