Finding motivation in tough times
How to reconnect with yourself and manage negative feelings.
Everyone has periods of higher and lower motivation at work, and that is perfectly okay. When decreased drive becomes a problem, however, it can make life very unpleasant — the “Sunday scaries”, that feeling of dread when you open Slack or email, struggling to pay attention in meetings. Motivation can feel like the weather, totally outside of our control. But in fact, it is an internal, psychological experience that we can influence, with effort and practice. Here are some of the strategies I use when facing a sustained slump in energy and enthusiasm.
Don’t just quit
Earlier in my career, I interpreted months-long stretches of disinterest or dissatisfaction with my job as a sign that I should leave. This is certainly true in some cases, but I didn’t put enough time and effort into identifying causes or potential steps I could take. As a result, my resume contains a short string of positions in which I spent just nine or ten months each. Not only did my career progress stall, but I also didn’t learn much for a few years. Now, I’ve realized that many problems at work can be ameliorated, as long as they don’t violate my personal non-negotiables. Over time, some will even dissipate on their own.
Learn from your feelings
An alternative to quitting is seeing feelings as information rather than an emergency. Emotions are the most powerful and honest sources of truth about ourselves. What do you care about? Where do you find your sense of identity, purpose and meaning? Lack of motivation indicates that these needs are not being met in some way. Take time to reflect, journal, discuss with close friends, meditate, go for walks, or just sleep — these are a few ways to coax out the insights hiding inside of your feelings.
A simple reflection tool from one of my favorite books, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, is to identify the story you’re telling yourself. For example, I was recently transitioned to an individual contributor role, after being a people manager for the last three years — despite the fact that in the previous performance cycle, my team had given me perfect scores on nine out of ten questions about manager effectiveness. The story I told myself about this apparent demotion caused intense feelings of hurt, anger and demotivation. “What a huge slap in the face. I’ve worked so hard and gotten great reviews as a manager. They don’t value me at all.” These words, while painful, also contained critical information about what matters most to me. I loved supporting and mentoring my team, took pride in being good at it, and wanted more recognition for my efforts and accomplishments.
Tell the rest of the story
Unfortunately, many of the stories we tell ourselves cause us unnecessary anguish, and reduce our capacity to flourish at work. While my feelings were valid, they weren’t helping me find joy. So, I asked myself if there was more to the story. Like this: “My new position is just one part of a company-wide re-organization that is intended to make our teams and operations more efficient. It wasn’t personal and doesn’t reflect on me. Others were laid off, while I was fortunate to be retained. I will have opportunities to become a people manager again.” This technique is a type of cognitive reappraisal, and it can be powerful if (and only if) the new story is believable. But reframing your narrative is a difficult skill that takes practice. And sometimes, when applied superficially, it can seem like hollow, toxic positivity.
Find your intrinsic motivators
When cognitive reappraisal isn’t helping, strengths and values may provide inspiration. Acting in accordance with these internal guideposts can help you rediscover intrinsic motivation. This can be much more effective than reminding yourself of the extrinsic reasons to fulfill your professional responsibilities, such as the expectations of others, or financial compensation. While money is often a top reason that you want to keep your job, it is rarely sufficient to make you genuinely want to do your job.
Instead, intentionally applying your unique constellation of talents can make hard days easier. My top strengths, according to the VIA Institute’s assessment of Character Strengths, are Humor, Perspective, Love, Leadership and Creativity. One example of how I use them: I have a calendar reminder each week to share sincere kudos in a public Slack channel. It’s an easy way to tap my strength of Love, that benefits me just as much as it does others. Writing this article was also a therapeutic activity, because it expresses several of my strengths at once: Perspective (sharing what I’ve learned with others), Leadership (encouraging and facilitating groups), and Creativity (using writing to present ideas).
Another way to find out what will help you survive tough times is a values card sort. It’s hard to winnow down a list of universally appealing things like friendship and money to just your top five, but doing so helps you see the connections (or disconnections) between how you spend your time, and what you believe is important. When you’re feeling lost, printing out and regularly looking at your list can remind you of the activities that you find meaningful and rewarding. For example, I strongly believe in and rely on relationships, so I prioritize making time for regular 1:1s with many colleagues. Like going to the gym, it’s something I know I’ll be glad I did later, even if I don’t feel like it at the time.
But what if I really don’t feel like it?
Some days, though, it feels impossible to go to the gym, reflect on your values, or come up with new ways to use your strengths. If you’re burned out or depressed, please focus on taking care of yourself and getting appropriate help. If, however, it’s a more garden-variety type of low motivation, one insight that has helped me is that waiting to do something until you “feel like it” ensures that many difficult but necessary things will never get done. In other words, you must kindly, but firmly and consistently, ignore the part of your brain that is whining, “But I don’t want to!” Keep going. Look inside for that much smaller voice, that tiny spark of energy that’s in your heart, leaping towards what you authentically need.
