Five Tips for Regenerating Your Motivation

It's that time of the year again. Summer is coming to a close, kids are getting ready to head back to school, and it's time to get focussed on work again. For many, even those who haven't had a lot of time off, this can be a tough time of the year because it's expected that people will be rested, fired up, and ready to start anew with fresh ideas and renewed enthusiasm for their work, but for many, that just isn't the case.

So, if you've been off for a few weeks, or in the case of my wife, for 15 months (maternity leave), how do you generate within yourself the desire to head back to work and not just dial it in, but actually make new, more valued contributions?

The truth is, while most everyone wants to be a positive, motivated person, we all struggle to find the desire to make changes from time to time. Motivation is never a constant state. There are times when we are more motivated than others. The secret is to know how to get your motivation back when it wains. Here are 7 tips to help you when you feel like you're stuck in a slump:

1. Remember When - Take a few minutes to think about how you felt when you were getting ready to start your first day at your current job. Hopefully, if you enjoy your job even a little bit, when you first started it you were quite excited. So think back to that first day. Whether it was two years ago or twenty-five. Try to remember what it was like the night before that first day. Remember the excitement, the anticipation, the desire to be your best and show your boss and co-workers how great you were. That is the feeling you're striving to carry with you every day when you head into work!

2. Start Small - When it comes to setting goals and making changes, we often sabatoge ourselves by going too big. Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm all for setting big goals and pushing ourselves to exceed our expectations and perceived limits. But sometimes, trying to do too much too soon can backfire and set us up for failure. So set that big goal, but be sure to break it into smaller steps so that you can have a manageable first step to take.

3. Get Inspired - An important thing for anyone to do who wants to be motivated is to find their sources of inspiration. I have yet to meet anyone who can remain 100% intrinsically motivated continuously. I have many sources of inspiration that I rely on to recharge my battery, and get me excited about things. They include: God/prayer, my family, great music, inspiring heroes (Terry Fox is one of my favourites) and stories of regular people doing extraordinary things. So figure out what gets you fired up and then be sure your days include a regular dose of those things. Subscribe to a great blog (hint, hint) or e-zine (http://www.markblackspeaks.com/e_zine), watch your favourite tv shows, listen to your favourite music etc. When you properly identify your sources of inspiration then you can be assured in times of doubt and slump that you know how to get going again.

4. Seek Support - "No man (or woman) is an island" someone once said. You weren't meant to go through this life alone and so you shouldn't expect yourself to achieve everything you want without a little help along the way. So if you're trying to generate some new enthusiasm for a particular project or goal, start telling people about. As many people as you can. This will do two things: 1) Talking about a goal gets us more excited about it, and 2) By telling others about what we plan to do we are simultaneously making an unspoken commitment to them that you will follow through. The benefit of this is that most people are better at keeping commitments to others than we are to ourselves. So by committing to others that you will do such and such you greatly increase your chances of success.

5. Refuse to Quit - This is actually the most critical of all the tips because without this, nothing else works. If you can make a commitment to yourself and others, from the beginning, that you will not give up, no matter what, everything else will follow. The thing that actually stops many of us from achieving what we want in life is that we get so tired of fighting the constant inner battle with ourselves over whether we'll keep going or give us, that we get tired and stop pursing the goal. But if you can commit, from the start, that you will not quit, no matter what, then you don't have to fight that internal battle anymore and all that's left is execution. That may sound like a lot, and it is, but since you'll be free to work on the goal without expending energy on continuously keeping yourself motivated, it won't seem nearly as daunting.

Here's to your motivation and your success!