Are you feeling un-motivated at work, not feeling the excitement and rush of waking up every morning and not looking forward to your day at work? I have encountered many people who have expressed their lack of desire of going to work or when they are at work, they can't wait for the day to pass. Some feel that they are in a job that isn't rewarding or maybe just plain boring. What are we to do? I have been successful at staying ultra motivated and passionate at what I do on a consistent basis and I have been asked by my colleagues curious as to how I always seem to have such an upbeat and positive attitude on a consistent basis. Allow me to share my thoughts about getting and staying motivated at work... it worked for me, and I hope it will keep you motivated and re-energize you and your passion.
My feeling is this, we go into cycles when it comes to our emotions. When things are new, we get excited, we feel energetic and can't wait for the next day to come. I used to have this feeling about school as do most people, looking forward to the first day of school and the excitement of seeing everyone that we have not seen since summer break started, but as time passes and we get into our day to day activities, the faces we used to miss get all too familiar, things start to get boring and repetitive. We then start to look forward to having summer break come sooner rather than later and then we start the whole cycle again. We carry this cycle into our professional lives, but things get even more extreme because we don't have the 3 month vacations that school used to provide us.
The daily grind does not excite us as it used to and we are on a constant search for something new or something that will keep us happy. The worse case scenarios I have seen is when someone feels as if they are stuck at what they do, because they are limited to doing something different, or maybe they are just content and don't really like change but constantly complain about their job. The cycles we go through is as follows:
- Excited, motivated and Passionate
- Our excitement passes, our motivation and passion is low.
- Bored, un-passionate and unmotivated.
Sounds like you? Well, don't feel bad, it happens to the best of us. So what I do to turn things around is to re-invent myself every month. Lets take your job for example. When you first pursued your job, you had excitement and pride about venturing towards a new challenge. You went to the interviews with ideas, and you are filled with energy, a can do attitude and you are full of motivation. Remember that? Then, the work comes andthe day to day grind comes into play. You start to feel unmotivated and less energetic. Some people stay in this mode and do not live to their full potential. Your ideas don't get put into action, so you give up with your cause and you fall into the norm of the day to day and week to week andpaycheck to paycheck (low bass music playing in the background). I am telling you, you can change all this by simply re-inventing yourself monthly. So what do I mean by this?
Every month, make as if the job you are currently in is a job you are trying to pursue. Ask yourself, why would you want this job and how can you improve upon what is currently happening there. Generate some fresh ideas or re-ignite the ideas you had previously. Think of yourself as the person who you are replacing and how you think you could do a better job, turn things around, make things better or be the best person for that position. This way you are constantly keeping things fresh and each month it is new.
During college, I realized this and with each month, I improved at my studies and reassessed and reinvented myself each and every month to where I was able to graduate with high honors. Now I enjoy my day to day work activities because I constantly create new goals and ask myself, what would I do tomorrow if tomorrow was my first day at work here, how can I make things better, what would I do differently than the last person, how could I be better than the last guy that didn't last or moved on to find his/her "new" gig? Then put that into action on the 2nd day of the month...
If you are saying to yourself, "there is nothing more I can improve upon", then quite honestly, I don't believe you or you are truly doing something that is not meant for you. Challenge yourself, make it new, keep it fresh and re-invent yourself versus falling into the cycle and continuing to fall. As the picture is shown here on the right, you must change your cycle to your current situation and make changes on a constant basis to where you once started. If you started a job and didn't feel the excitement, then let me tell you, that is the wrong job for you and you will be miserable no matter what. Find that excitement and recreate it every month. It is up to you to take this initiative and not depend upon your manager to motivate you. We cannot avoid the cycle of emotions we go through, but we can re-invent ourselves and restart the cycle versus having the cycle be an arrow pointing down or sideways. Give this a try and see how things magically seem to be a lot more exciting and fun.
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