Reasons for low employee motivation and consequences of low staff motivation

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Managers of large companies complain about low motivation among employees. Parents of teenagers suffer no less than respectable bosses. They have to try all the “sticks” and “carrots” available to force their children to learn.

Motivation is one of the most strange “inhabitants” of the human psyche. The more you try to lure him out of his hole with buns, the deeper he hides. And when a person shows an iron grip and tries to control the life situation completely, motivation, like a mouse darting into a hole, can disappear completely.

Analyze and unearth the causes of apathy

If you don't have the motivation to get anything done or even start a task, think about the possible reasons for laziness that are causing you to procrastinate. Then develop a plan to help you motivate yourself to begin to overcome these reasons.

Keep in mind that there is no strategy that will help anyone deal with every situation. You must experiment to understand how to overcome laziness and achieve your goal.

Sometimes it happens that it is not a matter of motivation at all, and your condition is a symptom of a more serious problem.

For example, if you're a perfectionist, your lack of motivation may be due to a fear that you won't be able to complete a task without a hitch. Until you solve this problem of excessive striving for perfection, your motivation will never appear.

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In other cases, its absence can cause you to put off important things. And the more you put them off, the less incentive you have to complete them. In this case, increased motivation will make you feel better and perform better.

So it's important to take a few minutes to think about why you might be having problems with motivation.

Ways to get motivated

Motivation cannot be controlled by force. But there are methods to restore it. Let's consider the most effective ways, armed with which you can pull yourself, like the legendary Munchausen, out of the swamp of apathy and depression.

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Shape the goal

We can understand well what kind of tasks we face. However, over time - especially if the path is strewn with obstacles - their image becomes more and more ethereal. Although the goals are known to us, we do not encounter them in real everyday life: they cannot be heard, seen, touched. The focus of attention weakens, and with it the desire to act. You can correct the situation by remembering that the goal must have a material expression. All sorts of posters, collages of desires, audio reminders help to activate “achiever” behavior in us again and again.

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Get your fill of impressions

This point logically follows from the previous one. Often at first we are full of motivation and desire to act. But over time, the fuse disappears somewhere. We keep visualizing ourselves as rich (famous, fit, fluent in French), but this motivation doesn't last long. Only new impressions, emotions, sensations can awaken the mind. And for this you need to meet them. For example, if you're dreaming of a trip to Japan, why not visit an atmospheric Japanese restaurant, a cultural exhibition, or any other event dedicated to the culture of this country? For those who dream of building a career, it is sometimes useful to communicate with those people who have reached their cherished heights. Communication with them will make up for the lack of impressions, help you get enough of emotions, and adopt a new way of thinking.

Sometimes people say that they don’t have enough time for such a “break.” However, if you don’t regularly arrange similar “creative dates” for yourself, there is a high risk of getting stuck in a routine and remaining in a paralyzed, limited state.

Listen to your thoughts

dweedon1 / Pixabay
When we find ourselves in a state of unproductivity, it is easy to descend into self-blame and endless criticism of ourselves. Sometimes we may not even notice that we call ourselves stupid, lazy people who are incapable of anything. These thoughts drag you into a vicious circle. Blaming ourselves for laziness and lack of motivation, we begin to scold ourselves even more, which is why our motivation to do something only decreases. It doesn't give us more energy. By beating ourselves up, we don’t get the inspiration we need to conquer the peaks.

Where should you start? First of all, with recognition of difficulties and self-compassion. Whether you are depressed for a long time, or it’s just not a good day today, painful experiences are very real. Therefore, it is worth showing tolerance to yourself as we would show it to a loved one or friend. Many of us experience the fear that we won't achieve our goals by being too compassionate to ourselves. However, self-acceptance is not the equivalent of self-consciousness or a “victim” position. By recognizing our spiritual emptiness and fatigue, we gain a chance to get rid of destructive self-criticism.

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Remember that achieving your goal is only for you and no one else.

People often fall into the planning trap. They forget that planning is a good tool to help achieve a goal - but nothing more. By pushing himself into a time frame, a person begins to feel disgusted with working on a goal. Encumbrance provokes sabotage.

The right steps to achieve your goals

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Consider the following. The goal that you have set for yourself, by and large, is not needed by anyone except yourself. Nobody gave you the responsibility to work on it. But will you like living the way you live today if you give up this goal? If you want to change something in your life, take action. If not, well, the owner is a gentleman. The human psyche is resourceful; Perceiving our goals as heavy obligations is one of the ways to escape work and refuse responsibility.

The most common reasons for lack of motivation

The desire to avoid discomfort. Whether you're bored while doing homework or trying to avoid frustration by avoiding a difficult task, lack of motivation can stem from a desire to avoid unpleasant feelings.
Uncertainty. When you think you can't do something, or are confident that you won't be able to handle the challenge of solving a problem, you may not even want to start.
Too many responsibilities. When you're swamped with work, another task will only make you feel overwhelmed. And this feeling can kill your motivation.
Lack of desire to achieve a goal. It happens that you agree to do some work simply because you felt obligated to someone or were under pressure from others. This means your heart was not in it. And if you really don’t want to achieve this goal, then you simply don’t know how to start doing this work, and you don’t really want it.
Possible depression. Lack of motivation is a common symptom of depression. It may also be associated with other conditions of this type, such as anxiety. So it's important to consider whether your mental health is affecting your motivation levels.

These are just a few common reasons why people experience lack of motivation. But it may be related to other issues, such as fear of what other people will think of you or a desire to please everyone. Therefore, carefully analyze your thoughts and feelings that influence your attitude.

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Reason 1. Expecting quick results

One of the main reasons for loss of motivation is a person’s desire to immediately see the results of his work. Here's how it usually happens:

Sergei gained an extra 20 kg and decided to go on a diet. He threw out everything sweet, fatty and starchy from his diet and prepared for a miraculous transformation.

Every morning he eagerly stepped on the scale and wrote down the result in a separate notebook:

- What is all this going on, huh?! - Sergei begged on the eighth day. — Is there any sense at all from these diets?!

In the evening he went to a cafe and bought two eclairs.

We always expect some results from our efforts. And this is normal: after all, this is why we begin to act. The problem is that serious results usually require a serious investment of time. Judge for yourself:

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But people often try to discern progress almost from day one. They eagerly examine their figure in the mirror (“What if the muscles have already grown?!”), constantly monitor the statistics of their blog (“What if I’m already like Artemy Lebedev?!”), try to read complex texts in English (“What if I Will I understand everything now?!”).

But progress is still not visible, and disappointment in one’s goal gradually grows in one’s soul.

What to do?

1. Get ready for the marathon right away. Find out when you should expect tangible results in your case, and keep this deadline in mind from the very beginning.

2. Introduce a “moratorium” on checking results. If you feel like you might give up on your goal, set a time limit during which you won't check your results. That is, do not look at blog statistics in the first three months, do not step on the scale in the first month of the diet, etc. This will help you not to lose motivation ahead of time.

3. Be guided by the principle: “do what you must, and come what may.” If you put in the right effort, do it conscientiously and regularly, the results will not go away. All you need is to simply “hold out” for a certain time (see point 1).

How to start being motivated? Act as if you already have the motivation!

You may be able to fool yourself by changing your behavior. Act as if you are motivated and your actions can change your emotions. For example, instead of sitting on the couch in your pajamas all day waiting for inspiration, just get dressed and start working. You may find that it increases your motivation and makes your decision making process easier.

To make this work, answer yourself the question: “What would I be doing now if I were motivated?” Think about what you would wear and how you would think and act. Now try doing all this for real and see if your motivation levels increase.

How to solve the problem of lack of motivation?

Self-motivation is a struggle: our optimistic and proactive mindset is constantly undermined by negative thoughts and worries about what will happen next. Everyone has to experience doubts and become discouraged. But it is the ability to continue moving forward despite everything that distinguishes the most successful.

Solving the problem of lack of motivation is not so easy. Even if you fight it persistently, at the first sign of failure it can arise again. The key to solving it is the ability to understand your own thoughts and how they affect your emotions. By mastering the skills of cultivating stimulating thoughts and getting rid of negative ones, focusing on the task at hand, you can learn to pull yourself out of the swamp of despair before it begins to suck you in.

Reasons for loss of motivation

There are only three of them:

Lack of Confidence - If we don't believe in achieving success, is there any point in trying?

Lack of Focus - If we don't know what we want, are we pursuing anything at all?

Lack of an action plan - if we don’t know what to do, where will the incentive to do it come from?

Gaining confidence

Lack of confidence is the first killer of motivation. I usually lose confidence because I focus entirely on achieving what I want, ignoring what I have already achieved. When you think about what you want, your mind begins to explain why you cannot achieve it - along with this, negative thoughts arise. Memories of previous failures, annoying mistakes, thoughts about our weaknesses come to the fore. We begin to envy our rivals and justify our own failures. In this state, we tend to make a repulsive impression, think negatively about others and lose self-confidence.

The way out of this vicious circle is to focus on gratitude for what you already have. Take time and focus on the positive aspects of your life. Mentally make a list of your strengths, the successes you have already achieved and the advantages you currently have. We tend to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our shortcomings. This exercise will help you gain confidence and get incentive for current achievements and victories.

The idea that recalling facts we already know has a positive effect on the way we think may seem strange, but it has a surprising effect. The mind often distorts reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more pessimistic our thoughts, the more confirmation he finds for them. When we firmly believe that we deserve success, our consciousness generates ways to achieve it. The best way to succeed is to sincerely want to do something truly meaningful for the world.

Let's clarify

The second killer of motivation is lack of focus. How often do you obsess over what you don't want instead of focusing on achieving what you want?

Usually we think in categories of fear: “I’m afraid of poverty”, “I’m afraid that they will no longer respect me”, “I’m afraid of loneliness”... The problem is that this type of thinking does not provide grounds for action: instead of fighting fear, he withdraws into himself and demotivates us.

If you are caught in the network of such thoughts, first of all you need to focus your efforts on achieving a very specific goal. Once you set a goal, you will automatically determine a series of actions necessary to achieve it. So, if you are haunted by the fear of poverty, focus on finding ways to increase your income. To do this, you may have to learn new skills, get a better-paying job, or develop a website that will generate income. The secret is to move from unconscious desire to concrete practical actions.

By focusing our mind on achieving a positive goal instead of dwelling on vague fears, we force our brain to work. He immediately begins to develop a plan of action to achieve success. Instead of worrying about the future, starting to care about it is the first step to positive thinking and proactive action. If we know what we want, we have an incentive to strive for it.

Developing an action plan

An action plan is the final piece of the motivational puzzle. If focus means having an end goal, then an action plan means having a strategy for achieving it, written down day by day. The lack of a clear idea of specific next steps deprives us of incentive: we begin to put off our plans from day to day and cannot break out of this vicious circle.

The key to creating an action plan is to find and select specific actions that will lead to success. To achieve any goal, you can choose actions that will pay off later, or, on the contrary, misfire and take ineffective measures. Make a list of proposed actions and systematize them, guided by the criterion of effectiveness. Then create a step-by-step plan that focuses primarily on those activities that will yield the greatest return.

Highlighting the most important tasks will direct your efforts and energy in the right direction. When my motivation wanes, I find the right path by developing a plan of two positive actions. The first one is a small task that I have been meaning to solve for a long time, the second one is a longer term goal. Then I immediately do the first of two actions, which gives me strength and confidence. After that, I take the first step towards achieving the second, long-term goal. If you do the same from time to time, you can get out of depression, strengthen your positive outlook and speed up the implementation of your long-term plans.

We inevitably face periods of failure, loss of strength and occasional defeats. If we don't train our minds, these minor potholes in our life's path can turn into mental chasms. By protecting ourselves from the three executioners of motivation, we maintain a positive attitude and accelerate success.

Source: megarost.ru

Argue with yourself

When you justify your lack of motivation, you'll likely come up with a long list of reasons why you shouldn't take action. For example, you will think: “This is too difficult” or “I’ll never do it anyway.” But such thoughts will only lead you to a dead end.

Therefore, it is better to try to argue with yourself and argue the opposite. When you think you will fail, think about the reasons why you can still succeed. Or, if you think you can't finish the job, list all the reasons why you can do it.

Such psychological training can help you see the situation from different sides and prove to you that the pessimistic forecast is not the only one and is not so accurate. There is a chance that everything will turn out better than you expect from yourself. And if you look at the situation in a balanced way, it will give you the motivation to try to start doing the work that you need to take on.

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Reasons for loss of motivation

Staying motivated is hard because it requires conscious effort. Thoughts about the past and future periodically return, preventing us from concentrating on the present and not worrying about things that cannot be changed. In addition, every person sooner or later finds himself in a psychological hole. And it is the ability to get out of it that distinguishes an average person from a great one. If you know how to motivate yourself, you will do several times more and better than a person who goes with the flow.

Motivation is much easier to acquire than to maintain. In order to tune in to the activity, sometimes a few minutes are enough. But maintaining motivation over a long period of time is incredibly difficult.

There are three reasons why we lose motivation:

Lack of confidence . If you don't have faith that you can achieve your goal, then what's the point of trying?
Lack of focus . If it is not clear what exactly needs to be achieved, then how can you understand that you are doing what is needed?
Lack of direction . If you don’t know what exactly to do, then how can you motivate yourself to accomplish things?

Now let's see how we can change the situation.

How to increase self-confidence?

Perhaps uncertainty is the biggest enemy of motivation. When this happens to you, focus on what you really want, recognizing what you already have in your life. Understanding that at the moment there is a roof over your head, water and food, and loved ones is already half the solution to the problem. Now you need to think about how to achieve more without dwelling on past mistakes and failures. After all, it is thoughts about the dark past that undermine self-confidence.

You need to feed off and be inspired by the successes of other people or companies, and not envy them. As soon as envy appears, the victim syndrome develops with it. You begin to think that you are somehow worse than others and concentrate on belittling the merits of others. While being inspired by the successes of the great is a great way to develop motivation and understand that anything can be achieved with the right mindset and work on yourself.

Create several lists: your strengths, past successes, gratitude for specific things and moments in the present. Do what you know how to do. This will set you up for positive, proactive thinking and prevent you from thinking about the negative.

How to create a tangible focus?

How often do you focus on what you don't want instead of what you do want?

We usually think in terms of fear. We are afraid of poverty, loneliness, disrespect. The problem with this kind of thinking is that during it there is no desire to act, but only to defend. Accordingly, there can be no talk of motivation.

If you realize that you are thinking through a fear lens, the first step is to focus on your main goal. Having clearly defined the goal, it will be easier to take action.

The fear of being poor leads to the fact that a person does not make any efforts and forces himself to come to terms with the state of affairs. Creating a plan to become rich may not make you rich, but it will force you to focus on opportunity rather than fear. This will allow you to think about self-learning, acquiring skills and improving yourself. No one will give guarantees, but the chances will increase many times over. In addition, you will start doing the right things and will not waste time and energy on unnecessary things and thoughts.

How to develop a direction?

You choose the direction in which you will move. If focus means choosing an end goal, then direction is the daily strategy for achieving it.

Lack of direction completely kills motivation, because not understanding what the next step will be leads to procrastination. A typical example would be a person who decides to start his own blog and devotes most of his time to reading other people's blogs. This is an important process, but there comes a time when such reading only brings harm and is an excuse for laziness.

Therefore, first of all, you need to identify activities that will lead to success (or not, who knows). Moreover, the main thing is to notice which steps work and which don’t and why.

For a person wanting to become a blogger, this could be:

Content writing.
Researching current topics.
Meet other bloggers.
Website optimization and design.
Replies to comments.
Reading other blogs.

If you feel that motivation is fading, you need to create an action plan based on the big picture and know what the first step is. It is also important to know exactly how it should be performed.

Motivated people enjoy the process by keeping in mind why they are doing what they are doing. No matter how many steps your plan consists of, always think about the meaning of each step.

Remember that motivation will fade from time to time, this is an inevitable process. But discipline and willpower will help bring it back. By the way, you can learn more about motivation and discipline from our course on self-knowledge, where you can understand yourself and what motivates you.

We wish you good luck!

We also recommend reading:

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Overcoming self-sabotage
Thoughts that kill any motivation
Thoughts as a cure for stress
Motivation: strategic leadership
5 motivation killers
Thoughts that hinder growth
Four types of stress
How to Develop Long-Term Focus
Personal goal setting

Keywords:1LLL

Have pity on yourself

People often think that the best key to motivation is to keep yourself busy. But harsh self-criticism may not work. Psychological research has shown that when people feel sorry for themselves, it can be more helpful when struggling with difficulties.

Self-pity reduces psychological stress and its consequences and reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression. So instead of punishing yourself for mistakes, be kinder to yourself. This doesn't mean you should always be proud of yourself. Simply feeling sorry for yourself and accepting yourself for who you are balances out the desire for perfection. This will help you honestly admit your shortcomings, mistakes and failures.

Talk to yourself like you would a close friend. After all, if your friend had such a problem, you would hardly reproach him. Therefore, treat yourself the same as you would a loved one. This practice will help you recover from failure.

Use the 10 minute rule

When you're afraid to do something, like walking 5 km every day, you won't have the motivation to do it. However, you can reduce the feeling of fear by proving to yourself that you have the strength to do it and it is not as terrible as you think. The 10 minute rule will help you get started. Tell yourself that you will start what you have to do and stop after 10 minutes. When that time comes, ask yourself if you want to continue. You will likely find that you are more motivated to continue. So if, say, you have work to do on a report that you don’t want to do, then use the 10-minute rule.

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Starting to do a difficult task is the most difficult part of the matter. It is much easier to continue.

Why doesn't motivation work?

“Why discipline is better than motivation” - this article recently appeared on lifehacker.ru, giving me a lot of thoughts on this topic. In my opinion, one must be quite careful when applying discipline. However, the problem is correctly identified. We often read books and blogs to get inspired and move mountains. But a miracle does not happen. Our consciousness dreams of exploits, but our deeds remain a dead weight.

So the author is right, motivation doesn’t work . Why is this happening?

Parallel Worlds

From childhood we are taught that we need to do what we need, and not what we want. Some from school, and special lucky ones from a very early age. Sitting still when you want to run around and chat. Go to bed when the games are in full swing.

The little guy has no problems with motivation. He knows what he wants and persistently pursues his goal. Until, faced with harsh reality, he gets used to the fact that his desire, what inspires him, what captivates him is not very important. Not as important as necessity and external rules.

Everything seems to tell him: “It’s useless. Dream somewhere else."

Thus, spiritual impulses and desires are gradually forced out into a separate world. And almost each of us lives in two parallel universes. One is the world of real life, the world of necessity, where you need to obey certain rules. The second is the life of our dreams, a life that we like, where we do what we want, feel joyful and happy. A world of fantasy and dreams. "Someday I will do it."

Then everything only becomes more complicated: work, the appearance of a family add responsibility, tension and debt. It is not surprising that an adult often does not even have a connection between the world of inspiration and joy and the world of real life. Therefore, everything that is most wonderful, fascinating, and inspiring remains in this plane and does not become material. And, falling into a fantasy world, it does not affect real events.

For some, the split may be global. For others, it concerns only certain areas of life. Perhaps a person is absolutely free to choose a place to travel and is able to go to the Amazon jungle, to the Indians of Peru or to the North Pole (inspiration works here), but he does not understand at all what he can do to start a family and be happy in it (dreams far from reality). He does what seems necessary to him, gets some kind of nonsense as a result and simply gives up, preferring to go on a trip again and dream of love than to do something for her. He may hear the call of his heart, but he does not consider it possible to be guided by it.

A person has everything to do what is necessary, but part of his internal resources remains closed by an invisible wall.

To cope with the situation, some simply immerse themselves in other areas of life: they work a lot, despite the desire to travel, achieve career heights instead of growing vegetables or running a cafe in warm regions. And others are trying to grab quick happiness - play with toys at work or drive a car at the speed of a race car driver.

But few people try to restore this connection - to connect their true desires with the life they live. And all the books, films and other inspiring sources fuel the dream, but do not in any way affect what happens in life. And sometimes they do harm - because, with their head in the clouds, a person spends less time on what is happening on earth.

False desires

Sometimes, when thinking about what we want to do, we sincerely consider our own desire to be something that in fact we do not need at all. There can be quite a few reasons - perhaps someone else needs it . To our close, dear person, whose opinion is important to us. Or a person whose influence we cannot get rid of.

Maybe it's prestigious . We want freedom - not to depend on financial restrictions. And under the influence of the media, books and trainings on success, a rigid connection lives in our heads: “Success = house”, “Success = cool car”. But our subconscious knows what exactly we need. And he understands that you will not be happy with a house that requires constant maintenance, or a car that requires care and stress. So it turns out that the image of a cool car does not turn us on at all and does not lead us to new achievements, because in fact, freedom from worries is more important. Like the old joke.

A black man is lying under a palm tree, smoking bamboo. Periodically, bananas fall on him, and from time to time he lazily eats them. A visiting millionaire comes up to him and says: “Why are you lying around here?” - What? - Well, what’s up?! - the millionaire is indignant. - Money is falling on your head! - Where? - the black man looks around. - Well, there you go! Bananas! You can't eat that much! Collect it and take it to the market. - For what? - Sell it and buy yourself some decent clothes. Then you’ll pick up more bananas, sell them, buy them... - Why? - With the money from what you sold, you can buy a cart and get a lot more! - What for? - Yes, with what you sell, you can already buy a truck and transport large volumes, then you will hire workers, and you yourself will lie and smoke under a palm tree! - So I lie and smoke anyway!

Or maybe we wanted something for a long time , and didn’t even notice how we changed our minds . With age, character, values, and needs change. Nothing surprising. So it turns out that there seems to be a dream, but it doesn’t light it up.

Lack of resources

I remember one of the teachers at the university told us: “If you don’t want anything, then you want to sleep.” For some reason this phrase stuck very firmly in my memory. I have tested this hypothesis on myself more than once. It turned out that indeed, in fatigue mode, the body does not respond to what would become a strong motivation in a normal state.

If we are tired, emotionally burnt out, under severe time pressure and/or spinning like a squirrel in a wheel, the likelihood that we will find the strength to connect our parallel worlds drops to zero. Maslow's pyramid of needs works here. In a mode of scarcity of resources—physical and emotional—we slide to lower levels. And higher needs become irrelevant and recede into the background.

Habit of looking outside for motivation

Since true, internal motivation has left us and lives in a parallel world, we tend to attribute its influence to what we can observe. This is how we notice that certain books, films or people have a positive effect on us. After communicating with them, your mood improves, your productivity increases, and your desire to act appears. Many people believe that these external factors are motivation. But in reality, we can only be inspired by what resonates with our own thoughts.

The effect is similar to lighting a battery from another car. You receive a charge from the outside, which helps you use your own resource. And if you don’t have your own battery, this operation will not help you. From the external (books, movies, communication with other people, motivational speeches and trainings) you can only take a spark.

When I attended Mirzakarim Norbekov’s “Success Workshop” in 2008, I was very curious to see what kind of people were willing to shell out 1000 €. This was the first time I had paid so much for my own training (it came out to 25 € per hour to sit in a room of 100 people. Many people are not willing to pay that much for personal work), and it seemed to me that people who were ready to pay for this course should be something special. Therefore, I was very surprised to see the most ordinary people, no different from those walking the streets.
What surprised me even more was that some of them were attending such an expensive event for the third or fourth time. It turned out that they went there for the atmosphere, motivation and energy boost.
It turns out that after the end of the event, the euphoria passed over time, and they again slipped energetically to the state in which they were on their own.

A similar effect applies to any training. Regardless of whether the person himself chooses to study or is directed by an employer, only a few percent get real great results - those people who have the energy to continue what they started in their studies and implement everything that was taught in life. Most often, these are those people who went to the training with their own intention to gain knowledge. If a person does not have his own motivation, then the result disappears in the shortest possible time.

Hidden benefits

We often do not take into account the fact that our “wants” and intentions are not alone. At the same moment we can have several desires at the same time. Perhaps they can be distributed over time, but nevertheless, they do not cease to affect us here and now.

We may want completely opposite things: to have a blast at a party and at the same time be cheerful in the morning at an interview. And in such a situation, one desire will inhibit another. It may turn out that the desire to have fun does not affect us very much, because getting a job is more important.

There are more complex combinations in life, and it is not always easy to trace the connection between them. However, if you don’t want to do what you want, look for hidden benefits.

And what to do with all this?

So, if you are faced with a situation where the goal that you accepted as yours does not light you up:

1. Check the fuel level in the gas tank. Do you have enough resources? Sleep? Energy? Physical strength? Emotional?

2. Check the desire for truth and relevance. Is this really your desire? Imagine it coming true. What emotions are you experiencing?

3. Check the situation for hidden benefits. What is the benefit of not doing what you plan to do?

4. Check if there is a connection between what you dream about and how you live. If not, try to find where it got lost and restore it.

Well, how does it work?

Combine unpleasant work with something pleasant

Emotions play an important role in motivation. If you are sad, bored, lonely, restless, you will find it more difficult to do difficult or tedious work. Cheer yourself up, and the work will begin to progress. For example, listen to music while running or cleaning. Light a scented candle while you write your report. Invite a close friend to help you. The main thing is that this pleasant activity does not distract you from your main work. For example, if you watch TV and write an article, your productivity may slow down.

Learn to keep a to-do list

It's very difficult to plan anything if you have too much to do. This discourages you from doing anything at all. In addition, many people do not understand how long it may take them to complete a particular task. And if they do not keep up, they will consider their activities ineffective.

So first of all, look at your to-do list. If it's too long, get rid of tasks that are not necessary and also reschedule some of them for another day. Learn to prioritize and do the most important things first. This will help you manage your tasks. As a result, you may feel more motivated to get started.

Causes and consequences of low employee motivation

1. Insufficient competence of the employee.

Sometimes an employee is not able to perform the work that you expect from him and it is important to understand this in time.

We are talking about knowledge, skills and experience. And this is something that can and should be assessed when hiring. Now there are many programs and ways at the stage of selection for a company to assess the availability of knowledge, skills and abilities that make it possible to perform the necessary work at a certain level. Vocational tests, competency models, and professional assessment formats, including interviews, can help with assessment.

If an employee comes to you with insufficient competencies, but a desire to work and learn, perhaps it makes sense to invest in him, send him for training, and teach him on the job. But to do this, you first need to understand what exactly the problem is - ability or motivation.

2. The employee is capable, but not motivated.

This happens quite often and it is important to understand in time what exactly “turns him off” from work. What can demotivate? What are the reasons for low motivation?

2.1. Violation of agreements between the manager and subordinates .

First of all, the question of such agreements and contracts arises when a decision is made to accept a candidate. Sometimes the future employee is not told the whole truth about the organization, or the disadvantages are presented in a softened form. For example, during an interview, an employee was told that the company has a system of fines for violations (lateness, failure to submit reports on time, etc.), but the result turns out that the standards are written so strictly that almost no one is able to submit a report on time. But this is an extreme case, the most common payment of salaries is in a smaller amount; the emergence of new tasks that were not mentioned. All this demotivates the employee. The result is another negative review about your company and employees who do their job carelessly.

Recommendations. Maximum realistic information in the selection process. Setting realistic expectations.

2.2. Failure to use any employee skills that he himself values.

At work, unfortunately, it is not always possible to use the skills or knowledge that we possess. If the use of these skills is not critical for us, we begin to master others. What if it's the other way around? A specialist who got a job as a clerk spends most of his time answering calls and sending letters by mail, although he expected that he would mainly be working with documents. And this skill is key for him, he would not want to lose it. What will happen to such a specialist? A person who is confident in himself will start looking for a new job. Otherwise, demotivation will be expressed in negligent performance of one’s duties, frequent smoke breaks and breaks, and complaints to colleagues.

Recommendations. If it is common practice to perform tasks that are uninteresting and do not meet the employee's professional expectations, either discuss this with him honestly during the interview (you can say how long it will take), or let him know that you value him by “talking to him on souls,” explain the importance of these tasks (after all, even completing a small fragment of the main task plays a significant role). Sometimes people feel that we underestimate their work; most often this happens because the dialogue between the manager and the subordinate is disrupted.

2.3. Ignoring employee initiative .

At first, employees are usually bursting with new ideas, full of enthusiasm and energy. Often ideas may seem ridiculous or simply unusual. In this case, the manager either immediately rejects them, or makes it clear that “someday,” “but not with us.” Although, perhaps, some of these ideas are not without meaning - it’s just that people who have worked in a company for a long time, as a rule, no longer want to change anything, it’s so convenient for them. After some time, the fire in the eyes of the proactive employee goes out.

Recommendations. Listen to ideas and suggestions. Even if they are not brilliant enough to be implemented in their “pristine” form, you can often learn something from them. And always explain why, in your opinion, this or that idea is not suitable.

2.4. Lack of recognition from management .

Suppose an employee manages to successfully implement some project in the company, perhaps one of the key ones. But, alas, management does not note this in any way, as if this success is natural (even if this is not the first time the employee has successfully completed complex tasks). What will be the employee's reaction to this silence? I think comments are unnecessary.

Recommendations. Rejoice and be proud of the successes of your subordinates. Encourage them for this, perhaps not always financially, but always say: “Thank you.”

2.5. Lack of final results.

Often, especially in companies with a bureaucratic management style, decisions take a very long time to be made.

Many projects get stuck at one of the many stages of review and approval by management. It also happens that the need for such a project dies out over time, despite the fact that a lot of time and effort were invested in it. After some time, the employee either comes to terms with it (every project becomes another waste of time for him) or leaves.

Recommendations. For our part, we can only advise you to mark each stage of the task (especially if it is a long-term project).

2.6. No changes in employee status .

In large companies with a hierarchical structure, one of the main problems is the opportunity for employee career growth. For example, a vacant position has opened, 5 specialists are applying for it, one will be selected; Accordingly, those remaining will wait for the next chance, and it is not a fact that it will present itself soon. Sometimes companies try to take people “off the street”: new ideas, knowledge, trends, and people who have worked in the company for a long time and applied for this position begin to feel unnecessary.

Recommendations: In this case, it is advisable to use various techniques for changing status without changing position—for example, managing a temporary project. Again, you can talk to the employee and find out what might interest him - perhaps it will be mastering related tasks and horizontal growth.

2.7. Performing tasks that are not part of the employee's immediate responsibilities.

It happens that a company saves on a specialist by distributing his tasks among others. And these tasks can sometimes take a lot of time and at the same time, as a rule, are routine or uninteresting.

Recommendations. If possible, do not burden the same specialist with these tasks; if they can be useful to him in some way, show him the advantages. And again, we focus on the human dialogue between the employee and the manager - talk to him, show that his experiences are not indifferent to you, and evaluate his work.

Consequences of employee demotivation.

Now let’s see what problems employee demotivation causes for an organization:

high level of conflicts in teams;
low level of performance discipline;
poor performance of duties;
challenges in creating a cohesive team;
low professional level of personnel;
lack of initiative of employees;
staff dissatisfaction;
burnout of key specialists.

Employee burnout.

A very large responsibility for the atmosphere in the company, for the psychological state of the staff, and their psycho-emotional load lies with the managers.

Factors of burnout at work:

Excessive responsibility.
Constant pressure of time factors.
Uncertainty about the future...
Unfriendly atmosphere in the team.

Some markers that indicate burnout:

Reluctance to pick up the phone when they call.
Reluctance to respond to letters.
Constantly being late for work.
Frequent smoking breaks, a lot of unnecessary communication with colleagues instead of work.

If you ask a person at this stage what's wrong, he will tell you that he is just a little tired. But if a person is in a state of “no strength” on a constant basis, then there is a high probability of burnout. Please note that the person himself will never be able to identify this condition and adequately talk to you about it. He will complain to his family and friends, he will tell a close friend, wife, husband about his poor health, but not to you. In this situation at work, if a person does not have the strength, then he will try to survive and minimize the load unconsciously. That is: he will not answer calls and letters, leave earlier and arrive later, perhaps he will say that he completed the work, but in fact he did not.

Be attentive to your colleagues and employees, talk to them and you will be able to identify the reasons for the low motivation of your staff at the earliest stages and eliminate them.

Reward yourself for your work

Come up with something that you perceive as a reward for your work. This will create some kind of motivation for you and help you achieve your goals. For example, you might eat a piece of chocolate after working for half an hour or check social media every half hour. After finishing work, go for a walk. The field for experimentation is huge. Find what works for you.

Of course, if you cannot force yourself to do something for a long time, it is better to contact a specialist. A psychologist will analyze the reasons that affect your energy or mood.

In a word, motivation problems are completely surmountable. The main thing is not to demand the impossible from yourself and be kind to yourself, and also ask for help if you really need it.

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Where to find meaning?

This is quite prosaic, but the meaning appears when you have a PURPOSE that goes beyond your own life.

The sad thing about this is that this big goal is such a subtle, ephemeral thing that cannot be taught. Neither books nor religious and spiritual teachers will help you find this goal. But the good news is that you can do it yourself. But for this to happen, several different factors must come together. Firstly, you must start looking, secondly, you have a lot of work to do on yourself, and thirdly, you may be lucky and you will intuitively understand what you really need.

A man should have a big goal. Maybe at the level of some kind of dream - to help people create something, change something. Not to buy yourself a cool car, but to do something that will benefit people. And then all your subsequent micro-goals will be part of this big one.

And when a person has a vision of this big goal, or at least the feeling that it is there, in that direction. Then he gets up every morning with meaning, energy and enthusiasm.

The most banal example. Once upon a time there lived a boy who did all sorts of nonsense - he earned money, then he went on vacation, then he earned money again... And so he got married and had children and now he says: “I have a reason why I get up every morning. To ensure that children receive a proper education. And I have a vision of what I want them to become. And I want what I didn’t get from my parents, they got from me.”

This is one of the most important moments - to take care of what remains after it. About something that goes beyond his life. But this is only one aspect of a larger goal. Of course, when a family appears, a person willy-nilly takes on an adult position. As an adult, he is responsible for someone, takes care of someone, loves someone, someone depends on him. These could be children, elderly parents or anyone else. Some people, by the way, get dogs for this. And if a person himself chooses to take on such responsibility, then his results in life automatically increase.

For example, this was the case with my grandfather. Even in Soviet and post-Soviet times, my grandfather earned very good money. He had a cooperative, he drove a Volga and could earn 600 thousand a month, when the Volga cost 200-250 thousand. And he always cared about someone. And when everyone left and there was no one to take care of, he got himself a dog to take care of her.