How do you feel when you’re in the workplace? Do you feel lethargic, boring, and lack of motivation to do the work you’re supposed to do?
Or do you feel energetic and motivated and you can’t wait to get things done?
It is normal to find yourself stuck in a rut in your workplace and you just want to escape from your work. But, if the situation prolongs, it will damage your career and work progress.
We all know that motivation is important, and we want to be motivated every day, especially in the workplace.
We wake up early, beat the traffic, and we want to get to the office feeling motivated. Nobody wants to feel lousy when they arrive in their workplace.
It is okay if you feel no motivation to work once in a while, but it becomes a problem if it happens every day.
And this is what this article is aimed to accomplish – to help you improve your motivation in your working area.
Regardless of whether you are working for yourself or for someone else, whether you are working from home or in the office, these 10 good ideas below can help you find your drive back…
1. Start with exciting and measurable goals
Always start with exciting and measurable goals. Think about it, why do you wake up each morning? Why do you go to work?
If your purpose is not strong enough, or meaningful enough, you will find it hard to go to work. When you don’t have a meaning to work, why do you want to work, right?
It all comes down to your purpose and your goals. This is why you need to have career goals or any targets related to your work.
You can’t go to work for the sake of it. And you can’t work just for the money too. Because if you do, then you will quickly lose your motivation the moment you have enough money to survive.
I’m a full-time blogger and I work from home most of the time. I keep telling myself that money is not the main motivator and what I want is to create an impact on other people’s lives.
Because if all I’m chasing is money, I will lose my motivation as soon as I have had enough. Or when I don’t make enough money, I will also lose the motivation to continue to work on my blog.
This is why money is not a good motivator. Instead, choose an exciting and meaningful goal for yourself.
What do you want to accomplish out of your work? What kind of career do you want to develop in the future?
Set an exciting goal and work toward it. Let your goals be the guiding light and the fuel that drives you each day.
Do you know that you can learn everything about setting and achieving your goals from my Goal Setting Formula Masterclass? You should get it.
2. Put up a scoreboard
Once you have decided on what goals you want to achieve at work, it is time to come up with a scoreboard to measure your progress.
Measuring your progress is important. It can motivate you.
Think about it, every time when you arrive in the office, the first thing you see is the scoreboard showing how much you have accomplished, don’t you think this is going to drive you to work harder?
Most people don’t measure their progress. And this is why they lose their motivation because they don’t keep track of what is important to them.
If you want to have consistent motivation in your workplace, put up a scoreboard.
Create a measurement system to track your progress so that you will know where you are and how far you are from your goals.
You don’t need to use any complicated system to do this, a simple system like the Calendar Method will be enough.
Or if you need more resources, check out this article below:
How to Track Your Goals: The 5 Fabulous Ways You Should Consider
Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant once said, “What gets measured, gets managed.”
So, put up a scoreboard, measure your progress, and let your results motivate you to work harder.
3. Organize your workplace
Your motivation has a lot to do with the environment you’re in. Picture yourself reading in a noisy wet market, do you think you can concentrate and read productively?
The answer is clearly no.
In my previous article, I mentioned how our environment can affect our motivation and hence, our success in life. So, if you want to maintain your motivation in the workplace, organize it in such a way that it is supporting you to take action and work harder.
Spend about 5 minutes to organize your workstation every day. It doesn’t need to be sparkling clean or free of clutter, but you must set up your workstation in such a way that it is making you productive.
You don’t want to arrive in the workplace and lose your motivation because there are papers and clutter all over the table.
Make it a habit to organize. Like, before you leave the office every day, use about 5 minutes to organize and clear up everything so that when you arrive the next day, everything is in good condition and you can dive straight into the working mood.
Here’s a good article to help you in organizing your workplace:
10 Tips How to Change Your Environment for Greater Motivation
4. Create a vision/mission statement
We have already talked about setting goals earlier, but goals are usually specific and shorter term. Besides having goals, you need to also understand the big picture of where you’re heading.
This is why you need to have a vision or a mission statement. It is good to have specific goals that you want to achieve in your work, but it is also vital to have a vision for what you do.
Have you heard about the story of the 3 bricklayers?
“A traveler came upon three men working. He asked the first man what he was doing and the man said he was laying bricks. He asked the second man the same question and he said he was putting up a wall. When he got to the third man and asked him what he was doing he said he was building a cathedral.”
This is the power of having a vision. When you understand what you’re there to accomplish in the future, you will have more motivation.
Like the first two bricklayers, if you only focus and look at your work as work, you will feel bored and meaningless.
But when you have a grand vision, you don’t look at your work as plain work, but rather, you are working on something bigger, you will be inspired to work harder.
So, find your vision. Discover the mission for your work and career. What are you meant to do in this world? What is your calling?
“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”
– Steve Jobs
5. Celebrate results and reward your hard work
If you want to stay motivated at work, you must reward your hard work and celebrate your wins.
You want to make it a habit. I still remember the day when I received my first paycheck from Google Adsense. I’m so happy and it makes me believe that what I’m doing is working. And it also reminds me that I can do it.
The same goes for your case, you must celebrate your wins. It doesn’t matter how big or how small they are, as long as you are moving forward and are making progress, you should celebrate and feel good.
You have to understand that recognition is one of the most important factors to motivate people. If your employees have done a great job, you as a leader should recognize their effort.
After all, if someone has worked hard to create amazing results, but the hard work is not recognized, why would he or she want to continue to work harder, right?
Even if you are working for yourself as a solopreneur, you should celebrate your own success too. Learn how to do so here:
13 Great Ways How to Celebrate Small Victories and Make Progress
6. Involve in ongoing training and development
The best way to maintain your motivation in the workplace is through professional training and development.
In fact, no matter what industry you’re in and regardless of whether you are employed or self-employed, you should engage in training and development from time to time.
Read materials that are related to your industry. Attend seminars and go for workshops to improve your skills and knowledge in your field.
I read books about business and personal development. I try to attend seminars and workshops at least twice a year. Besides, I also read other people’s blogs.
I found that when I read about success stories of how people make it through blogging, I’m inspired. It gives me hope that if they can do it, so can I.
The same goes for you too. Read and always involve yourself in whatever industry and niche you are working on.
The more you learn, the more motivated you will be.
Speaking of reading, I encourage all my readers to read these motivational books:
7. Take regular short breaks
Do you know that taking regular breaks can improve your drive to work? Sometimes, you can feel exhausted and it is better to stop and take a rest before you plunge into your work again.
Sometimes when I write articles, I may hit the writer’s block and just can’t find the ideas to continue to write. When this happens, I will take a short rest and come back to my writing later.
Taking a power nap can also be a great idea to help you recharge and replenish your energy. I will take power naps like 20 to 30 minutes every time when I feel I need a quick recharge.
You charge your phone every day, right? Why don’t you do that to yourself too?
Here is some additional info that can help you regain your motivation through taking breaks:
- 13 Creative Ways How to Take Short Breaks During the Day
- The Importance of Taking a Short Break According to Research
8. Mix with the right people
No matter who you are, you will have to network and mix with people from time to time. Be it your colleagues, your partners, your boss, or your friends.
In the workplace, even if you are working online, you will need to interact with people. And since you are going to interact with people anyway, try your best to mix with positive people.
Stop or spend less time with negative people who complain and always play the blame game.
We become the people we spend the most time with. When you make friends with successful people, you will start to think and act like them.
On the contrary, when you spend time with negative and unsuccessful people, eventually you will buy into their ideas and live as they do.
Here’s what you can do to surround yourself with positive people:
- Cut down your time spend with negative people
- Identify the positive people you want to mix with
- Find a common topic/interest
- Become a positive person first
- Increase the time you spend with positive people
You can learn the full guide from this article here: How to Surround Yourself with Positive People
When you mix with motivated people and people who are driven, guess what, you will become the same too. You will be driven to achieve your goals and dreams as well.
9. Use a vision board
Have you heard about a vision board? Some people call it a dream collage. Basically, it is a board with pictures of the things that you want to achieve.
I believe that we all should have a vision board in our workplace. The moment you see the pictures of the things that you want, they will work as a trigger to remind you of your goals and dreams.
They can motivate you to take action and work harder. Not just that, vision boards also serve as a reminder of where you’re going. They will drive you and direct you in the right direction.
One reason most people fail or jump from one project to another is that they lose hope and got distracted by something else. With vision boards and your goals to constantly remind you, you just need to stick to your plan and keep at it.
Thus, make yourself a vision board and put it right in front of your workstation. You want to see your vision boards every day so that you will feel pumped up to work for the things that you want.
Check out my ultimate vision boards guide here:
Vision Boards – The Ultimate Guide to Creating and Living Your Dream Life
10. Don’t stress and have fun
If you want to stay motivated in the workplace, one thing you need to do is to NOT stress yourself too much and have fun working.
Yes, I understand that this is difficult to do because it happens to me many times too. I stress myself too much and it becomes worries.
When you feel stress about something, you will never have fun enjoying the process.
The key is to learn to enjoy the process no matter if you are getting the success you want or if you fail.
So, what if your blog or your business or your career is not producing the results you want? Learn from it. Grow. And then come back stronger and wiser.
There are times when I don’t feel motivated to write blog posts too. When this happens, I will just tell myself to not stress and just enjoy the writing. Even if I just write 500 words, it will be progress and success that I should celebrate.
And every time after I completed a small milestone like writing 500 words, I feel the energy and the motivation coming. I will then continue to write and complete the entire article.
The same goes for writing this article. I took a short break when I wrote about the article. I just couldn’t focus and find it difficult to continue. And I told myself I should just enjoy the process of writing and don’t worry so much about the article.
Eventually, I completed this article.
Hence, my friend, if you want to stay motivated, don’t feel stress. Instead, choose to accept whatever outcome and enjoy the process of working.