In the articles “15 Ways to Improve Motivation at Work” and “10 More Ways to Improve Motivation in the Work Environment“, I shared 25 tips on how to improve motivation at work for your colleagues or your team. In today’s article, I’m shifting the focus! I would like to address ways to improve your motivation at work, after all, your professional motivation or demotivation directly affects your quality of life, for better or worse.
My main objective is to help you, without help from your superiors or from the organization, to look inside yourself and seek ways to improve your own motivation. Along this path, small adjustments may already suffice to sort out your situation, but it could just as well lead you to want to change the organization you work for or even your career path. I will not discuss these ramifications in this article, okay? But, rest assured that we’ll talk about that soon!
A lot of what is written down here was borrowed or inspired by one of today’s top business coaches, called Marshall Goldsmith. If you like what I write below, I suggest you read Marshall’s latest book, Triggers, and there you will be able to find more details on how to take the reins of your life and become the professional you aspire to be. I really like Marshall’s vision of how we should take responsibility and act. I hope you enjoy it too! Let’s see.
There are two types of people, those who believe that everything that happens to them is their own responsibility and others who believe that everything is due to external factors, such as the boss, the company, the government, etc. It is likely that reality has a little bit of both.
If you identify yourself strongly with the latter, I suggest you stop reading this article now as it will be of little value to read on. It will be more useful for you to go to the staff cafeteria, place yourself in the role of the victim and complain about the organization, your boss, HR, the weather. But if you want to start to change, have more control over yourself and move on to the first group, I can give you some reasons for that.
To work on your motivation is to understand that you do this in order to obtain a good quality of life. There is nothing worse for your health, your relationships and your career than to work with an unmotivated mindset for a long time. Believe me, I’ve lived through this very situation more than once, and I know from experience how painful it is. Getting out of it and finding motivation again depends on you and your own actions, although many good people can help you along the way and I’ll tell you more about them in other articles.
The ball is in your court. Hit it!
Recent studies show that people who find meaning in what they do and have a sense of purpose are more focused, creative, and resilient. That is, the first thing you should do is to identify your life purpose and your professional purpose.
Sadly, this is a detail we do not often stop to think about, but it is crucial for your motivation to work, particularly if you advance to more senior levels within your organization. You need to know exactly what you believe in and what you would like to build!
With your purpose clear in your mind, it’s time to assess whether it is aligned with your activities and the organization where you work.
Ask yourself: what is the meaning of my job to me? Does it make sense to me? Am I proud of this? Am I proud to tell my parents or children about what I do or not?
Then it’s time to evaluate the organization: What does this organization do and how does my work inside it relate to my goals? Does this draw me closer or distance me from what I believe? Does it conflict with my personal values? Does it help or hinder me in achieving my goals?
If the answers are positive, great! If they are negative, however, you have a structural problem of personal motivation in your hands and will probably only solve it with a more radical change, like leaving the organization or changing careers.
Mountaineer looking at the peak (Photo: Joshua Earle / Unsplash)
If your goals and objectives within the organization are not clear, and if you do not know what your superior and other people expect from you, it’s easy to know what to do: find out! Do not throw the blame back on your superior or your team. Go back, align expectations, set goals and objectives, or make them clearer.
If you work as an entrepreneur or an independent contractor, the suggestion is equally valid. Being clear about what you can achieve is a great motivator because it makes your challenge tangible. That is my suggestion!
Once your goals are set, the longest part of the story begins, which is working to achieve them. This is the fun part and on every day that you work ask the following question: “Did I give my best today to achieve my goals?”. I suggest you write down the answers and try to identify if the days you feel you have advanced the most were not the most energizing days, and when you felt the most motivated. You can be sure of it!
I worked in sales for many years and there were two things that drove salespeople crazy. The first one was to see the month going by and not knowing their sales target. The other one was to see the days passing by and that they had made very little progress in order to achieve their targets. A good day was a day when they received a great order! And celebration was by way of a happy hour at the end of that day, after, of course, the order had been put into the system.
Man looking at landscape (Photo: Robert Collins / Unsplash)
It may be that you are not feeling particularly happy in your current job, and that is obviously not good! But to stop your pursuit of happiness at work is an even bigger problem.
This bad feeling can just as well turn into chronic and prolonged unhappiness, which can lead to bigger and worse problems. It is likely that this condition will affect your health, your most precious possession, leading you to depression, say. How many people do you know that are going through this or have been through it?
If this is your case, look for small actions on a daily basis that can help you feel happy at work. It could mean negotiating a change of department, clarifying your goals, asking to work on a new project, changing desks, room or even office.
If the situation persists it could be the time to think about leaving your current organization or even changing careers. The answers to these daily questions will tell you the paths you must take to increase your motivation at work and be happier professionally.
Friends enjoying themselves (Photo: Oleh Slobodeniuk / iStock)
You’re surrounded by people at work, right? Me too. Do you want to know the most miserable days I’ve ever had at work? It was the days when I had arguments or fights with people at work. It didn’t matter who it was: peers, customers, subordinates or boss. That bitter taste lingered in my mouth and would not leave even after I got home.
Yes, building bad relationships can certainly cause terrible headaches. On the other hand, building good relationships has the opposite effect and is very stimulating. You feel good, things get easier, more enjoyable and you may even make new friends in the process.
How many good people have become my personal friends with the relationship starting out as simple co-workers? Not to mention many married couples I know of who met at work … It is very motivating to build good relationships and I strongly recommend this, without restrictions.
If you can put the other seven tips into effect, this last one is the icing on the cake! By pouring body and soul into what you do, your motivation at work will reach its peak. This happens because you are so delighted with something that makes you so happy, fulfilled and motivated that the more you experience it, the more you enjoy and take advantage of the moment.
Not being fully involved may be a sign that some or many things are not well and my suggestion is to go back to the previous tips and find answers there. I’ve been through times when this was impossible for me, in other words, to dedicate myself wholeheartedly and it was precisely when I realized this that I saw that I needed to make changes in my day-to-day work.
As I said before, the ball is in your court. The responsibility for being motivated is yours, but remember that you must not seek this for the company you work for. You must seek it for yourself and for those who are close to you and love you. This quest must be daily and you must not be paralyzed by the fear of change. Plan ahead and take your time, but try to do something in which you want to be fully involved. You will live happier days, for sure.
Cover photo credit – Focused woman (Photo: PeopleImages / iStock)
