Posts tagged emotions

Have you ever felt de-motivated, dejected, disappointed or down hearted after a long day’s work ? I am sure you would have at some point in your life, if not every day after the work.  Staying motivated and positive for long time is a real struggle. We are surrounded by and often assaulted by negative thinking and anxiety about the present situation and of course about the future !  We always have a phase where we start doubting ourselves and feel depressed.

Unfortunately there is no master key or a simple solution to unlock the mystery of de-motivation. Even after we feel we are over it, sometimes, it comes back to haunt us in an even bigger way. Here, in this article, I would like to mention few of the points that would help one keep up the motivation, focus and avoid the long spells of depression and dejection, especially at work !

Love music

The following quote perfectly summarizes why we need to love music. Music refreshes one’s thinking and diverts the persons attention from the tiredness at work to something that is refreshing and soulful that delights the mind. 

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

~Berthold Auerbach

Whilst I am not a big fan of music collection, I do have a small collection of specific songs that I find dear to my heart. It is a decent mixture of all types of songs ranging from disco to classical and ghazals to bhajans. Depending on what emotional state I want to get, I choose the song and listen. This helps me often to get right state of mind before I proceed to do next task.

Have a buddy at work

Its important to have someone at work whom you can consider a best friend or a buddy. You need to have one such friend with whom you can share your work difficulties and vent out temporary frustration. Believe me, more often than not, you need some kind of instant emotional support with whom you can talk and share things.

At more stressful jobs, you often experience bursts of negativity around due to several work related matters. So it is always helpful to have someone who you can count on to help you get out of negativity and back to normal mind state.

Human is a social animal and we all have an inherent need of talking and being heard. In case you do not have anyone whom you can to and talk your heart out, it really feels like dejected and lonely at times. Spent a good time with your friend and talk on topics that interest you to get your positivity back on track. On the other hand, please extend help to your buddy when he / she is in the need of help.

Have a passion

In my opinion, having some passion in life is very important.  For me, my passion is watching football.  It keeps me going and helps me keep happy.  My favorite club is Manchester United and I do everything I can to watch them playing (on TV at least). Watching them play my favorite game makes me happier and feel inspired. However, if they lose then there is an equal chance of me feeling more miserable after that. I do keep recordings of certain match clips which I tend to watch when I am feeling a little low and it certainly has helped in keeping me inspired.

Passion is closely related to the emotional behavior of the human and if you see your passion fulfilled, its more of a chance that you feel inspired and motivated.

Focus on positives

Sometimes, if we experience too much negativity for a prolonged period of time and feel de-motivated for a longer spell of time, we go into a state of mind where all the thoughts start with negative options and creates negative vibes around us.  Once you fall into the negativity trap, its not very easy to come out and have any positive feeling about anything.

In past, when I had fallen into the trap of negativity, I used to feel negative for no real reason and sometimes a mere presence of few people around used to make me start feel de-motivated. However, the wiser I got, I tend to avoid feeling on this trap by concentrating more on the positives that are coming out from the situation.

• Look at the scenario holistically rather than what is only seen to you
• Thank God for not making things any worse
• Find out one positive thing that you can take out of the situation.

As I often mention in many of my conversations, “there are always 100s of negative things that can be made out of the situation, but if you find at least one positive thing out of it, consider it a learning for life and thank GOD”.

Positivity is a habit, and once you get it, you can easily overcome situations that are trying to put you back in the hole of negativity and de-motivation. 

Praise others

Appreciation and recognition is one very important aspect of the professional life. Although the nature differs, it is equally important and applicable to all the levels of a profession.  It does not necessary that only the lower levels of hierarchy should be praised and not the middle or upper levels.

Spreading good words makes one feel positive and help others feel good about themselves. This, in turn make change in people’s behavior towards you in a better way, making you feel better. Believe me, speaking positive about someone else’s work and personality is the best way to connect with the person in a right way.

I remember a specific incident when I was given to work with a so-called difficult person. All the people who worked with that person earlier, warned me about the boring and micro-management behavior of the person. While I too felt a little bit strange with his work methods, the more I started to talk to him and praise him about some real good work he had done in past (in some cases without anyone’s real help), it made him really comfortable with me and I could see an immediate behavior change in him towards me allowing me freedom to work the way I want.  Ultimately this led to work satisfaction for both of us and a little bit more positive at work for me !

However, one thing that you need to keep in mind is when to praise someone and how much to praise. There is fine line between real appreciative person and feet-licking bastard !  You need to ensure that you do not cross to the other side ..

Open your mind

I always feel that one need to share what he / she feels about the situation in a right way. Its not often very motivating to work in uneasy, unconvincing situations or scenarios where you are in a confused state or feel half-committed to the cause.

Learn a bit about emotional intelligence and try to be aware of your state of mind. One very important, but often neglected, fact is to know our state of mind and understand our emotions. We go through so many emotions such as happiness, inspired, dejection, unhappy, nervousness etc., at work place during various hours of the day and due to several causes, it almost becomes a habit to suppress them and continue with the job we are doing.

Can you stay in a meeting where you do not feel like being, and contribute productively ?  Can you give right suggestions and solutions to a problem, when you are in a state of anger or frustration ?  Definitely not !

The more you suppress your emotions, the more you feel out of control and start losing your own focus.

Its important to let others know what state of mind you are and help yourself in getting back to where you should be. Believe me, the more I tried this, the more I felt in control of the situation and my responses were getting better, in turn making me feel positive and motivated.

Think big and have faith

Most of the times, frustration grows or increases because we can not see beyond a certain point in current situation and the situation does not really look promising in nature.

When you get the questions, such as “why does it always happen with me”, “why am I being pushed to do something that I do not want to do”, “no one seems to help me here” start flowing in your mind, think of is as time to take a step back and consider the bigger picture and look at the intention behind the situation. 

When such situation occurs, look at the big picture and find out the intentions behind this situation.  In case you are wondering how to do this, I recommend reading a story in my leadership series.

You can safely bank on the thumb rule of “intentions of people at work place are never bad, sometimes behaviors are” to sail through this period.

On the other hand, if you are unable to trace the intentions and get any positivity of the big picture, think of it as the lowest point and be happy that things can only improve on this point onwards.

Just have faith !