Why motivation disappears — and how relief brings it back

Overview

- Motivation is a response, not a trait — it appears when basic physiological and safety needs are addressed.
- Fix your foundation first: sleep, nutrition, finances, safe environment, and reduced mental load restore energy and clarity.
- Action still required: once the foundation is fixed, you must take daily action (prospecting, posting, conversations) to get paid.
- Support and mentorship restore capacity — Stephanie Zima offers the Freedom Mentorship to help put life puzzle pieces in order.
- Concrete KPIs mentioned: $500 / $1,000 / $10,000 per month goals, post daily, ~10 conversations/week, 80% (majority) needing help, 1–3% high-earners.

Intro & promise — who this is for

- Introduces Walk It Free Mentorship for healing, connection, and leveling up.
- Addresses online entrepreneurs across platforms and urges attention.
- Emphasizes building a solid foundation before applying systems and strategies.
- Requires daily execution of sales, prospecting, branding, and posting for success.
- Frames income goals from $500, $1,000, to $10,000+ per month as achievable outcomes of a solid foundation.

Motivation vs survival needs
- Motivation is a response, not a character trait or discipline problem.
- Motivation follows basic needs; survival needs (air, water, food, shelter, sleep) drive action without external prompting.
- Survival mode overrides long-term goals; imminent threats (job loss, no money) provoke urgent creativity and action.
- Financial cushions (credit, debt) and comfort reduce urgency; reliance on mentors or uplines replaces self-driven action.
- Constant mental load and depletion drain capacity; overwhelm shuts down creativity — explains loss of motivation within two weeks of 2026.

Mental load, overwhelm, and healing
- Mental load and depletion reduce motivation, drain capacity, and shut down creativity.
- Relief and professional support must come first before business growth; support restores energy, clarity, and motivation.
- Fix environment and basic physiological and safety needs (sleep, nutrition, paying bills, stop toxic relationships) to enable consistent action and clarity.
- Taking action is necessary to earn income; forcing action while overwhelmed deepens burnout and prevents sustainable results.
- Stephanie Zima urged immediate change before 2026 and stated goal to help 80% of people stop feeling so awful.

Practical fixes, purpose, and mentorship
- Motivation requires basic safety; excessive mental load, exhaustion, or overwhelm causes shutdown and prevents motivation.
- Fix foundational needs first: simplify processes, create easy morning/work routines, ensure rest, and clarify necessary tasks.
- Posting without deliberate audience-building rarely generates sales; consistent posting alone is ineffective.
- Hunger for action arises from pressing needs or from purpose; urgent financial pressure or self-actualization drives sustained effort.
- Stephanie Zima prioritizes helping the 80% underserved, offers the Freedom Mentorship and one-on-one discovery sessions via DM, credits foundation work for resilience through personal crises, and forecasts 2026 as a strong year.

Transcript

Transcript of Heal Your Foundation

Created on January 02, 2026 by Summary AI

00:11

Hello, hello, Stephanie Zima here with Walk It Free Mentorship, where we heal, connect and level up.

00:19

Okay, if you are an online entrepreneur, you are anyone who's building a business online, you want to tune

in to me, whether or not you're doing this on the live video version here, or you're doing this with my podcast,

one way or another, you want to pay attention.

00:37

Because, I will help you to get off this emotional rollercoaster that you're on, onto a solid foundation from

where you can actually build a business that you are looking to do.

00:49

Whether or not you want to make $500 a month, or $1000 a month, or you want to make $10,000 a month,

or beyond, everything starts with having a solid foundation that you can work and apply the systems, the

strategies, the, you know, all the things that you're learning on, right?

01:10

All of this stuff you are needing to build on a solid foundation, because if you are like flimsy, if you are not

doing the things every single day that you should be doing, the sales techniques every single day, if you

reach out to prospecting, your branding, your posting, all these things, if you don't do it on a

01:28

daily basis, chances are you are not having any success.

01:32

Okay, so, having said that, here we go, we're going to go start right now with talking about if motivation,

because that's what many of you are dealing with, and, you know, as we're going into 2026, of course, we

are having a ton of motivation, because it's a new year, and yada, yada, but you all know that in

01:54

two weeks, you're falling off the wagon, right?

01:56

In two weeks, latest, if not earlier, you are going to fall off the wagon, and motivation is going to be gone, and

you don't know how and why that is, and I'm going to tell you today why that is, okay?

02:10

why.

So, if motivation worked on willpower alone, exhausted women would never struggle, but they do, and here's

02:23

Motivation is not a discipline problem.

02:26

Motivation is a response, not a character trait, okay?

02:32

A response to what exactly?

02:35

When we feel motivated, it's because we are trying to fill a need of some sort, okay?02:43

It's the basic needs that are coming before the ambition.

02:48

So, if your basic need is to survive, you will do everything, you'll be always motivated.

02:54

Nobody will have to motivate you to eat, for example, right?

02:59

Nobody has to motivate you to drink or to sleep, right?

03:04

Sorry, I have to adjust my seat here.

03:07

No one has to motivate you to do these things.

03:10

You are doing these things naturally without anyone else, and that is because it's a basic need.

03:17

To sleep, to eat, to drink, it's a basic need.

03:21

Air, water, shelter, all these things is a basic need, right?

03:24

to make that happen.

You know that you need to get those things, and therefore, no one ever, ever, ever will need to motivate you

03:35

Survival modes override long-term goals.

03:38

If you are in survival mode, you will make it happen.

03:44

That's why the hungry people are usually the ones that are winning, okay?

03:50

And many of us are actually not hungry enough.

03:53

We don't use our business in survival mode.

03:59

That's why we are looking for somebody else to do something for us, okay?

04:04

We are looking for mentors to help us.

04:08

We are looking for people to carry us, our uplines.

04:18

We are looking for them to carry us through this.

04:20

We are looking for our boss to tell us what to do, right?04:24

But I tell you, I promise you that if you are about to lose your job, you probably will come up with ideas, right?

04:33

If your upline is non-existent and you have zero money in the bank and you need to pay a bill or you need to

put food on the table, you are probably figuring out how to get that information and make that happen.

04:46

for.

But because we are cushy, we either rely on our credit cards to pay and substitute the money we are looking

04:58

Or we have other ways, even though we are saying we don't have any money, but, you know, somehow

we've all gotten so accustomed to debt.

05:06

But until the debt is so much that they're going to cut you off and now you're getting hungry, right?

05:12

Now you're starting to do this.

05:15

Or if you don't have any credit cards and you are not able to put something on there and you need to feed

yourself, now it becomes a need, okay?

05:25

So those are the things.

05:27

You have to really internalize this.

05:30

You have to understand that if motivation would be a discipline problem, it would be able to be fixed, but it's

not, okay?

05:38

So what exactly is the problem here?

05:44

It's the mental load and the depletion that actually steals your motivation.

05:50

Constant responsibility drains your capacity.

05:54

And overwhelm shuts down your creativity.

05:57

When you are feeling super overwhelmed with all the stuff that you're happening all over the place that's

going on, that is what the real problem is.

06:06

It's not that you don't have enough motivation.

06:08

It's not that you don't have anybody on your side.

06:11

It's the fact that your mental load is draining you, okay?06:15

You're constantly having responsibility.

06:17

You're constantly having things to do.

06:19

And overwhelm just shuts you completely off.

06:23

So instead of being able to think of your brand and fun things to do, fun challenges to motivate or systems to

create or having, you know, contests that maybe get your people new engaged, engaged, you're just

shutting down.

06:43

And when you force the action, when you force the action, because you know somehow you must, right?

06:49

If you feel blame and responsibility and you kind of, you want to try, if you force yourself, then you are just

deepening your burnout.

06:59

That's what it is, if you don't heal it, if you don't get to the bottom of it, okay?

07:06

Relief has to come first before you dive deep into your business and make it all happen, right?

07:13

This year, 2026, we are, you know, two weeks away from quitting everything again.

07:17

If you haven't done anything to help your mental load, if you haven't done anything to fix your environment, if

you haven't done anything to stop toxic relationships that drain you, if you haven't taken care of figuring out

how to get more sleep, how to, you know, have proper nutrition, how to pay your bills, right?

07:45

Or what that will look like, if you haven't figured out your basic physiological and safety needs, chances are

you're continuing to be exhausted.

07:57

You're continuing to burn out and you will not build your business.

08:03

So if you want to change that in 2026, I need you to hear me because I've lived this.

08:08

I know exactly what I'm talking about.

08:10

And this is so, so true.

08:13

Healing has to come first.

08:14

First, support restores the energy and your clarity.

08:18

So what does it mean?08:19

Support of someone that can put the puzzle pieces together, like the freedom mentor, right?

08:26

The freedom mentorship.

08:27

That's what we do in Walking It Free.

08:28

We are taking all these different puzzle pieces that life has to offer, and then I help putting them in order.

08:37

I'm helping to not just see the whole big overwhelm part, but to say, you know what, we don't need to worry

about social media strategies right now.

08:47

We need to worry about fixing up our environment so we can actually take the first action, meaning showing

up in the marketplace.

08:56

See, you think about how do I get new customers and how do I get new followers and how do I be

omnipresent and how do I do all these things?

09:07

environment.

But can I tell you, please, that instead of doing all more strategies and adding on, you've got to fix up your

09:17

You've maybe got to make it that you can have a morning routine, that you can maybe have a moment to

breathe, to think, who am I?

09:27

What do I even want to do?

09:29

How can I serve my clients?

09:31

What makes me unique?

09:33

Like, you have to have some downtime.

09:35

You have to have time to think.

09:37

You have to have time to figure this out.

09:41

And if you don't, if you don't, you are just literally going to burn yourself out and you're not going to get that

momentum, okay?

09:50

You've got to make some time to restore that energy and find that clarity.

09:56

Why am I here?09:57

What am I looking to do?

09:59

See, I'm here to help the 80% to stop feeling so awful.

10:04

Like, I see it all over the place, okay?

10:07

You all are having anxiety and depression and you have needs, okay?

10:13

You have credit card bills up to the yin yang.

10:16

You want more travel.

10:18

You want to have experience.

10:20

You want to live life, but you can't because you're stuck.

10:23

You're stuck in the bills.

10:25

You're stuck in the drama.

10:26

You're stuck in toxicity.

10:29

You're stuck with relationships that you don't like.

10:32

You have no way out, right?

10:34

And that's what you call life.

10:36

And you are in an online business likely to create extra money because you do have awareness that when

you have extra money, you have options, right?

10:46

I'm not saying you have to be rich.

10:48

I'm just saying that, you know, if you have extra money, you have options.

10:51

You are going to be able to take care of yourself financially.

10:54

You are going to be able to take care of your debt.

10:56

You're going to be able to take care of, you know, whatever, getting yourself some help in terms of having a

cleaning lady or having somebody to cook for you or ordering out sometimes, right?11:06

You don't even need to have a cook sometimes it's just ordering out so you don't have to cook for yourself

and you get a break in the kitchen.

11:16

Sometimes, maybe it's like you say, hey, you know, I want to take my family for a two-day ski trip.

11:23

And it was amazing, but it was also pricey, not going to lie.

11:27

Going skiing in the Midwest is expensive.

11:29

I don't know how it is out in Colorado or Utah probably too.

11:33

I mean, I'm looking at ski lift tickets over there.

11:35

It's like, ooh, you know.

11:38

Now, there are things we want to do in this world, but everything costs money, obviously.

11:43

Good food, good nutrition costs a lot of money.

11:46

So, you know, here's the thing.

11:48

I know you're doing your business because you want extra money to come in.

11:53

Here's the truth to the matter.

11:55

In order to get money in, you have to take action.

11:58

If you don't take action, you're not going to get paid.

12:02

That's it, okay?

12:03

Guys, this is it.

12:04

You know that.

12:05

You know that if you don't take action, you don't get paid.

12:09

And it doesn't matter who you blame.

12:10

You can blame your upline and you can blame your boss and you can blame everybody and his mother.12:15

But it's not going to help you.

12:17

What's going to help you is figure out why you're so mentally overwhelmed.

12:21

You know, you can tell me, oh, I'm a single mom and I have all these.

12:24

I do too, okay?

12:26

But here's what I want to tell you.

12:28

If you fix your physiological needs, basics, how much sleep do you get?

12:35

How can we fix up your nutrition, right?

12:38

Like, what do you eat?

12:40

Maybe instead of picking all the processed food, maybe you put a couple times something fresh.

12:47

I just had a friend over for my daughter and I offered her a fresh broccoli and I didn't laugh because she did.

12:57

She did try it and she gagged.

13:00

I have never seen my kids gag on broccoli, but everybody is different, right?

13:05

If you've never tried it, if you've never done it, it's like you just won't do it.

13:10

So you have to sometimes try certain things and figure out what you might like and what you may not like.

13:17

But be curious.

And if you are, like, so overwhelmed with stuff, you can't even be curious of what you're going to like.

13:18

13:24

You cannot even be on the search.

13:28

You're just going to be stuck.

13:30

And you don't want to be stuck, right?

13:31

You don't want to be stuck.13:32

That's why you're listening to me.

13:34

Okay. So where was I?

13:36

Support restores energy and clarity.

13:38

Yes. Motivation naturally returns when the safety is returned.

13:43

I need you to hear that.

13:44

When your safety feels returned, now you get motivated.

13:50

Okay. So you have to imagine it this way.

13:53

So first, I also said that if you're hungry, you're going to be motivated.

13:59

So here's the thing.

14:01

There's two levels to it.

14:03

If you are not feeling safe, meaning you're overextended, your mental load is crazy, you are tired, you are

exhausted, like everything is too much, you shut down, you burn out.

14:15

You cannot be motivated because that will just kill you, literally right there, right?

14:21

That's obviously where you need to address it first.

14:24

You need to figure out how can I make processes easier?

14:27

How can I get an easy morning routine?

14:29

How can I get an easy program to get some work in?

14:32

What should I even need to do?

14:33

What do I need to do?

14:34

Do I even know what I need to do?

14:36

Many of you don't know what to do.14:38

You don't know basically generation.

14:40

You don't know how to do posting.

14:43

You copy and paste and then pray that somebody is going to reach out to you and that is not going to

happen.

14:51

Guys, I've done this for eight years.

14:53

You can post every single day.

14:54

Nobody is going to reach out to you.

14:57

There's a lot of people that maybe say, yes, nice things, this, this, but people are not just saying, oh, he, me,

I need to buy that stuff.

15:05

That is really rarely going to happen to you.

15:09

Sometimes you can maybe disagree with me and say, oh, this happened to me all the time.

15:12

Well, let's see, what have you done naturally to build an audience?

15:17

What have you done naturally that you may not be aware of that actually caused other people to be curious?

15:24

Because that is what it is.

15:26

If you are somebody that doesn't have a big following and doesn't have a lot of audience or influence over

people, if you just post and pray, it's not going to happen to you.

15:36

I promise.

15:37

I know that.

15:38

So what do you need to do?

15:40

You need to fix up yourself, meaning how can I feel safe?

15:44

How can I have enough rest?

15:45

How can I have good energy?15:46

How can I feel okay about what it is that I'm doing?

15:51

And then you need to have the second tier, your safety needs, right?

15:56

How can I feel safe as a salesperson?

15:58

How can I feel safe?

15:59

what I'm doing.

You have to reframe your mindset to actually be able to post, to show yourself online, to say, hey, this is

16:07

This is who I am.

16:09

I'm going to put myself out there, okay?

16:12

got to offer.

Because only when you put yourself out there, people are going to be aware of who you are and what you've

16:19

So how can I do that when I don't feel safe?

16:23

You can't.

16:24

Okay? Love and belonging is the same thing.

16:27

If you don't love yourself, if you don't love your mission, if you don't love your vision and what you're wanting

to do, you're not going to show up.

16:33

And guess what's going to happen if you don't show up?

16:36

You don't show up.

16:36

You don't make any sales.

16:37

You don't make any money.

16:38

Boom. You're circling in the drain over and over and over and over and over and over again.

16:44

Okay. Okay.

16:45

Now you can try to have somebody motivate you as much as you want, but that's not going to happen.16:50

So how do I get hungry?

16:54

Okay. A, I'm going to fix up my mess, right?

16:57

That's number step one that you need to do.

16:59

And then secondly, how do I get hungry?

17:02

Okay. That is where you need to, I don't know why I get balloons out of the sun.

17:06

They say hungry.

17:08

But okay.

17:09

That is, I take it, right?

17:11

Any kind of celebration, I take it.

17:13

So when you need to get hungry is when you start tapping into your self-actualization, into your purpose.

17:20

When you start realizing, unless you have a super, super pressing need, like you need to pay your bills, you

must do something without, like if you're running out of credit card limits, if you are not even having credit

cards, if there's a big something coming up, you know, then of course you need to, you need to do

17:45

something, right?

17:47

Now, secondly, that's how you get hungry is when you put a reason for it.

17:56

And I just remembered, yeah, when you have a big hospital coming up, I just remembered that I had to call

the insurance company.

18:03

So that is, that is the thing.

18:05

That's how, when you get hungry, that's when you get hungry to say, you know what, I got to do this.

18:09

I got to do this.

18:10

The hungry people are finding ways.

18:12

The hungry people, they don't ask somebody to motivate them.18:15

The hungry people say, I must do this and I will find a way.

18:19

And that is what I want you to be like.

18:21

So if you don't have a pressing reason, how can you get hungry?

18:24

By tapping into your purpose.

18:27

What can you do?

18:28

What fires you up?

18:30

See, for me, it fires me up to be fighting for the underdog.

18:34

And this is one of the things, I've heard this now so many times within 2025, that everybody is going for the

six-figure income earners.

18:42

Everybody wants to coach those guys.

18:44

Everybody wants to, wants to help them.

18:46

Okay. Everybody wants to go for the one to three percent of people.

18:50

Nobody, everybody like basically says the 80 percent of network marketers or the 80 percent of people of the

workforce, those people are not doing anything.

18:59

And maybe that, maybe those people know something I don't, but right now it fires me up.

19:04

this world.

Right now, I want to, I want to help the 80 percent because I feel like you all have something to contribute in

19:11

I feel like you all have something to give.

19:15

I feel like everybody should hear you.

19:17

I feel like if you can be helped to help yourself, you all can make something happen in this world.

19:27

Why should you be let off the hook?

19:29

Because you are, you're not valuable.19:31

Yes, you are.

19:32

You're valuable.

19:33

You are more valuable than many people know.

19:36

And you know what?

19:37

It hurt me so much because so many years I felt like nobody saw me.

19:41

Nobody was there.

19:43

Like every single time my mentors would say, oh, who's in your corner?

19:47

Who believes in you?

19:48

And every single time I got sad and I thought to myself, hmm, no one, no one.

19:56

There was nobody.

19:58

There was nobody that believed in me.

20:00

There was nobody.

20:01

goals today?

Like I could not think about anyone that, that was calling me to say, hey, Stephanie, how did you do on your

20:13

How have you been doing?

20:14

Have you had any goals that you need me to help you with?

20:19

Nobody. Okay.

20:21

Nobody cared.

20:22

And that was my storyline.

20:24

That was always the dominating thought.

20:27

No one cared.20:28

So you know what?

20:28

I had to grow into the person that cared.

20:31

I taught myself how to be the person that cared for me.

20:35

And that is what I want to teach you.

20:37

I want to teach you to be the person that cares for you.

20:40

Because you do matter and you do deserve to be heard and you do deserve to get to the pattern of the

message God put in you.

20:50

You do deserve to learn how to give that message out and how to live that life that he intended for you.

20:59

That is who I am.

21:01

That is why I'm here.

21:02

That is why I'm here.

21:04

So anyway, long story short, motivation comes when you're hungry, right?

21:10

When you fixed your foundation, when you fixed the fact that you are drowning in stuff, fix that.

21:20

You got to fix that.

21:20

That is what the mentorship is for.

21:23

Helping you to get rid of all this mess that you've got going on.

21:28

Learning how to live a life that you are going to be able to thrive from.

21:35

Build something from.

21:37

Who needs to learn a social media strategy when your home is a mess?

21:42

Who needs to learn a social media strategy on how to get millions of people subscribing to you when you

don't even know how to keep up with like 10 conversations a week?

21:55

Think about it.21:57

Okay? You don't need the other stuff.

21:59

What you need is you need to learn how to live a life that you then can scale eventually.

22:05

Okay? So motivation doesn't disappear randomly, just so you know.

22:10

It fades when basic needs are ignored and mental load takes over.

22:14

You got to take care of that mental load and it will not only help your business, it will actually help your entire

life.

22:20

It will help your relationships.

22:22

It will help your sanity every single day.

22:25

Trust me.

22:26

I know.

22:26

I am healing.

22:27

of years of my life.

I have done all these things and without it, I don't think I would have been able to get through the last couple

22:35

If I would have not had my ducks in a row, I think my kids' cancer journey and the separation and everything

that I've gone through in the recent couple of years, I think it would have probably broken me.

22:49

And it hasn't.

22:51

I am thriving and I am on my way even up and higher and this and that.

22:56

And 2026 is going to be a fantastic year.

23:00

I can already feel it.

23:01

I already know.

23:02

So, yeah.

23:04

I've done it.

If you want that for yourself, I tell you it's time to tune in to what I have to teach because I taught myself and23:11

And it's time to tune in to what I have to teach if you want that too because it's worth it, okay?

23:19

want to.

Anyway, check out the Freedom Mentorship somewhere here or comment or DM me either way how you

23:26

Let's have a one-on-one coaching session, discovery session if that is what you want and you're not really

quite sure how that Freedom Mentorship will fit in with you.

23:35

If that is something for you, DM me.

23:38

Let's have a conversation.

23:39

I'm here.

23:40

All right?

23:41

Take care.

23:42

Take care.http://www.walkitfree.com/grow