Double Your Motivation at Work

One of the biggest challenges that I find career professionals deal with is staying motivated at work. Daily we tolerate boring unproductive meetings, critical bosses, company politics, unnecessary rules, internal competition, monotonous routine work and unfair treatment. Daily, neighboring colleagues complain about their lives inside and outside of work. On the news we hear of companies laying off thousands of people at a time and wonder if our job is next. On Monday morning we dread the week ahead and wish it was Friday already. At hospitals around the nation more people on a Monday morning are hospitalized because of heart attacks than any other day in the week.

In an environment like this it can be very challenging to stay motivated.

Here are my top 5 ways to supercharge your Motivation Levels at Work:

1. Build your Vision. Pull out your most up to date resume. Look at the direction that your career is going and decide on the next step. Determine how your work today does or does not relate to your next step. Make necessary adjustments that has you doing things that builds towards your next career step.

2. Celebrate your Victories. Usually we know if we are doing a good job based on performance reviews and/or company contests. Create smaller games for yourself that work towards bigger company contests and design personal measurements that help you track your small improvement. This will allow you to see how well you are doing at your own game.

3. Take a break. Take regularly breaks every 90 minute. Use the break as an opportunity to chat with a co worker, listen to relaxing music, and /or take a short walk.

4. Responsibility and Accountability. Take ownership for your work and encourage others to keep you accountable. There is the old saying that one never washes a rental car. We only put full effort into things we take ownership of.

5. Contribute. Determine the kind of contribution that you can make to your team that would give you the most satisfaction. Focus on contributing in that way. It will help you to create an engaging work environment.