Do you have hard time staying motivated to do something you can’t stand? If you are human, the answer is obviously yes. While it’d be nice to find a new job, it’s not always possible to just walk away, not in the short-term anyway.
We all struggle with being motivated to do unpleasant tasks, and while some are better at it than others, it’s not easy for anyone. This is part one of a two-part post designed to give you a fighting chance to keep going at work and beyond.
While this topic is far too big to treat with one post blog lifetime, it is possibly the most important thing I’ll ever write about on this site. Why is that? Having a job you hate doesn’t just make it hard to keep working well. Motivation can become an issue in all aspects of life, and you can wind up stuck in a bad job and on an unhealthy path if you are not careful.
Where’d the Motivation Go?
For starters, let’s take a look at why it is that you have lost your motivation. Your boss, your pay, the corporate culture, the product/service quality, or your co-workers are usual suspects. Maybe it’s just not what you expected or hoped for when you signed up. There are any number of external factors that could do their part.
Motivation is also a result of internal factors, though. Even if you had a great job, super-high stress levels would make it hard to be a self-starter. So a new baby, money problems, a divorce, declining health, the death of a loved one… none of these make it any easier to do your work well.
Assuming you don’t have a great job, it probably doesn’t take a major life-event to get you stressed-out. Your job itself is probably the only source of stress you need to find yourself in a compounding cycle of job-hate and burn-out.
If you have a job you hate, you are going to have a real struggle to be motivated. Your boss is a jerk, you don’t get paid enough, you don’t believe in the company anymore, and you feel so overwhelmed and burned out, you’re running out of energy even for activities you want to do during the week.
It’s not going to be easy, but it is worth the effort. It’s REALLY worth the effort. A lack of motivation combined with hating your job can result in termination, low self-esteem, burning bridges you’d rather have kept intact, and limiting your options for improving the situation in the future.
Tomorrow, I’ll post the second half of this article–some suggestions for how to regain your motivation and press on with character and class until you can get a better job. If you haven’t subscribed yet to receive notification for when I update the site, click here for email or click here for RSS.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Melissa // Jul 16, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I’m very interested to see the conclusion of this article. I think you’re really hitting on an important point here, especially what you said about the importance of staying motivated. When you are not doing your best, how can you feel good about what you’re doing? The temptation to “stick it to the man” while you’re (hopefully) on your way out is overwhelming, but continuing to do your job well even when you hate it is a representation of strong character and is, I think, well worth the effort. Like you said, you’ll feel better about who you are, have more confidence in your value as an employee (which can’t hurt your impending job search), and you’ll be upholding your good name, as corny as that sounds.
2 Chuck Westbrook // Jul 16, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Melissa,
Thanks for your interest in the site. I’ve noticed you commenting on many articles, and I always appreciate what you have to say. I didn’t even mention the temptation to stick it to the man, but I remember quite well that temptation. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s post does not disappoint!
3 Rene // Jul 16, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Yes we all do get stuck up in such situations sometime during our career. But such periods can be utilized and made more interesting by not just serving time but developing new skills as well. Try to learn some new courses and see if you can start a business of your own or prepare for a better job.
4 Dawn // Jul 16, 2007 at 8:13 pm
The key here is to get organized. We usually start hating our jobs when there is too much to do in too little time and then the motivation wanes. So try and break up larger projects into small manageable ones. Set priorities and let your boss help you out. Things will change.
5 Eric B // Jul 17, 2007 at 11:26 am
Motivation is important. Several years ago I had a job I disliked due to constant traveling, low pay, etc and I knew I would not work there much longer.
Although the job was boring I found was to improve upon it to get better results, thus good bullet points on my resume for a future job!
In addition, I also developed better relationships with several contractors I worked with so I could add them as a reference for my new job hunt.
Both the new methods of work improvement and references helped me gain a much better job.
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