"Perhaps our deepest fear is that we don't belong to the "tribe". That we're separate. And perhaps it's this fear that drives us to "be a certain way" in order to belong. And compels us to hide what we believe to be imperfect."
Nic Askew, soulbiographies.com/
What are you hiding for its imperfections?
Have you ever tried to “get motivated” at the office—but nothing works? You start to feel terrible, like you’re falling behind in your business or career. You’re bored, lethargic, and you don’t want to meet up with your friends because you don’t want to talk about what you’ve been doing. (Or, more accurately, what you haven’t been doing.)
I’ve totally been there, too, and I’ve felt the frustration that comes from a lack of motivation at work.
But I’ve also got some good news. There are some key things that contribute to your work being motivating (or not), and once you recognize them, you have the power to redesign your workday in a way that gets you moving.
Here are five things you should make sure you’re getting out of your day-to-day tasks—and if you’re not, the changes you can make to jump start your motivation.
Work is most motivating when it’s clear what, exactly, you’re accomplishing. Think about it: How great does it feel when you know you’ve gotten a launch off the ground or made great progress on big project? On the other hand, nothing is worse than working all day and thinking “What did I even do today?!”
If you’re feeling like you’ve been spinning your wheels, try this: At the end of each day or week, make a “Got Done” list (the opposite of to the to-do list!), where you outline all of the tasks you’ve completed. For extra motivation, keep it somewhere you can see.
Another key to staying motivated is knowing that the work you’re doing makes a difference in some way—recognizing the impact you’re making on your clients, company, or the world.
If you’re not totally seeing this connection, try to dig deep. You could map your weekly sales reports to the increase in your company’s bottom lines or sales unit, for example. Or, say a key metric your company tracks is customer acquisition cost. Make a list of the tasks you do that reduce this cost for your company, and find ways to focus on those aspects of your job more often.
Feel like you’re doing the same old repetitive work, day after day? It’s not so stimulating, to say the least. But when you’re engaging lots of different skill sets—that’s fantastic for your motivation.
Try to structure your days so that you’re working on different tasks (and thus, making use of different skills) throughout the day. For example, instead of writing all day on Monday and then building your client presentations on Tuesday, try to do both in smaller three-hour chunks each day. When you stimulate different parts of the brain, your motivation will be recharged.
One of the most motivating factors you can have is getting feedback on your work. Not only for the ego boost you get when you’ve done a good job, but because the right feedback can help you hone your skills even further. It can also help you see the difference that your work is making. On the contrary, if you don’t know how you’re performing, it’s easy to lose steam.
If you find that you’re in a black hole of feedback, ask your manager, or even a colleague, for standing check-in meetings every one or two weeks. Let her know that you’d like to use the time to check in on your projects, and that you’d love honest feedback on where you could improve.
Finally, this is a big one: having autonomy in your job. Now, this doesn’t mean that you always get to do what you want—it just means you get a domain of choice about how you’re doing things.
For example, say you need to secure three more clients for the month. It’s much more motivating to be able to determine how to do that on your own—perhaps you want to build your online presence, or perhaps you enjoy building relationships offline. Sure, in the corporate world, there are plenty of things that have to be done a certain way—but there are also plenty of places where you can ask your boss for more autonomy.
And that brings me to my final point: Unless you work for yourself, you probably don’t have the power to totally rewrite your job description. But what you can do is communicate with your manager. You can identify the skills you want to develop, ask for feedback more often, probe for clarification when tasks are not clearly identified or seem insignificant, or ask to take on different tasks or have more autonomy on a project.
More than likely, you’ll be able to change something about your workload. And not only will you be more motivated—your boss will be impressed you've taken the initiative.
So what’s getting in the way of you being motivated at work? Find out, and then find a solution.
This post first appeared at Daily Muse.
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Generation what-now? Yes, I'm talking about Generation Z. This is a group born in the early 2000s to the present day, set to be the next generation rising up after millennials. The oldest of Generation Z babies are currently in first or second grade right now. With so much dialogue on millennials, many have asked me share some trends coming out about the next generation (currently toddlers). Here is sneak peek into this up and coming generation and seven traits that will make them different.
· Gen Z will never remember a time without terrorism. 2001 was a time when this generation was not yet in preschool.
· Gen Z will be shaped by parent “Velcro." The amount of time parents spend with kids will reach new peaks.
· Gen Z will witness deeper parental unemployment. They watch their parents more likely to have unemployment or be unemployed throughout their career than prior generations.
· Gen Z parents will keep their children in more controlled environments growing up. There will be less time playing outside, more time in smaller indoor gatherings.
· Gen Z will live by their I-Tunes application games. The amount of purchasing I-Tunes applications for children’s games will skyrocket.
· Gen Z won’t know a time when cell phones were not used by children under 12. They will be raised expected to use and carry cell phones to interact with parents and family members.
· Gen Z will never understand what it means to use one platform at the same time. Portable, digital, and mobile is all the same to them.
Want more? There will be more on the blog in the coming months about Generation Z. In the comments, share with me some of your big questions about this up and coming generation.
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Some people think that in order to make change you need to influence the community you are already apart of. But sometimes, what is more important is to first find your own community instead that will help YOU change first.
When I left my life on Wall Street , to pursue my creative life as an entrepreneur, I felt there was something missing in my life—a curated network of teammates, cheerleaders, and geniuses that were on the same path as me. I found myself surrounded by a lot of people that were living a different life than me.
When I left the academic world at Harvard, I deeply missed the intellectual buzz of my classmates, the constant questioning, but I realized that I was also a changed person now. And in order to cultivate my tribe now –I needed to build a new base again. I was not letting go of who was important from my past, but I was honoring who I am now.
Gina Rudan, author of Practical Genius writes about how at different points of your life, you need to shift the balance of people in your life from ‘just because’ to ‘on purpose.’ Throughout our life stages, we must raise the bar and build our networks with others who are living purposeful, inspired lives that match our values as we grow.
Who are the people you surround yourself with? Do they add to your life and to your story?
Remember –you become like the five people you spend the most time with –and you can choose this deliberately for yourself. You need to curate your own community. You are who you walk with.
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Being a leader in today's world is about collaborating, giving the work back to a group, and experimenting with new solutions. Most importantly, leadership is always about working with others: we cannot go it alone and live in solitude– our greatest challenge is about trusting, testing and letting others in to our most important work.
Oftentimes, we don’t share those hours we work, the sweat we build up, and the tears we give. It’s easy to hide and not share your challenges. It may be for many reasons, you don’t feel ready to talk to people about it, you’ll think they’ll say negative things, or you just don't want to share it. The truth is feedback is all opinion and all positive. We just have to be in the right place to engage with others.
Here are four key ways to make sure you don't go it alone and collaborate:
1) Improve your capacity to ask for help: We all have to learn to ask for help. We need to work with confidants and allies. You can't lead alone. You need people to debrief with everyday.
2) Get comfortable and confident with yourself: Connect with your inner spirit that gives you energy. Connecting to our hearts give us an internal force that helps us grow–it's that little inkling of, I know myself and I can do it.
3) Create structures to stop feeling alone: Find an accountability partner, a buddy who is on your side and helping you grow in the same way you are helping them grow. Choose someone who knows your strengths and can help you move forward.
4) Build a board of quotes: Inspirational messages or some type of mantra / affirmation are excellent ways to reframe your mind, keep you motivated and energized for your next challenge.
As CEOs, celebrities, and champagne covers the snowy streets of Davos this week for the 2013 World Economic Forum, the media is enjoying its own spin on the world’s most exclusive event. While the mix of people at the event is slowly changing with the rise of World Economic Young Leaders, Global Shapers and technology entrepreneurs, there is one population that remains quite the same—the overwhelmingly low ratio of women to men at the event and the whispers of the quota system in the air.
With women still only making up only 17 percent of Davos, we are moving closer but we are not moving fast enough. There is still a long way to go.
This week in Huffington Post I share some facts about quotas as "controlled experiments" and what it might look like in the future. Read the full article here.
How are you tackling quotas in your workplace? Do you have strategies to recruit a pool of diverse talent—diversity of backgrounds, experience and ideas? We might not be able to change Davos, but we can change our own teams and companies to generate better ideas, leaders, products and services.
In today's age of innovation and networks, to step out of the unknown and to move into spaces of impact, you need to let yourself be seen, for who you really are, regardless of what happens. For me, the most important aspect of any life practice is whether I walk the talk. I must embody my work and make sure I truly live what I am teaching.
But recently productivity guru David Allen reminded me that I need to embody the reverse of this statement just as much: I have to talk the walk.
What does "talk the walk" mean? Well–do you tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it? Do you share your story and why it matters to you and connect with others? Are you intentional about branding yourself in relation to the conversation people have about you? We can't live out our greatest aspirations unless we are telling people what we have to offer first.
So if you are fundraising for your nonprofit, selling a gamechanging product, or advocating for a cause, make sure you talk the walk. Remember its just as important as walking the talk.
The more important a call or action is to our soul’s
evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward
pursuing it. –Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
What are you resisting?
One of my priorities for success is to be a lifelong student and spend time with leaders I resonate with.
Fear is one of the largest roadblocks to success. One year ago, I was forced to face my greatest fear — not accepting "no" for an answer when I knew I had more to offer.
Back in December 2011, marketing guru Seth Godin was hosting his well-known Medicine Ball retreat for an elite group of 60 entrepreneurs to jumpstart their creativity. I applied and was originally rejected. Today, I want to share how I responded, got personally invited to Medicine Ball the same day, and made an major shift in my career afterwards. There is something incredibly powerful about spending time with people you love to learn from and it's even more valuable when you know you overcame fear to make it happen.
Here's a special podcast I did with fellow attendee Aaron McHugh on my journey letting fear go and choosing a life of impact.
In this podcast, I share:
Download the MP3 Podcast here.
“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.” –Ralph Emerson
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2013. I love the New Year because it brings so much creative and reflective energy and it's time to set up your goals and vision for how you'd like to live out this year.
Why set goals or a vision? Odds are your chances for success will go up much higher if you spend time developing an image of the future and what you would like this future reality to look like. Yet, the key pitfall I often see in New Years resolutions is a sole focus on doing something rather than being someone. Many tend to deflect to the 'roles' that they have played in the past and how they will continue to play them in the future.
For instance, if you are asked “Who am I?” Often you might start answering with roles that you have played out: “I am an…employee, manager, woman, mother, brother, etc…” But the truth is: You are not your role identities, nor are you a composite of these identities. Each of these are a social construct. So when setting goals this year, beware of getting stuck in your past identities of what you have done before you imagine what you'd like to create.
When you are setting up your vision for this upcoming year, start fresh. Instead of asking yourself 'What can I do this year?', ask yourself 'Who could I be this year'? Imagine and experiment new ways you can live and you'll be surprised by what you find. You may discover aspirations you never knew you had or you may confirm goals that you have been waiting to live out.
Regardless, my greatest wish is that you make 2013 a manifestation of your absolute best self! It's January…time to get the year rolling!