In my job as a career counsellor, it’s not unusual for me to hear from people who say they’re no longer motivated by their job (how do you get motivated at work again?), who want to change careers, who can’t find the passion they had when they started out, etc. I’ve also heard from people who have lost their motivation, who want to make a career change, or who have lost the passion they had when they started out.
Everything we do in life is motivated. Whether it’s making dinner, for example, hunger drives us to prepare the meal… or to call our favorite restaurant to have it delivered! But what about our motivation when our primary needs are met, i.e. job security, a good salary, insurance, five weeks’ vacation, a pension fund, etc.? Some people will say, “What are you complaining about? You’ve got everything you need? But on your side, the motivation to work is gone.
Let’s start by explaining that there are two forms of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic.
Extrinsic motivations
Extrinsic motivators, where we recognize the prefix “ext” for external, are motivations that are external to the job. In other words, what motivates you to go to work, without necessarily being related to the tasks you have to perform as part of your job. Examples of extrinsic motivations include money, colleagues and vacation weeks.
Intrinsic motivations
Conversely, intrinsic motivations, where we recognize the prefix “int” for interior, are made up of motivations that are for the tasks you do on a daily basis. For example, if you love mechanics and you’re asked to repair a car, chances are your motivation to perform the task has more to do with fixing the car than with the pay you’ll get for it!
Balance
To answer the question “How do I get back to work?”, we need to look at balance. Motivation, and therefore job satisfaction, comes from the balance between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. You may love the tasks involved in your job, but if the job insecurity associated with the fear of layoff and the low salary you earn means you can’t afford to feed your children, motivation may not be there. As in the above example, it could also be that your job provides you with everything you need on a material level, but that once you’re sitting in your work chair, you experience stress and/or boredom. In this case, the intrinsic sources of motivation are not being used. So it’s the balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that will enable a person to be motivated by his or her job, and thus more easily answer the question “how can I get motivated at work?
Impacts
Employees who are intrinsically motivated by their work will contribute to their company:
- Greater productivity;
- Lower absenteeism (physically absent from work);
- Less presenteeism (physically present, but mentally absent from work);
- Lower turnover;
- Greater creativity and innovation;
- etc.
For people in organizations, the fact that they are intrinsically motivated by the tasks they have to perform will be reflected in different ways depending on the nature of their tasks. We can, however, suggest that they should have :
- personal satisfaction in carrying out their tasks;
- a sense of accomplishment;
- enthusiasm for going to work;
- full concentration on the task in hand;
- surprise to find that it’s later than they thought;
- etc.
How can I get motivated again at work? Or find my sources of intrinsic motivation?
Three pillars are responsible for intrinsic motivation. These are interests, values and skills, which we could describe as :
Interests: Something I like: Hockey, music, mechanics…
Value: Something that’s important to me: Creativity, helping others, conscientiousness, prestige, freedom…
Aptitude : A talent of mine: manual skills, people skills, ability to synthesize…
We can therefore conclude that someone who practices a profession in which he or she has an interest, works in line with his or her values and the tasks he or she performs call upon his or her talents should be intrinsically motivated by his or her work. To define motivation, questions such as:
- “What am I missing to be fully happy at work?”
- “What’s the job I’ve loved most since the beginning of my life?”
- “What did I dream of doing when I was a young teenager?
Can help you reconnect with your intrinsic motivations. Guidance by a member of the Ordre des conseillères et conseillers d’orientation can also help a person with work motivation problems to define their interests, values and aptitudes, and thus target a job in which they will be intrinsically motivated, or even make a career change, if the need arises.