What If You Eliminated the Excuses and Found Motivation? [Real Talk]

Being productive at work is...well, work. Getting your work done in a timely, neat fashion that you can be proud of is seriously hard work! Especially with interruptions and water cooler talk and being hungry and Facebook....the distractions go on and on. Where does the motivation to go above and beyond come from? It seems hard enough to just do the job! Having a bigger goal in mind. That's where the motivation comes from. Feeling pressured to produce from your boss may squeeze out a little production, but that is really short lived. When you feel a motivation from inside yourself to achieve something bigger, you will find yourself getting more work done and feeling better about that work. Think hard on what that motivation could be.  A better job, contributing to the team, your paycheck?   When you find it set a calendar reminder or put up a picture, desktop wallpaper anything to remind you of the goal you have.  It's easy to forget in the midst of frustration.

Now, look around your office and see the people that go above and beyond and try to motivate others to "drink their kool-aid" and get on board with their ideas. Are you engaging with them? If not, why not? Don't have time? Rubish. There is always time. You just don't want to. Could it be that if you just engaged with the team maybe you would get that feeling of accomplishment that drives you to do the next thing? Yeah, most likely. Do you feel like you have a better idea than the other guy? If so, have you brought it up? If yes, but the idea was cast aside, did you listen to the other idea (with the intent to fully understand) and then present your idea? Is there a way that your idea and other ideas could work together? If you listen to them, and understand them, they are more likely to listen to you.

I'm not saying that it is your fault for not feeling motivated. There are a ton of reasons that you feel unmotivated. But ask yourself if you have taken even one step to fix the reason that you feel that way? If making an excuse wasn't an option, what would be your first step? Take that step and let me know how it goes.