Have you ever found yourself wondering what separates a good from great?
It often boils down to one powerful word: motivation. Motivation is the spark that ignites action, the energy that fuels persistence, and the compass that guides purposeful leadership. Yet, we think it’s something that comes to us and not something we can create – but when you learn to create motivation in yourself and in your team, you become unstoppable – you become empowered to accomplish whatever you want.
What is motivation?
Motivation is our driving factor – what keeps us going?
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Is it the excitement of tackling new challenges, the joy of helping others, or perhaps the ambition to achieve your goals?
Understanding what drives you requires self-reflection and developing our EQ, Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of others. Individuals with high EQ can identify the barriers to their motivation and remove blockades to motivation in themselves and their team, creating environments where motivation thrives.
According to a study by Deci and Ryan (2000), motivation can be categorized into intrinsic and extrinsic types. Intrinsic motivation comes from within, like personal satisfaction and passion. Extrinsic motivation is influenced by outside factors like rewards and recognition. Recognizing your primary motivators can help you craft a career path that aligns with your natural driving factor.
Note, both have a part to play in our professional development. Depending on where you are in your career, position, organization, it can influence our motivation factor. For example, have you heard for golden handcuffs?
Golden handcuffs are a term from the 1970s external benefits (pay and benefits) can keep us longer in organization that may not align with our inner motivation, but it’s too good to pass up. This is a convergence between what we want and how good we have it. Often causing an internal shift and can lead to resentment in later years, but can motivate us to collect our benefits before moving to a work of passion.
Conversely, people working for inner motivation (mission-based work) and personal satisfaction can have a fulfilling life working for the mission but neglect career aspirations for the work. They build more resilience because even during economic hardship, working for the mission is more important than external recognition. But, can lead to faster burnout because they are working for causes that may have fewer resources.
Boosting your motivation
No matter where you are – we all need motivation to get out of bed and start engaging with the world. Sometimes, it can be difficult to find motivation. So, how do you boost your motivation when motivation feels down?
Motivation is tough to find in ambiguity. When we have clarity, steps, and quick wins it can jump start our motivation and purpose. Here’s a few things you can do to boost your and your team’s motivation:
- Set Clear Goals: SMART (LINK) goals are key to keeping motivation moving growing. Modify the SMART goals and start by defining what success looks like for you. For example, when you’re low motivation, do a thought exercise – Imagine you’re already done with this work, what are the benefits from your hard work? Don’t jump to the answer – imagine yourself at your destination, what are you wearing? hows the weather, who are around you, etc. The more clearly you can envision, the better you’ll feel because this hijacks your mind to put you in a place that seems arduous.
- Reflect on past successes: I cannot recommend this enough – appreciating all the successed you’ve had to this point makes it worth more. We tend to focus on the next steps, but taking a moment to recall when you felt accomplished have the powerful to reinvegarate us during these low-motivation lull. Again, all accomplishments are worth celebrating – it’s you making effort on items that matter to you. Reflect on how it made you feel? What went well? What challenges you overcome? What got you through the low-motivation lull?
- Engage in mindfulness practices: You knew this would be on here – mindfulness practices have shown to improve our EQ, and having a balanced life helps us live a healthier life style that promotes wellness from within. Incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine, just like brushing your teeth – focus on mediation, journaling, walking, being present with unpleasantness, accepting what you cannot change or influence, etc. there are so many mindfulness practice. Just breathing can help you recharge your motivation.
- Celebrate small wins: Somedays it’s just tough to get out of bed – I’ve been there. Those days, and every other day, it’s empowering to remember that every step forward is progress. Celebrate your small victories along the way to maintain momentum. No matter the pace, one step at a time is still further than no steps at all. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu
- Seek feedback and mentorship: Now that you’ve continued boosting your motivation from what’s within your control, asking for feedback or seeking mentor to help you shape your vision, your motivation, your accomplishments, or hold you accountable, are all part of building your motivation. Constructive criticism from a trusted person can offer new perspectives and motivate you to push your limits. They know you well enough to know when you should slow down and when you’re holding yourself back – the key here is to go to a trusted person who has your wellbeing at the forefront.
Strategies to motivate your team
Self-motivation can be easier than motivating another or your entire team.
If you’ve built trust, empathy, and created psychological safety, this can be easily accomplished. BUT, many managers assume their team will be motivated to do what the the manager asks – although it may work at times, this is more of a drag for the manager and the team members.
Here are some strategies to help you motivate your team with ease:
Encourage Open Communication
When this exists, the whole team operates at a different level – it takes active effort and time to build open communication in team members – it goes back to building trust, empathy and creating a psychologically safe space for your team.
Assess if your team feels comfortable sharing ideas and concerns?
Open communication fosters trust and collaboration, essential ingredients for motivation.
Encourage and model open communication with your team so they feel comfortable speaking up, sharing their thoughts and most important – make sure you’re ready to listen and stay curious about their contributions.
One of the best and quickest way to build empathy and psychological safety is to feel heard and appreciated. Within your 90 days, focus on building this up and you’ll be 10x better at everything else when it comes to your team.
Provide growth opportunities
Once you have open dialogue within your team, it’s time to challenge them.
This is when you get to learn how each team member excels and their secret to their success. Giving the same challenge to everyone equally defeats this purpose. As you’ve been listening, you’ll have identified each team members strengths and opportunities. Now, give them opportunities to grow – challenge themselves.
NOW, here’s a big part – if they feel anxious / nervous about the challenge, it’s because they need support and reassurance that failure is acceptable, even celebratory. Additionally, they should have opportunities to ask questions, validate their concerns, and feel there will be adequate resources to support their success. And if the resources are unavailable, they need to know that in advance so they can engage creatively.
Promoting professional development workshops, like communication, team building, technical skills, process development, etc. can boost morale and increase team motivation. Offering opportunities to learn and practice strengthens their trust in you and increases their excitement to come into work and contribute their best at every turn – because you have their back and you’re giving them opportunities to grow.
Recognize and Reward Efforts
You already know the importance of recognizing and rewards people for their work – but did you know that simple verbal praise, kind email, one-on-one appreciation can be more affective than financial reward?
It’s not always possible to provide the same level of financial reward for great work, but words and public recognition for each member’s effort goes a long way. Please don’t save them up – see something, say something.
Positive reinforcement like this on a regular bases validates your team members that you’re paying attention to their extra effort and you appreciate their work. No matter what it is – starting a team meeting with appreciation for another member always increases morale and motivation.
Be specific on the recognition. Saying “ good job” falls flat, but saying “i noticed you were struggling with this part of the project and then with determination you were able to overcome that challenge – good job!” that feels different.
Foster a Positive Work Environment
Don’t make work dull – or worse toxic.
It kills all motivation when people aren’t having fun or you start micro-managing.
This will destroy the trust you’ve built and hurt the team’s morale and motivation almost immediately. Instead of supporting you with their full effort, they’ll be protecting themselves first from the bland or toxic work environment and giving you the bare minimum to get past the day.
At this stage, you really need to call in external support to help you recover before it gets worse.
So, play music, have game day during meetings, take extended lunches, flexible schedules, etc.
Putting play in work reduces stress, increases opportunities to increase friendly interactions, and starts to repair the toxic workspace culture.
A supportive and positive work environment enhances motivation, Promotes a culture of respect, diversity, and collaboration, and where everyone feels their contribution matters.
Pitfalls of motivation
Let’s be real; maintaining motivation isn’t always easy. Even with our greatest intention, it can be tough to get back at time because life throws curveballs. There are some common pitfalls to look out for when we are addressing motivation:
Burnout
Burnout is a professional trauma – it can progress from Acute to Severe if unaddressed. It’s a serious concern for you and your team members, make sure you’re speaking openly with your team about the symptoms of burnout. Learn more about burnout (LINK)
This is likely the biggest hurdle with it comes to motivation in the professional setting.
When you’re in the early stages of burnout, prioritize self-care and work-life balance. Take regular breaks, set boundaries, and ensure you’re taking time to recharge. Sick days aren’t only for physical ailments, it’s also for mental and emotional challenges too – no one will ask, if you need to skip work to address your health.
Lack of Direction
Lack of direction can cause a lot of frustrations in the team and within yourself when we don’t see a direction, all options are open and it all becomes overwhelming. It’s like being in a car on the ocean – it doesn’t make sense and the car tires won’t get you anywhere. This is more common than you think, at times you might be working on something but unaware of how this fits into the bigger picture – it could be personal, professional or organizational.
This is where having high EQ helps – as you start identifying internal challenges – you’re able to pick up on triggers that’ll inform you that you’re moving without direction. You’re going in circles, you’re not headed anywhere. People feel stuck, frustrated, anxious, depressed, all leading towards deepening the burnout symptoms and makes it tough to get back on track.
As soon as you recognize you’re lacking direction, focus on revisiting your goals and values. Assess what led you here, and more importantly, when you started to veer off your direction. Identifying that fork in your road can offer clarity on how you got here. It’ll be time to reassess and reprioritize your goals to they’re more aligned with your goals.
Procrastination
Yup – this gets me all the time. I love to procrastinate – I’m very effective in ALL parts of my life when I’m avoiding what I really need to get done.
We’re already familiar with procrastination, but did you know that if you eat the frog, it can open up your motivation and get yourself closer to getting things done?
So, the concept of doing what you hate first – as soon as you wake up or go to work – spend time getting this done. Once the worst thing on your list is done, everything else feels easier. This is a time management trick and you can learn more here (LINK)
When you’re working on a project or procrastinating, focus on breaking down tasks into smaller chunks – a book is hard to write, but a page is easier. Just getting that first word is tough to get on paper, but start anyway, and it’ll make it less daunting and helping you start moving forward.
Seeking support
Motivation is different for everyone, and sometimes if you’re struggling it can be really tough to find an ounce of motivation to get off the bed and into work. Depression makes this extremely challenging, if you’re struggling with depression or depressive thoughts please talk to someone.
The journey to finding and sustaining motivation is deeply personal, but it’s also one of the most rewarding endeavors you can undertake. By understanding your motivators, practicing emotional intelligence, and actively engaging in activities that foster motivation, you can unlock your full potential.
Motivation isn’t a destination—it’s a journey. Stay curious, stay engaged, and watch as your transformation in your career and life. If you’d like to work with a professional on developing motivation for yourself or your team, please schedule a consultation and see how a coach can help you live a more balanced life filled with motivation to accomplish more than you can imagine.
