Self-Motivation: How to fall in love with your work?

I bet you’ve been in love at least once in your life, am I right? And when we fall in love we get that tingly feeling inside, we feel butterflies in our stomachs and can’t wait to be with that special person again. Have you ever felt this with your work? Of liking what you do, being in the right place with the right people, doing what you love?

If you do something you loved once but that has since lost its magic, or if you find yourself every day doing small tasks that you don’t like and you get to thinking you don’t want to be there, the likelihood that you won’t be able to hold out in this situation much longer is big.

Is there a cure? Yes, and self-motivation is the key to go back to feeling passionate about your work. As Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, said: “Choose a job you like and you will never have to work a day in your life”.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”

Confucius

It’s impossible to sustain a boring and monotonous job that we don’t like, that challenges us or that we don’t agree with, but there’s a way to not let the feeling of insatisfaction overwhelm us; to the contrary, that makes it a unique factor in your productivity, efficiency and professional growth: self motivation.

But what is self-motivation?

What is this superpower of changing the way we do things, and that can be a before and after in our way of working and/or living?

Really understand at a depth how motivation works is not a simple task. There is a vast source of literature on the subject that can help you in this process and even get you to improve some aspects, as much as you consider yourself a highly motivated person.

Motivation depends both on external factors (working conditions, team, management style) but mainly internal aspects: the intrinsic ability of a person to motivate themselves. Today the focus will be on this somewhat forgotten superpower.

How to make self-motivation a daily practice?

We put together as a sort of practical checklist a series of behaviors that work to increase your motivation. Some of these behaviors work more for some people than others, and everyone can have their own list. The important thing for each person is that you can make this into a natural process, becoming conscious of its importance and making the most of this valuable tool that is self-motivation.

Some things can be changed, but not all of them! By accepting reality and other people as they are, you can let go of a responsibility as big as it is exhausting.
Work your strengths and don’t let your weaknesses get the best of you. Self-knowledge and acceptance can be great exercises in self-motivation.
As NLP studies show, complaining about everything can increase the general bad feelings and misguide our vision.
On the other hand, taking on a positive attitude of gratitude and appreciate what we have can strengthen us.
Setting an objective and personal goals which make each of the tasks we fulfill worth it, no matter if we don’t like doing some of them in particular.
What we do matters. Give things meaning and professionalism to your work, to all around us, can greatly assist in self-motivation.
Searching for proactivity is an exercise in creativity and autonomy that contributes to you feeling useful and valued. On the other hand, if you keep a passive attitude, you’ll soon see that you’ll start getting behind.
Trust in what you do, do it with passion and acknowledge the accountability and satisfaction of a job well done.
Don’t give up. Perseverance gives us a sense of progress, improvement, and growth that positively affects our mental state.

Thinking precisely on how to expand these points, we gathered some work self-motivation advice for you to fall in love with it again. Everything to gain, nothing to lose.

1. Know yourself. What motivates you?

It’s not enough to have a job, you need to understand what makes you self-motivated. What are your professional goals? What do you most care about? Why are you here? How does your work relate to your personal mission? If you take time to think and answer to these questions, it will be easier to figure out where you want to get!

A tip is you map out your energy and your commitment to work. This involves an exercise in reflection that allows you to recognize the activities that throughout your journey that make you more involved and motivated.

2. Don’t let your job title limit your motivation.

In corporate careers, there are lots of people feeling miserable with the little importance of their position and, on the other hand, others proposing new projects or ways of doing things … pushing the limits and building their own space within a company.

Important titles or the best salaries aren’t always the most important things to feel self-motivated. Have faith, and trust that what you want to do today can be done and will be positively perceived by your team, your clients and your business. Be proactive, ask your boss, colleagues or clients how you can improve.

If you expect other people to give you a job that makes a difference for you, you’ll probably have many complaints and the proposal will hardly be as perfect as you imagined. Don’t waste time, improving these tasks can be your responsibility.

3. Work Remotely!

Working in the same company or doing the same task every day seems boring. But there’s good news: all the latest research on the labor market point to the agility of the teams, which generates spaces, offices or remote working days that positively impact productivity.

This flexibility quota works wonders on motivation in a boring routine work. Plan, think ahead and schedule journeys for you or your team in which some tasks can be performed remotely.

4. Celebrate Your Accomplishments

How about making a list of everything you’ve accomplished so far? Or simply make a list of things to do and what you’ve accomplished in your day? As small as it sounds, this is a planning exercise that soon can be translated into a things-your-grateful-for list.

Learn how to create these systems where it’s possible to visualize the abstract things you’ve already achieved on your work. They may be small tasks, such as answering emails, following up on something, or large ones, as making an important presentation. The final effect is the same.

Making this type of lists causes a feeling of mission accomplished and makes you satisfied in knowing you carried out what you proposed to do.

5– Surround yourself with self-motivated people.

Bad feelings get to us. And the good ones too! Surround yourself with people full of energy and enthusiastic, be it in your work as a freelancer, as a consultant, or even at the office or networking events. This will rekindle the flame of your passion for your work and will keep you self-motivated.

Conclusion

The world of work has changed! Being an entrepreneur in their own career, becoming a remote worker, a digital nomad, or a freelance professional are only different demonstrations of what is really happening.

The best companies know; they are aware of the importance of self-motivation and try to collaborate and foster practices that put them into play, such as autonomy, listening, participation, equality in rewards and career development.

Motivated people are more productive, so the organizations that work in this way are ahead of those who haven’t yet moved towards this goal. More humane companies positively mobilize their teams and they will respond with the best of their superpowers: the importance of not needing outside encouragement to give the best of themselves, the ability to self-motivate.

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Self-Motivation: How to fall in love with your work?

But what is self-motivation?