ARE YOU MOTIVATED?

WHERE DOES YOUR MOTIVATION COME FROM?

Some days, you are just not in the mood. Some days, you are too exhausted to get excited about anything, from cooking to answering emails to figuring out how to tackle yet another problem at work.

And then there’s the guilt that creeps in, making you feel like you’re not spending enough time with friends and family or taking care of yourself the way the Instagram community is telling you takes 15 minutes per day, and you will feel more fit.

Everywhere around us is something we “should” get excited about, and you might just not be. 

Losing motivation and feeling stressed are closely related. Staying excited about something is challenging when the fear of not accomplishing tasks consumes you. Overloading yourself is often the final straw that makes the proverbial glass overflow. 

WHAT WE WORRY ABOUT IS ALSO WHAT WE CARE ABOUT 

The old paradigm at work thinks that motivation to work harder comes from fear of getting fired or an angry boss. I talked about this in last week’s newsletter (you can find it here if you want to go back). 

Some will say their self-confidence is strong enough that they don’t care, and maybe that’s true. I’m quite self-confident, and I still care when people are upset with me. I can think about it for days, which brings me to the very point I’m trying to make. An angry boss doesn’t make us work harder; an angry boss makes us more distracted, stressed, and less motivated. 

Essentially, stress can cause us to disengage in an effort to manage the overwhelm because worry is often misused as a way to push performance, forcing us to show up. Short term, it gets us moving but then it causes a lack of motivation, and eventually, we stop caring. 

Instead of numbing the worry by ceasing to care, we can use what we care about to reset our focus. 

MOTIVATION COMES FROM WHAT WE CARE ABOUT 

Let’s pause for a moment to think about all the things you care about—the small stuff and the big stuff. We don’t wake up motivated and are often not motivated by what we need to do, but we might be motivated by why it matters. 

We can love doing something or love the result of having done it. That’s the case for me with cooking. Most people think I like cooking. I don’t. But I love eating good food, so I cook. I care about healthy eating and feeling good after eating, so I choose healthy resources and food options. And I like to eat in a nice environment, so I set the table. 

Think about what you care about, and instead of focusing on what you “should do” or “have to do,” think about what you want to do and what you need to achieve that. 

Too often, we get stressed by thinking about all the “shoulds” instead of finding the right relationship with why it matters to us. 

A coaching client of mine struggled with motivation and told me she felt like a lost cause. I told her that for sure she wasn’t. However, we had to figure out why the changes she was working on were important for her. She found her motivation when she looked at what she cared about instead of being driven by fear of not being good enough. 

Fear is not a long-term motivator; only care is. Fear will get us off the couch, but it will not sustain our attention or engagement beyond a sprint. 

When you want to spark your motivation, think about what you want to achieve and then ask why it matters to you. Then, ask why that matters. Then ask again why that matters. And then you can even ask again why that matters. Essentially it's like peeling an onion. We keep asking why we care about it until we get to the core of what truly matters to us, what we truly care about. 

Getting close to the core of what you care about is how you can unlock your motivation, and sustain it. 

We often think that having a purpose is something grand and special; but it's the little things that keep us motivated every day, and the big things we care about are what reminds us why it matters. 

Being driven by what you care about and knowing why it matters to you, and the impact it has on others, helps sustain your motivation and prevents the kind of over-working that's disconnected from doing work that matters, which leads to stress and eventually burnout.