Get Motivated at Work, Tips, Tactics, What to Avoid, What to Do and Try
Even the most dedicated and engaged employees occasionally feel their motivation waning and need to find a way to regain their zing and drive. Loss of motivation could be caused by the job, the staff, management or simply your own boredom or lack of enthusiasm.
Motivation is important for enhancing your chances of promotion, your well being and getting self-satisfaction from work. You spend a third of your day working so why be unhappy and miserable?
Highly motivated employees are more energetic, happier, more enthusiastic, more fun to work with, more productive, better engaged and get rewarded for their better performance and higher productivity. Motivated employees tend to enliven teams in which they work.
This article discusses the things you can do to stay motivated at work, and how to get motivated again, if your enthusiasm and job satisfaction wanes.
Clarify your Goals and Develop a Plan and Schedule
Nothing kills motivation more than working wily-nilly without having a plan, a set of objectives, a clear vision, and a schedule and time-frame. If you are spending a lot of time on unimportant things rather than on tasks to meet targets are goals you will quickly become unmotivated. You will feel more engaged if you get more organised, and know what you have to do and when it is required by.
Develop a clear plan for achieving your goals and a way of monitoring progress
Once you have mapped out your vision and goals, develop a detailed plan and schedule for achieving your goals. Developing a set of interim targets, and ways of monitoring and tracking your progress, are also important for keeping you motivated. Subdivide large projects into a series of smaller sub-tasks that are achievable and interesting.This keeps you see whether you are on track and gives you the opportunity to reward yourself for success. Having a set of sensible milestones, requiring interesting tasks and a set of measurable outcomes will keep you engaged and in control of your work to meet deadlines.
When you Succeed in Completing a Stage - Reward Yourself
Success is very good for your motivation. One success rewarded builds confidence and willingness to tackle the next task and so on. With a clear vision and tasks set out in a well developed plan with milestones on the way it is easier to keep motivated. The mini-rewards are important. Also reward creativity, innovation and perseverance, not just completing the tasks on time. Success and rewards breed more success.
Keep Everything in the Right Context and Perspective
It is important to keep your job and your role in the organization in the right perspective. Remind yourself regularly about why you work and what you like about your job. Its not just the pay, it's realizing your potential, taking on challenges, working as part of a team and achieving your objectives and work outcomes. If you start to lose perspective, write down on a list the reasons you entered the field in the first place. This helps to reset your sights and to put the job in the correct context. Also look forward to your career path and the steps needed to get promotions.
Maintain a Healthy Balance between Work and Your Other Life Priorities
If you focus too much on work you get stressed and can't relax properly. This cancer feeds on itself and you get fed up that work takes up too much of your time. It so easy to get sucked in by not having balanced priorities. Maintaining a healthy and fulfilling work/life balance is vital for maintaining your motivation at work, your health, your relationships and overall well being. As before it is all about having a plan a schedule and sticking to it. Don't break your family commitments even if you are behind at work. See the break as a way of relaxing and clearing your mind so that you will be most productive. Switch off your mobile phone and don't think about work when you are at home. You need to maintain an equal, well balanced and independent, motivation for work, family life and play.
Think Positive and Focus on the Big Picture
Avoid focusing on the small things and problems as they can build negative feelings that can eat away at your motivation. Focus on the positives by keeping a list of your successes and 'wins' no matter how small they are. For every negative thought always have a positive counter-point. Focus on your relationships with staff, how you are delivering long term outcomes, your vacation plans and your efforts at self-improvement.
Re-organize Your Day so that You do the Big and more Important Things First
Don't fall into the trap of procrastinating and postponing the hard things and the things you don't want to do to later and later in the day. These things you know you have to do will bear down on you and will clutter your thinking.Instead clean them off your to do list by doing them first thing or whenever you work best. This will help maintain your motivation.
Don't Get Involved in Office Chatter and Character Assassinations of Your Fellow Staff or the Boss
This can drain your enthusiasm especially when you are not involved and can do very little to change things.
Positive Motivational Quotes About Work
Quotes can help lift your spirits
Bobby Unser - Desire! That's the one secret of every man's career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.
Dale Carnegie - Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career.
Brian Tracy - If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self- development.
Kahlil Gibran - Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy.
Benjamin F. Fairless - What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team.
Johnny Carson - Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Jim Rohn - Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.Lou Holtz - I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.
Brian Tracy - Only undertake what you can do in an excellent fashion. There are no prizes for average performance.
Hamilton Holt - Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last.
Napoleon Hill - When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
Indira Gandhi - There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.
Mark Twain - Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Dale Carnegie - Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all you heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.
Harland Sanders - You got to like your work. You have got to like what you are doing, you have got to be doing something worthwhile so you can like it - because it is worthwhile, that it makes a difference, don't you see?