For some time, something has been going on with me I’ve been struggling to explain. My motivation to share things via social media has been waning.

When podcasting came along in 2004, and social media was still in its infancy, my motivation to share was strong. For several years, I was creating and posting new content at a furious rate.

However, in the past couple of years, the motivation I once felt has been on a sharp decline. I’ve been wondering, did something happen to cause me to stop caring? Was I running out of energy? What was the deal?

Lately, I’ve been toying with the theory that people have a fixed amount of sharing capacity, and once that is used up, the motivation drops off. To back this idea up, there have been plenty of people that had a large online presence that at some point simply seemed to run out of gas and ended up dropping off. This pattern seems to be common, whether it is with a large percentage of podcasters, or just people posting stuff on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook.

With me, motivation is everything. I find that if I am motivated to learn something and/or do something, I can bore right through to the center of whatever it is and make it happen. However, if I’m not motivated, I might as well forget it. I cannot force myself to do something that I lack natural interest in or motivation for.

So, this is the best answer I’ve come up with so far. I am currently tapped out when it comes to the motivation to create and share content online.

Will this lack of motivation to share continue? Would it return if I found myself in a different personal situation, such as when I retire? These are questions I currently have no answers for.