Career Motivation: Tips For Inspiring Your Next Big Project

Having trouble managing your daily motivation for work? Need a little career encouragement?

If you’ve been struggling with job motivation lately, then you’ve come to the right place. Here at Career Navig8r, we’ve all the best tips for how to keep motivated at work, whether you’re in the office, between jobs, or working from home.

Motivation in the Office

Keeping up that daily motivation for work is a challenge we all feel at some time or another. Of course, this will depend a lot on how passionate you are about your job but even those who love what they do will sometimes find themselves stuck on projects that feel draining and tiresome.

The first thing to try if you’re ever feeling demotivated at work is to hype yourself up. Look at the project you’re working on and try to find the parts of it that excite you – even if that’s just the idea of getting it done. If you’re struggling with this then don’t be afraid to talk to your colleagues. You’d be amazed how often a simple conversation can be great for motivation.

If that doesn’t work, then try to pinpoint what’s not exciting you about this current project. Perhaps it’s a flaw with the project itself that can be fixed? Or else perhaps it’s something in the approach?

A lot of time, just asking questions can help you find new ways of thinking about a problem that get you excited to sit down at your desk everyday.

(And if none of that works, it never hurts to knock up a new playlist.)

Staying Motivated Through a Career Change

Changing careers is one of the most difficult times to stay motivated. Whether you’re fresh out of university or twenty years into your career, job hunting never feels nice and the longer it drags on the less motivated you’re likely to feel.

When looking for a new job, people often start to feel a sense of imposter syndrome. Perhaps that previous role was just a fluke? Perhaps your skillset was never as valuable as you thought?

Even when you find a new role, these feelings don’t always go away, especially as you face the uphill battle of fitting into a new workplace and finding the most effective ways to contribute to a new team.

So how do you stay motivated through a career change?

There are several strategies you can apply here but, for the most part, staying motivated comes down to goals, reinforcement, and timeliness.

What do we mean by that?

Well, the first is simple. Make sure you have clear goals that you’re hitting. This will help create a sense of progress, reminding you that with each step you’re getting closer to your new dream job.

Reinforcement, meanwhile, means not giving in to imposter syndrome. This can be difficult but it’s all about finding ways to remind yourself that you are good at what you do and that your skills do have value. If this is something you struggle with, then don’t be afraid to reach out to the people near you and explain what you’re going through.

Finally, try wherever possible to be timely. This is the hardest to achieve because there’s no way of predicting how long it will take to change careers. Sometimes it’s a week, other times it can take a year or two. All the same, if you can reduce the amount of time it takes, then this will help prevent those negative feelings from getting a foothold, so you can jump into your new career feeling energised and motivated.

How To Find Motivation Working From Home

For many longterm office workers, the transition to working from home has been difficult. After all, so much of the daily office experience is built around talking to your colleagues, sharing your victories and failures.

While zoom and slack calls might be able to make up for the practical part of that, it can be really hard to replace the social experience. There’s just something many people find motivating about sitting in a room with others who are also deep in focus on what they’re doing.

Now there’s one simple trick we can borrow here from classic game shows: phone a friend.

If you have other friends who work from home, then it’s worth asking if they have the same problem. Sitting silently in a call together may not be exactly like sharing an office space but you’d be amazed at how effectively it can create that same feeling.

Another option is to embrace working in more public spaces such as libraries and cafes. If you’re someone who thrives on the energy of being around others then this can be a really effective substitute.

And of course, don’t forget that you can always ask your coworkers what they do to stay motivated when working from home. When all’s said and done, talking about low motivation can feel embarrassing – like admitting to being lazy – but the truth is that it’s a normal problem that everybody faces from time to time. By talking to others you can learn their strategies and become a master of your own motivation.