Why your lack of motivation might be something you need to pay attention to.
Feeling like you’ve lost your motivation for your work, or you don’t love it like you used to is tough, especially when you work in the charity sector. Often you picked this career because you wanted to make a difference, because the cause was close to your heart, or because it was something you were passionate about. To have lost that connection to work can be painful, and it can cause a vicious cycle.
We’ve all been there, that feeling of dread as Sunday evening approaches. The feeling on Monday morning that you really don’t want to get out of bed. And once you’re at work you struggle to get yourself going, you can’t find the enthusiasm you once had. And you wonder if you’ll ever enjoy work again.
The thing is you’re so busy doing the day to day, that the strategic work never happens, and everyone is looking to you for answers, solutions or wants something else. You joke to your partner the job would be easy if it wasn’t for everyone else, and you worry that one day soon you’re going to snap at the next person who asks if you just have 5 minutes to chat.
It’s not surprising you feel like this when you’ve been juggling so much, and firefighting for what feels like for ever. And you never seem to have the time for the aspects of the job that you really enjoy, the things that got you into this career in the beginning. Of course that’s going to wear you out. It’s made worse by the mask you wear in front of your teams, which leaves you even more exhausted
The trouble is, is this just a lack of motivation because it’s been a busy period which has resulted in you feeling like you don’t care right now.
Or is it more?
Is it that you can’t care because there’s nothing left to give? That you are starting to detach from your work to protect yourself? That you’re becoming cynical, and starting to believe that nothing will ever change?
Is it that you are starting to burn out?
The risk is if you don’t notice this early, and start to address it, you may find yourself completely detached from work, struggling to know if you want to stay, or if you should go? And stuck unable to take the action either way, because you don’t know what really matters any more.
What to do?
Here are two areas you can focus on to help find that motivation again, and help you know if you want to stay or go.
How are you spending your time?
Over the next week note down what you do in your day, don’t think too much about this you just want an overview of the activities you spend time on.
At the end of the week, I want you take a piece of paper and divide it into three columns – drains, energises, neutral.
For each activity think about how it leaves you feeling, and write it in the associated column.
Once you have you lists, use these to help you plan your week. If you can, try to balance the drains and energises throughout your week. As one client said to me, pepper your week with joy.
What matters now?
Often when we’re feeling demotivated or detached from our work, it’s because there is a misalignment with our values. Trying to reconnect with what matters right now.
One easy way to do this is to notice the things which annoy you at work. If you start to ask yourself questions about why something or someone has frustrated you, you may start to get more understanding of what is important right now.
There is often nothing more painful than losing that spark from work, and if it’s not addressed it can be a sign you’re on the path to burnout. But if we pay attention to how we’re feeling, and take steps to understand it, and make changes, burnout isn’t inevitable.