How to stay motivated at work?
Motivation is the key to being the best at what you do. Sometimes we might find ourselves lost, lacking the pursue of the work we do. So, what can be the factor of demotivation, and how can we keep ourselves pumped and lifted. The Covid era has affected our emotional state a lot. It took most of us to remote work. So, at that point, we might be struggling to find ways to stay productive and motivated.
In TBC iOS Team, we have discussed this topic and came up with multiple issues and solutions that I want to share with you now.
Self-motivation is an essential component for doing a particular job. In many cases, failure is the fault of our demotivation. So we need to know how to manage the emotions that develop our attitude towards a particular topic. “It isn’t the work that makes you tired, it’s your mental attitude”. Here are seven tips to stay motivated:
1. Confidence
During our discussion in the team, one of the experienced developers mentioned that complex tasks motivate him, while on the other side it might be demotivation for inexperienced developers. I think that this issue is connected to a lack of confidence.
Often our demotivation is caused by complex tasks that are hard to deal with and thus lower our self-esteem. We think we are not good enough. So if you have a difficult task and can not handle it, do not put your self-confidence in jeopardy because of it. Go back to the simple tasks you did well and return to the problematic task only when you are psychologically ready. This will save your self-esteem and avoid the stress that deprives us of the ability to work. Always remember: „Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude”. — Ralph Marston
2. Take something as a motivation that is in your hands.
You have probably heard from people that their motivation is powered by money (bonuses) and compliments. This is the first mistake we use to feed our motivation. It is the same as making delicious food ourselves and still expecting others to make it. In this way, we put our pursues at risk because sometimes they won’t make delicious food for us. Therefore, it is necessary to have something as a source of motivation that is always in our control. For example, if the source of our motivation is the bonuses accrued after each job, if we are not credited once, our motivation will automatically decrease. This enables external factors to manage us. If we want to be constantly motivated, we must minimize environmental factors from affecting us. So, these compliments or small details that can make us happy motivates me as well. But it shouldn’t be the thing that we might be looking for to power our pursues.
3. Do not compare yourself to others
The most destructive step that each of us often takes without thinking about it is to compare ourselves to experienced developers. It lowers our self-esteem, which is the first point of demotivation and drains us of energy. It is important to focus on our skills and abilities to be able to develop and not be discouraged for the reason that someone is doing something better than us. Don’t compare yourself to others. That’s a battle you can never win. This action only lowers our productivity and wastes time. It doesn’t matter what others are doing. It matters what you are doing. „Compare yourself to who you were and who you want to become” — John C. Maxwell.
4. Look for something new
After a monotonous, routine day, it isn’t easy to start with creative and innovative ideas so that you stay motivated. We gradually get used to the monotony and feel so comfortable in this environment that we do not want to change anything. This is where our development process stops, which will cause the loss of our goals, plans, and, automatically, motivation. Therefore, it is necessary not to get used to a monotonous routine. We are constantly looking for news and changing our every working day. You can start these changes on your own. Every day try to discover some new skills in yourself or explore something. Nowadays, there is no more problem of lack of information. The actual problem is that there is so much information, you can’t decide what to learn, as we have some limited time for that. But in any case, you have to find your focus and keep getting something new in your career. In the TBC iOS team, the chapter's role in terms of employee development is enormous. If you find yourself lost in the sea of information and you don’t know on which side you should swim, the chapter can be a great way to go. As essential information is shared between colleagues, all the interesting topics are discussed that can give you the source to have something new in your professional career. This will balance and make your life more diverse. Where there is a desire for development, there will always be motivation.
5. Set goals
Most of what we lack is purposelessness. We do specific work so that we do not know what our goal is. Which means we do not see progress. This is why we lose motivation. Among other factors that motivate us to do any work, our primary motivation is self-development and improvement. When we have no goal, we run into complete chaos and seem to perform our duties instinctively. Set a plan that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. But it is also important to consider our capabilities when setting goals so that we do not get the opposite result and do not cause demotivation. Set your goal high enough to inspire you and low enough to encourage you. Keep in mind to set goals that can be measured. After some days, or weeks, or months you should be able to look up your progress, measure it, and know how far you have gone.
6. Feedback
This step might not be something that you should take as your motivation, but this can push your team to the next step. As we mentioned earlier, it is not a great idea to take something as a motivation that is not in your hands. Giving feedback to your teammates can help them see their strong and weak sides. It will provide them with perfect data to measure their progress. Mostly, it is more pleasant to get feedback from your colleagues, that work in the same field. So, feedback might not be the best thing to take as motivation, but you can use it actively to keep your team pumped as a team player. In the entering steps of iOS development at TBC, feedback (positive or negative) helped me to concentrate on strengths and weaknesses. I want to mention, that is was a massive boost in terms of motivation as well. Individually, what you can do, is to give feedback to yourself as well. Always look at yourself critically and see what you would like to develop in any job. However, it isn’t easy to maintain objectivity in such cases, but it’s worth giving a try.
7. Remember what motivates you
One might think that maintaining motivation is an outdated issue, and everyone knows how to deal with this problem. Lots of articles are being written, and we are constantly reading what we seem to know already. But the problem is that we forget these ways just when we need them most. Or we find it hard to recognize demotivation and blame everything on exhaustion. It is necessary to remember what motivates us in any crisis moment. This allows us to be honest with ourselves and solve the problem without any internal conflict. Therefore, if you feel unmotivated, always remember these seven methods to help you return to motivation.
