Motivated people can move mountains. I know it's always been true in my life. But a highly motivated lifestyle can be like an adrenaline rush... it burns out and you crash. Often a motivation crash is through outside forces you didn't count on or situations that are counter to your inspirational core.
How do you deal with this?
- Perspective of time. What is dire, uncomfortable or unreasonable is often really temporary. We are so drawn into immediate and short-term dynamics we lose perspective. What does this situation mean in a month, in a year, in three years? Often the longer the perspective the significantly less impact we see. This helps you maintain perspective on the current issues.
- Re-centering your core motivators. It's rare to find people who are motivated and engaged full on with everything they do. Usually there is what you love and what you must do. How much of your efforts have been pulled into the "must do" category? How much of what you love can you pull back into your core? Multiply what is motivating and shed what is not.
- Outside perspective and empathetic listening. Many high impact employees have small circles of friends and acquaintances outside of work. People are social creatures. You need the engagement of others that can objectively and fully support you as a person dealing with emotional challenges. You benefit tremendously from empathic listening not just of others by you but by you listening to others. In my case it's a men's bible study group. They a completely different group than me that share stories of their lives and give me fresh perspective on what's important. Be careful about living in a "work bubble".
- Owning the issues. As people we have a tendency to place blame on others. Stop. Don't play the blame game. That it not to say others aren't affecting your ability to execute or stressing your "bliss" but if we blame others then we aren't looking at our part in the issue. It's much easier to change our efforts and interactions than those of others.
- Own your attitude. There are many things you can't control but your attitude and staying upbeat is one of them. Anyone in sports will tell you that a large part of winning is attitude. Drop the small issues and focus on the main blockers to clear your negative thoughts, after all, they are your thoughts, take control of them.
- Refresh and reset. Sometimes we simply need a vacation, not a day off chasing errands in our personal life. When was the last time you took a reasonable amount of time off, away from work and surrounded by those you love doing things completely unrelated to work? We aren't robots. We need time to refresh and reset, coming back into work with a set of new thoughts and actions to live out.
True and lasting motivation is a journey within. Recognize when your motivation wanes and take the steps to be a better and prosperous you.