Getting your drive back

It is natural that your excitement about your job will diminish over time – the good news is that there is a science behind motivation.

While it is true that motivation is driven by having a clear vision, setting achievable goals and celebrating every success along the journey, awareness of the science behind motivation could lead to a better understanding of how to get it back once it starts to wane.

Change your thinking

Psychologists concur that how one thinks about a task that needs to be completed plays a crucial role in the way that you get it done. Forbes reports that experts have identified the following three primary reasons that stands in the way of tasks being accomplished, and suggest ways that they can be overcome:

Resistance: “I have to.” Very few things create resistance as effectively as being forced to do something. Sometimes, you may not even want to do things you usually enjoy, just because you feel you have to.

Solution: “I choose to.” To combat this effect, change how you think. Realize that nothing in life is actually a ‘have to.’ You do not have to get up, and you do not have to go to work – you choose to do these things because you enjoy the benefits those actions create. When you focus on the benefits of your actions, resistance disappears.

Resistance: “I do not feel right about this.” When you are approaching a task that is opposed to your values or beliefs, you will likely find that you do not have a lot of motivation to get it done. As an example, suppose you are asked to work overtime when you value your family life over your career advancement. In this situation, you are not likely to have a good attitude since the task conflicts with your beliefs.

Solution: Realign your tasks. There are two ways to better align a task with your values. The first is to change the task. Following the example above, you could see if you could trade extra hours this week with time off next week, so that you are not actually losing time with your family. Another option is to add value to the task you are doing. In this instance, you could think about how your extra overtime will allow you to get away with your family this summer on a nice vacation.

Resistance: “I cannot do this.” When you feel unequal to a task, it can be exceedingly difficult to get started. The feeling that you will certainly fail, or that you do not know how to begin, will make any distraction seem infinitely more interesting than the task itself.

Solution: Realize that effort creates excellence. Everyone knows the saying “practice makes perfect,” but they rarely apply it to themselves. When you put effort into a task, you will get better at doing it. If you need help, ask for it, but do not let your lack of knowledge stop you. Next time, you will not have so much resistance to doing that particular task.

The biology behind motivation

Neuroscience and psychology explains the relationship between the workings of the human brain and motivation by examining the effects of the release of dopamine in the body. We generally experience motivation when dopamine – a neurotransmitter that relays signals between brain cells – is released and travels to the nucleus accumbens – an area of the brain that facilitates reward behaviour. Essentially, when your brain recognizes that something important is about to happen, dopamine kicks in, its real job is to encourage us to act, either to achieve something good or to avoid something bad.

Making the science work for you

According to an article by management consultants, I Done This, the brain can be trained to feed off bursts of dopamine sparked by rewarding experiences. You create the dopamine environment, and the brain does the rest.

Here is how to get your dopamine flowing:

Record small accomplishments. A to-do list reinforces how you are chipping away at your goals. As you feel yourself making more progress, you will feel the greater effects of dopamine.
Share results with your team. Communicating about your results (whether they are positive or negative) means that others will recognize your work, resulting in more positive feedback. Praising and recognizing the work of your colleagues can also increase your dopamine.
Stay on task with micro-deadlines. Staying entirely focused on one task at a time will force you to sit down and get work done. The more you accomplish, the more you will experience positive feedback which will increase your dopamine levels.
Focus on how great you will feel when your project is complete. A study by University of Michigan professors found that results-driven focus motivated people to complete their work.
Test out new productivity tools to make overwhelming tasks more doable. Whether it’s an overflowing inbox, missed communications with teammates, juggling time zones, or trying to better connect with your customers, these tools can help you check things off your list faster, leading to a higher flow of dopamine.

While there is no substitute for putting in the hours, feeling motivated while doing your job is very likely to lead to enhanced outcomes, which is a reward on its own.

The information contained in this article is of a general nature and intended for information purposes only.