How to Keep Working If you are not Feeling it?

Motivation is a challenge. Actually, I often liken this to some of the actions in the story of the fictional German character Baron Munchausen trying to keep your motivation going to complete a task, project or even a career may feel as if you’re pulling yourself out of an abyss with your hair. It seems to be naturally drawn to the constant effort that nothing but energy drinks or inspirational posters will help.

However, the ability to effectively self-motivation is among the most important factors that separate professionals who are highly successful from others. How do you keep moving forward even when you’re not feeling like doing it?

To a certain degree, motivation is a matter of the individual. What motivates you might not work for me. Some people do appear to possess more persistence than others. But after more than 20 years of study into human motivation, My colleagues and I have discovered some strategies that seem to be effective for the majority of people, whether they’re trying to shed some weight or save for retirement or embark on a long and difficult project at work. If you’ve had the experience of failing to achieve a goal that you can reach because of procrastination, or lack of commitment — and who among us hasn’t? –I’d suggest going through the following article. These four tactics will help you move towards success.

Design Goals, Not Chores

Numerous studies have documented how important it is to set setting goals. Research has shown that, for instance, when salespeople set goals they are able to close more deals and when they commit to exercising regularly they’re more likely to boost the level of fitness they have. Abstract goals like “doing your best”–are generally less effective than goals that are concrete like getting 10 new customers per year or walking 10,000 steps per day. As a general rule, that is to say, any goals you decide to set for yourself or accept must be precise.

It is also important that goals, when feasible, create intrinsic, instead of intrinsic, motivation. A task is intrinsically motivated by the fact that it is seen as having an end in itself; however, it’s extrinsically motivating when considered to serve a different secondary purpose, such as earning you some reward or even giving you the opportunity to get away from the repercussions. My research suggests that intrinsic motives are able to predict the likelihood of success and achievement better than extrinsic motives do.

Find Effective Rewards

Certain tasks or even parts of work are completely difficult. In these cases, it may be beneficial to develop external motivations for yourself in the short to medium period, particularly when they are paired with incentives provided by your employer. You could offer yourself a trip for the completion of a project, or purchase yourself a reward for losing weight. Be careful to beware of unfair rewards. One error to avoid is to be rewarding yourself according to the number of tasks completed or speed when you really care about the performance. A professional accountant who is rewarded to a reward for completing auditing projects quickly could leave herself vulnerable to errors, whereas someone who is focused on maximizing sales, not ensuring repeat business will likely have disappointed customers.

Another trap that is common is to make choices that will undermine your goal. If the goal of a dieter to lose weight is to indulge in pizza and cakes it’s possible to take a step back from the hard work and return to bad routines. If the reward you receive for doing well at work for a week is to give yourself permission to slip up the next you’ll be less likely to make the impression you’ve created. The research on what psychologists call balance shows that achieving goals often leads individuals to allow themselves to desires, which then causes them to fall behind.

Management Tip of the Day

Furthermore, some external incentives work better than other incentives. For example, In tests, researchers have observed that people tend to work harder (investing more time, effort as well as cash) to qualify for an uncertain reward (such as having a 50% chance of winning 150 or 50 dollars) rather than the same reward (a 100 percent chance of receiving $100) Perhaps due to the fact that the latter is more difficult and thrilling. The rewards that are uncertain are more difficult to create in the workplace, but they’re not difficult to set up. It is possible to “gamify” a task by keeping two envelopes on your desk, one of which contains a reward that is more valuable–and then picking just one at random when you’re done. The award should not only be the cash but also the motivational quotes even though they are generated with an incorrect quotes generator or some other random tool.

Sustain Progress

If someone is working towards an objective, they usually experience a surge of enthusiasm beginning, only to slump down in the middle, and tend to stagnate. In one study, observant Jews are more inclined to light the menorah during the initial and final nights of Hanukkah as opposed to the other six nights despite the fact that the tradition is to burn candles for eight consecutive days. In another experiment, the participants that were in the middle of a cutting-paper-shape job cut out more edges during the middle of their project as opposed to the first and final designs.

Research has discovered numerous strategies to stop this pattern. The term I use refers to the first one as “short middles.” If you break your goal down into smaller, smaller subgoals, such as weekly rather than quarterly sales targets, there’s less chance to give in to the dreaded slump.

Harness the Influence of Others

Humans are social beings. We are constantly looking at our surroundings to observe what other people are doing and how their actions affect our individual actions. Sitting close to an extremely productive employee could boost your performance. However, when it is related to motivating factors, the process is more complicated. If we see a coworker working at a high speed that frustrates us and frustrated, we react to the situation in two ways: We either feel motivated and attempt to emulate the same behavior or we become disinterested based on the belief that we’re able to leave the task to the other person. This isn’t completely untrue: Humans have thrived as a species because of their individuality and making the most of their advantages.

The issue is that in particular in the workplace, we aren’t able to always delegate. However, we can utilize the influence of others to our advantage. One rule to follow is to not sit and watch your ambitious productive, effective, and successful colleagues as there’s a high chance that it could demotivate. Instead, speak to your colleagues regarding what it is they’re trying to accomplish through their efforts and why they’d suggest doing it. My research has shown that when an individual endorses an item, people will be much more likely to purchase it, but they’re less likely to when they learn that their friend purchased the item. The act of listening to the things your role models are saying about their objectives can give you additional ideas and inspire you to raise your goals.

Conclusion:

In the field of positive psychology, the term flow is described as a state of mind that is where a person is completely involved and absorbed, with an intense focus and pleasure, while engaged in the course of a task. However, that experience may be fleeting or unattainable when you live your daily life. We often find ourselves similar to Baron Munchausen in the deep, struggling to advance to achieve our goals. In these instances, it may assist us to make use of the potential of intrinsic and external motivations, choosing the right incentives to shift our attention in the direction of forwarding or backward based on the distance we’re to the goal and leverage the influence of others. Self-motivation is among the toughest abilities to master, yet it’s crucial to being successful.