WHERE DOES YOUR MOTIVATION COME FROM?

Some days, you are just not in the mood. Some days, you are too exhausted to get excited about anything, from cooking to answering emails to figuring out how to tackle yet another problem at work. And then there’s the guilt that creeps in, making you feel like you’re not spending enough time with friends and family or taking care of yourself the way the Instagram community is telling you takes 15 minutes per day, and you will feel more fit.

Everywhere around us is something we “should” get excited about, and you might just not be.

Losing motivation and feeling stressed are closely related. Staying excited about something is challenging when the fear of not accomplishing tasks consumes you. Overloading yourself is often the final straw that makes the proverbial glass overflow.

WHAT WE WORRY ABOUT IS ALSO WHAT WE CARE ABOUT

The old paradigm at work thinks that motivation to work harder comes from fear of getting fired or an angry boss. I talked about this in last week’s newsletter (you can find it here if you want to go back).

Some will say their self-confidence is strong enough that they don’t care, and maybe that’s true. I’m quite self-confident, and I still care when people are upset with me. I can think about it for days, which brings me to the very point I’m trying to make. An angry boss doesn’t make us work harder; an angry boss makes us more distracted, stressed, and less motivated.

Essentially, stress can cause us to disengage in an effort to manage the overwhelm because worry is often misused as a way to push performance, forcing us to show up. Short term, it gets us moving but then it causes a lack of motivation, and eventually, we stop caring.

Instead of numbing the worry by ceasing to care, we can use what we care about to reset our focus.

Read the full article on JeanetteBronee.com.

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Originally published on April 10, 2024 at JeanetteBronee.com.