Desperately seeking your work motivation

Looking for your work motivation

1. Be honest and kind to yourself.

If you’re feeling a bit low, it can be tempting to try to brush things under the carpet, telling yourself that you need to ‘get your act together’, bepositive and be grateful for what you have. These approaches all have their place, but it’s also really important to spend a bit of time listening to your mood – giving yourself some space to accept that you are finding things challenging. It can be helpful to write things down. How do you feel? What are you missing? What are you worried about? What are you finding challenging? What’s draining your energy right now, and what’s giving you energy?

This is the ‘be honest’ bit. Then you need to ‘be kind’ – to accept that these feelings are a natural response to what’s going on.

All of the uncertainty, change and health/economic fears play directly into our bodies experiencing a sense of ongoing threat, so it’s not surprising that we feel a bit ‘off’. You can also be kind by giving yourself some praise – others may not be giving you as much positive feedback as normal, so you may need to pause and give yourself a pat on the back, recognise what you’re doing well and celebrate it!

2. Take small steps.

A second step to find back you work motivation is 'take small steps'.

Look at your summary of what’s going on right now at work. Get your problem-solving hat on – how can you ensure that what you do gives you more energy? What do you have to do more often? And what should you stop doing? 

The answers to this will be unique to you. For some, it will be about doing more of the things they love – exercise, time with friends, reading, and in the work context it may be working on a particular project or with a specific client. For others, it will be about changing your expectation, for example accepting that you don’t have to clean the house every day, or, getting all of your ‘admin’ jobs out of the way first thing in the morning so they don’t hang over you like a cloud for the whole day.

Whatever it is, choose some small steps to adjust your energy flow and see what happens.

3. Visualise!

When you’ve lost your work motivation, it can be hard to imagine ever finding it again. This is where visualisation can really help you.

Take five minutes of quiet time. Think back to a time when you felt ‘on fire’ – positive, successful, happy, productive, fulfilled, and spend time remembering this. Take yourself back into that moment, focusing on what you could see, what you could hear and how you felt. Try to experience those emotions again, feel the smile spread over your face, feel the energy, the lightness. Capture that feeling – it’s real and it’s part of you! Spending a bit of time each day connecting with your past work mojo will make it easier to find it in the present.