3 Simple and Powerful Ways to Get Motivated at Work

No matter who you are, you will have moments where you feel like you have lost of motivation and do not want to do anything at all. Even highly effective and successful people will have times when they feel unmotivated. However, it is the way they deal with this “down” time that keeps them moving forward and helps them to accomplish great things.

A massive new study has pinpointed the most effective motivational technique for improving performance—and it’s incredibly easy. Simply using self-talk to tell yourself “Intrinsic motivation: For the simple love of it,” has the power to improve performance on any given task, according to a new study by researchers from the UK who collaborated with the BBC.

And now I offer some interesting ways to increase motivation...

Intrinsic motivation: For the simple love of it

Those projects we tackle where we look up at the clock, hours after we’ve started, and have no idea where the time has gone because we were so involved – that feeling is intrinsic motivation, and wouldn’t the world work better if all of us felt that way about everything we do?

Imagine saying, every day, I don’t go to work, I go play. When looking at new challenges, seeing them in that light is a great way to make them happen.

Seeing a challenge as a chance to become a better person is an excellent motivator, whether it’s a gourmet cooking class, a math problem or mastering a new dance move to look killer on the dance floor. The satisfaction of success is an internal motivator, and is in itself the reward.

Try to boost your motivation yourself

Consider Ralphie from “A Christmas Story”. The holiday tale about a boy on a mission starring Peter Billingsley has now become a cult classic on TBS, in part from its marathon run on the cable network every Christmas Eve, but also because of its heartwarming message about Christmas dreams that do come true.

And when it comes to motivation, few can match the determination and focus of Ralphie, who wanted nothing more for Christmas than a Red Ryder BB gun, despite myriad warnings about the gun’s safety. He wrote classroom essays about it, sat on a department store Santa’s lap to ask for it and placed ads for the gun strategically throughout the house for it his mom and dad to see in time for Christmas.

Ralphie was motivated to invest so much effort into enticing his parents to buy him that gun because he was motivated by desire, and in the big picture could imagine himself with his Red Ryder, chasing burglars away as he starred in his own Wild West show, circa 1940.

For Ralphie, the gun itself was an external, or extrinsic motivation, but the process of acquiring it was intrinsic motivation (or internal) as the fantasies of owning it gave him so much pleasure that writing essays seemed as if it was no work at all, even for a boy who viewed homework as an elaborate plot to steal his young joy.

And through his efforts, Ralphie ultimately merged the two main sources of motivation that drive virtually everything we do.

The same holds true for an Olympic hopeful, who strives to be the best he or she can be in hopes of earning a bronze, silver, or gold medal, but in working toward the goal sees intrinsic rewards in the lean, mean fighting machine that he or she has become.

Most goals are reached by using both forms of motivation.

Self-Talk Is the Most Effective Motivational Technique

The effectiveness of three motivational methods were tested in this experiment: self-talk (a person's inner dialogue), imagery (using visualization for situation rehearsal), and ‘if-then’ planning (a strategy for coping with setbacks).

Each of these three psychological motivational methods was applied to one of four components involved in a specific competitive task. These included: 1) process 2) instruction 3) arousal-control 4) outcome.

Across the board, the researchers found that those using motivational self-talk—for example telling yourself "I can do better next time"—led to optimal performance during every portion of a competition task.