How to Increase Motivation at Work?

Have you ever been seated in front of your computer, task at hand, but unable to find the motivation to get started? Or maybe you’ve even gotten started on the task, but over time, your drive to continue working on it fizzles out. Lack of motivation at work is a common feeling, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be overcome.

The truth is even the most successful people can sometimes find it hard to motivate themselves. The difference is they know the methods they can lean on to ignite that inner spark and get back on track.

If you find yourself wondering about how to be more motivated at work, you can find your answer right here. In this article, we will take a look at why motivation is important, the factors that impede motivation, and the methods you can turn to increase your motivation at work.

What is motivation?

Motivation is what drives you to complete your tasks and achieve your goals. There are several factors that can affect motivation, such as:

• Your desire to reach your goal
• What you will gain from reaching your goal
• What you could lose by not reaching your goal

As you can see, there are both internal and external factors that play into your ability to motivate yourself to work. For example, one factor that could affect your motivation is your internal expectations of yourself and your ability to be successful. Simultaneously, you might be driven by certain external factors, as well, such as the potential reward of being promoted or fear of losing your job.

Given this, effectively motivating yourself requires you to identify what your personal internal and external driving factors might be.

Why is motivation important?

Motivation is important because it is what drives us to achieve our goals, whether big or small. Effective motivation can result in positive changes in your life as it:

• Provides you with something to work towards
• Strengthens your problem-solving abilities
• Creates productive habits

Without the proper motivation, whether internal or external, it can be hard to get started on tasks, and this makes achieving any goal feel daunting. So, if it’s so important to motivate, why then do people have trouble doing it?

Why do people have trouble motivating?

There can be any number of reasons why someone might have a hard time motivating at work. These range from being under-challenged to feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task at hand. Common factors that contribute to a lack of motivation include:

• Not feeling challenged by the work
• Failing to see the purpose of a task
• Feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by the size or complexity of a task
• Experiencing anxiety about a looming deadline

If you’ve ever felt unmotivated to get work done, one of these factors likely played a role in how you felt. Luckily, there are several steps you can take to overcome these and increase your motivation at work.

How to motivate yourself to work

If you ever find yourself wondering how to be more motivated, there are five techniques you can use to approach your work goals. These are:

1. Create achievable goals

As mentioned, two primary reasons for lack of motivation include dealing with tasks that feel overwhelming in scope and developing anxiety over rapidly approaching deadlines, often both at the same time. Both of these factors can be overcome by creating smaller, more achievable goals rather than attempting to tackle the entire project in one fell swoop.

Breaking down the overall task into several specific, measurable steps allows you to accomplish the goal bit by bit. As the saying goes, every journey begins with a single step; so too do we accomplish our larger, more complex goals by completing several smaller individual increments. Breaking down goals into smaller tasks also allows you to set time frames for each bit so that you can ensure you complete everything before a deadline arrives.

2. Incentivise yourself carefully

When breaking down a larger project into more digestible pieces, it can be tempting to reward yourself upon the completion of each section. For example, you might tell yourself that after completing one section of a goal, you’ll reward yourself with a break. This might even incentivise you to complete the immediate task at hand. However, these counterproductive incentives only serve to harm you in the long run.

While self-incentives aren’t necessarily a bad thing, it is important to not promise yourself anything that will ultimately detract from achieving your overall goal. Let’s say you do reward yourself with a 15 or 20-minute break after completing one section. You may find it hard to get right back into the swing of things after the break and end up losing even more time.

3. Challenge yourself

Oftentimes, we find it easier to motivate for a task when it challenges us in some way or another. Maybe it makes us think outside the box or requires us to lean on skills that aren’t as developed as others. Conversely, the tasks that are easy to accomplish, say the ones you can perform routinely and without much thought, aren’t always as easy to motivate for.

If you find it hard to motivate for such routine tasks at work, try creating challenges for yourself. See if you can complete a certain number of tasks within a set time frame (provided you aren’t sacrificing quality, of course). Or challenge yourself to come up with innovative ways to increase productivity. Even if the task at hand isn’t the most exciting, you can always find ways to encourage yourself to accomplish it.

4. Find purpose

Another factor that contributes to a lack of motivation at work is the feeling that the task that needs to be done is purposeless or unimportant. However, every single job provides value of some kind. It is important to remember this when feeling unmotivated to work on something.

Try to think about the immediate effect the successful completion of the task will have. Maybe it enables another department to perform their jobs effectively. Maybe it has a direct impact on the overall success of the company. Even if the task itself seems small on its own, it is likely that it exists as part of a larger network of tasks that makes a considerable difference.

5. Focus on the journey

Another common pitfall people face when trying to get motivated is focusing too much on the results of the end goal instead of the necessary journey to get there. You might even find yourself daydreaming about what the successful completion of the goal looks like. Maybe it will result in a raise or a promotion.

While it’s not necessarily a bad thing to picture success, spending too much time dwelling on what might happen rather than what needs to happen will only serve to harm you in the long run.

Similar to feeling overwhelmed by the size of a task, if you find yourself thinking too much about the end goal, try breaking the task down into several pieces. Then, rather than thinking about what will happen when it’s all completed, just think about completing the next increment of the overarching goal.

If you’re finding it difficult to motivate at work, even the slightest distractions, such as an uncomfortable chair, can take your mind away from the task at hand. Explore our collection of office chairs to find a comfortable and stylish chair to stay engaged all day long.