Why Don’t I Feel Motivated at Work Anymore?

ELAINY MATA: I’m curious about the idea of feeling motivated in general. Is it normal to not feel motivated at work?

MURIEL WILKINS: Is it normal to feel unmotivated at work? I think it’s normal to hit patches of feeling unmotivated in life.

ELAINY MATA: This is leadership coach Muriel Wilkins. She works with CEOs and other senior leaders, helping them work through the challenges they face. And motivation is a big part of that.

MURIEL WILKINS: If you look at sort of the root word of motivation, it’s motive. And what is motive? Motive is a reason. When we don’t feel motivation at work, it’s because we don’t feel a reason to go to work, do the work, do what’s expected of us. And when we feel motivation, there’s something that gives us a reason to be able to do that. I think the real question is, what’s your reason?

ELAINY MATA: Welcome to New Here, honest conversations and practical advice to help you play the game called work. I’m Elainy Mata. This week, we’re talking about feeling unmotivated at work. That might show up as procrastinating on that project you were assigned, skipping meetings, or in the most extreme, daydreaming about quitting. But we can take this as an opportunity, because our first few jobs in our career are actually a great time to figure out what motivates us and what doesn’t. So, you heard our guest, Muriel Wilkins, define motivation as a reason for our behavior, in this case, a reason for being at work. Muriel has a lot of experience coaching her clients through rough spots when their motivation is faltering. She does that at the executive level. But she also understands a lot about why motivation can come and go throughout our careers, including at the very beginning. So today, we’ll talk about where motivation at work comes from, what a lack of it means, and what your relationship with it might look like throughout your career. Okay, here we go. Based on your experience, what can you say are the common reasons that an early career professional could feel demotivated?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a number of reasons. I think one is feeling a lack of competency, feeling like they can’t do well enough in the work. So particularly those who did really, really well academically. I remember I did very well academically and then I remember my first job. I had to do some type of math. I don’t even remember what it was, but it was math. And I was like, “Oh, my God.” I remember calling my then boyfriend, and he was not good at math by the way either, and crying. ‘Cause I was like, “I’m never going to make it. I’m never going to do well. This is awful. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t want…” And it quickly became from a math problem to, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to go in tomorrow. I’m never going back to that place again.” So, lack of competency can lead that. I did go back and I figured out the math, so it’s fine. I think lack of positive affirmation, so not feeling like whether you’re doing well or not. When we’re in school, we’re used to getting, you get an A, B, a C, or D, you get it every quarter, you know where you stand, and then you move on to the next class. Well, at work, it doesn’t work that way. You might get, if you’re lucky, you get consistent feedback. A lot of times, you get that once a year review and that’s when you’re told. Misaligned expectations. So, you were expecting one thing taking that job. You thought it was going to be Disney, and then you showed up and it is not. Right? The people you work with are not Disney-like, the environment is not Disney-like. The work is [inaudible 00:04:19]. And you thought you were going to be saving the world, but what you’re doing is crunching numbers in a very dark conference room. That was me. And so, your expectations are not being met. Those are things that can happen early career.

ELAINY MATA: Yeah, I’ve had that feeling before of competency. When I came back from maternity leave, I didn’t realize that I needed to start over, because I had just been away from work X amount of months. So, when I came back, it was a lack of motivation of competency because I just felt like I kept messing up all the time. I also felt like I didn’t connect with people as much. It was really hard to just talk to people because I had just gone through this whole new experience, and I didn’t know how to relate to the people around me for that. And I also felt this bigger existential question of, “Why am I even doing this? Why am I even in this industry anyway? I am tired, I’m exhausted. I don’t get to see my daughter all the time.” It started small and then it just grew more and more and more into this bigger existential thing of like, “Oh my God, should I even be here right now?”

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, I love that you’re using the term “existential question” because at the root of it, that’s what it is. I mean, when you think about the existential question, which is, “why am I here?”… at the end of the day, that’s where your motivation comes from. Your motivation is, as the French would say, “Your raison d’être” – your reason for being. And so if you take that to the workplace, is, what is your reason for being at work? And what you also articulated around when you came back from mat leave, like feeling lack of connection or not connecting as well, lack of competency. Those two are very rooted in fundamental human needs, after your basic survival needs. Which is our need to feel connected to others, which really is our need to feel loved and our need to feel worthy. And how do you feel worthy at work? You feel worthy at work because you do the work, because you’re able to do the work. So when we really think about it’s that we’re looking for these external signals, these external cues to give us our reason for being and fulfill all those needs that we just talked about. But we don’t know how to talk about them in those ways. Instead, we say, “Oh, my God, I can’t do a math problem. Therefore, I’m unmotivated.” Versus, “I’m not feeling really valuable right now in what I’m doing. I’m not feeling very worthy. Okay, how can I feel worthy in this situation? What can I do?”

ELAINY MATA: I wonder in a work setting, can you give me another example of how to express that to your manager or your boss, somebody that can help develop your career? How do I tell them I don’t feel valued at what I’m doing right now? Or can I just say, just that?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. So I think the key is to have agency. The minute you say, “I don’t feel valued.”, it puts you in a position of having to receive the value affirmation from somebody else. And that’s what makes it a temporary situation, versus going in and saying, “I don’t feel like I’m adding value in the way that I would like to, that meets my expectation. Because I think I’m great at putting together these PowerPoint presentations. And I will admit, I’m struggling a little bit with the math part. So boss, can you spend just, like, 20 minutes with me to go through this for me, or is there somebody on the team who can sit with me and go through this? What can I have to help me raise my level? Because I think I can do it. I just need a little help, right? Because I want to fully add value according to my expectations and my standards on this team.” That comes from a place of agency and power, rather than, I’m going to wait until your temperature is right so that I can feel valued.

ELAINY MATA: Oh, that’s hard.

MURIEL WILKINS: It’s very hard. It’s very hard. But I’m going to tell you, if you can master that early in your career, it will save you a lot of pain and suffering later on. Because I work with people who are much later in their career who still haven’t mastered that. And lack of motivation gets compounded. It’s like compound interest, and at some point, you have to decide, what can I do about it? What’s in my control? That doesn’t absolve the manager, right? I’m not saying that-

ELAINY MATA: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: But I think focus on what’s in your control.

ELAINY MATA: So, Muriel, you’re also a podcast host, and I love your burnout episode from your first season. So for folks who haven’t listened, check it out. The guest is Ellie, and she’s a young manager. And she thinks she’s not good at managing people, but really. She’s just overworked and burnout out. So my question is, what is the difference between burnout and feeling unmotivated? How do you distinguish the two?

MURIEL WILKINS: I think feeling unmotivated can lead to burnout, right? Burnout, to me, is the end result. I ran a race this past weekend.

ELAINY MATA: Wow, congratulations.

MURIEL WILKINS: Thank you. Burnout is what you saw on mile 13 when people were ending the race. Okay? Some were burned out, and some were not. Some were energized. The lack of motivation or the motivation is everything that was happening beforehand. So to me, there are a lot of paths to burnout. What might lead to burnout for you might be very different than what might lead to burnout for me. That’s why it’s really, really important to know yourself, and know what capacity you have.

ELAINY MATA: This goes back to a point that I said when we were first taping the show about journaling. I think you could track your motivations or how you’re feeling about work just by journaling, just taking 10 to 15 minutes of your day and just writing stuff down. So when you feel unmotivated, and I’ve done this before, when I feel unmotivated, or when I feel misaligned to my core, I’ll go to my journal and I’ll read back, and I’ll figure out, okay, when did this start? And I can tell by my handwriting, I can tell by how I’m describing things, of where things began, and I can at least have an aha moment of, okay, this… It can either point exactly to what I’m looking for, or it’ll give me some idea of where to sort of dig deeper into figuring that out.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a great practice. And I think particularly the, am I aligned, or am I not aligned? And is that what’s leading to the motivation versus lack motivation? I think it’s yes, when you feel aligned, you feel motivated. When you don’t feel aligned, you feel unmotivated. But the question is aligned to what? And-

ELAINY MATA: Yes

MURIEL WILKINS: -fundamentally, it goes back to that word reason. I have to be aligned to the reason why I’m going to work, the reason I’m doing this project. And that’s going to change. That’s going to be different with no judgment for everybody. Not everyone needs to have the same motivation. So part of the work in feeling motivated is finding the reason. And that reason can change. I remember when I became a new mom, and I was in a particular workplace at that time, that I was feeling quite unmotivated before I became a new mom. After I came back, I was like, huh, this place actually allows me, even though I wasn’t feeling motivated before, because the work was kind of getting… There were a bunch of things going on that was draining me. But then I realized, oh, it allows me to actually be able to work pretty decent hours. I’m able to actually create value when I think about it, and at the same time, have the presence at home that I want at this time. That was reason enough for me to hang on for a particular amount of time, until that reason was not as important for me anymore. And then I had to say, okay, what’s my new reason? And can that reason be validated here? So it is a dynamic thing, and it doesn’t always have to be, well, my reason is I’m going to save the world. It’s great, and those who have it, God bless them, but sometimes it’s, quite frankly, especially early career, I got to pay my student loans. And guess what? Sometimes that’s what you have to do. When I first started my business, I took projects on that quite frankly were grunt work, even though I had had an amazing career up until then. But guess what? I just started my business, and I had to pay the mortgage, right? And that was my reason. Every day, I’d be like, okay, Muriel. Okay. And I was like, and I’m learning, and I’m learning, and I’m learning.

ELAINY MATA: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: Let me be grateful.

ELAINY MATA: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: I have a client, and he’s paying the mortgage. Let me be grateful, and let me also have an eye to what I want moving forward. So it’s not being complacent. It’s being present to the reality of what it is, knowing what your reason is. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for what that reason is. As long as you’re aligned with it, that’s all that matters.

ELAINY MATA: Coming up after the break, I’ll share with Muriel some of your motivation questions, like what to do if someone is taking credit for your work, or you worked really hard to get a grad degree only to be in an underpaid job. Be right back. I have listener questions to throw at you.

MURIEL WILKINS: Let’s go.

ELAINY MATA: This is from Lara, and it’s quite long so bear with me. “So I am British and went to Brazil for my studies. During my undergraduate law degree, I was able to do two internships. After that, I went straight to my LLM and passed the Brazilian bar exam. In the same month that I finished my master’s degree, I got a job in my field. However, this job only pays minimum wage. And after six months, I’m still earning the same salary. I am feeling very unmotivated as I have studied so hard and so long only to earn a minimum wage. Any advice?” I’ve felt that way. I didn’t study law, but I felt that way after graduating.

MURIEL WILKINS: What did you feel?

ELAINY MATA: So after I graduated, I got a job at the local YMCA, and I felt unmotivated. I was really mean to myself because I thought I spent all this time in college, I actually took an extra year to get my master’s, and the first job that I have is not in my degree, and I am just working as an afterschool counselor getting paid minimum wage. I felt like a failure because I didn’t want to achieve an expectation that my family, and I think the university also set, of you’re going to get a job after graduation within your degree. That’s why you studied this whole thing. But also in myself, I thought I could do better.

MURIEL WILKINS: I actually think if I could, you almost have to recondition what you were promised, falsely promised, from childhood. Which is if you do X, Y, Z, this is what’s going to happen, right? I always feel like I am just crushing people’s dreams when I say this. But it’s like the reality of it is, that’s not how life works. And work is a reflection of life, okay? Life does not work in the, if I do A, B, C, then this is what happens, right? That’s called magical thinking. That’s the world of fairytales. I would say, that doesn’t mean you should throw everything away and say it wasn’t worth it, but you were holding onto that outcome and that expectation so tightly that what’s causing you the most pain and demotivation right now, is that you are refusing to realize that this is what it is right now. You’re still holding onto what it should have been. So, the first is to just say, I get it. This is not it. And if you have to be sad about it for a little bit and frustrated, do it and then start to say, okay, I’m here. How do I make the best of it? What can I do? What is my reason? What purpose can I find in what’s happening right now? What is it doing for me? So for example, trying to extract as much learning as you can and growth as you can in the situation that you’re in, while not giving up.

ELAINY MATA: I like that.

MURIEL WILKINS: Be realistic about where you are and optimistic about where you’re going to be. Because guess what? It’s not permanent. Nothing is permanent. So Lara, you’re going to be okay. Name a reason why you are where you are right now. Just hold onto it. I don’t care what that reason is, but be grateful for that reason. Okay? If there’s no reason, then I’d rather you move to another minimum wage job if that’s what it is, where you can find a reason there. Secondly, recognize that this is not permanent. If what they’re saying is you don’t have experience, then try to see are there other ways that you can get some experience? You’re not going to stay inexperienced forever. And then, lastly, you’ll know when it’s time to make a pivot and when it’s time to make a pivot, you’ll make it.

ELAINY MATA: I have one more question, and it’s from Liam. He said, we have had consultants brought in and I feel like they’re taking credit for my work, which is really demotivating. What can I do to improve things?

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, there’s so much context here that I would want to understand a little bit better. Around how it’s happening. How are they taking the credit for your work? But I would say, what steps are you taking to take credit for your work? What are you doing? It’s not that I’m absolving anyone else from what’s happening, but I can’t control everybody else. And so I would say, Liam, who are the people that matter? Who needs to know about the work that you’re doing? And what are you doing to share what it is that you’ve done? And it’s not just what I did, here’s the impact that I’m having. Here are the results that I’m getting to. That’s where the juice is, right?

ELAINY MATA: Okay, so some folks are starting in their career and they’ve only ever worked remote. Do you feel that remote work affects people’s motivation, especially for people early in their career or just younger?

MURIEL WILKINS: I think it depends. How much does frequent consistent interaction energize you? I probably get more re-energized, spending time with myself than with others. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with others, but I could be like, I probably need about 60, 70% with myself and then 30% with others. Whereas there are some who it’s like I get all of my energy and most of my energy off of others and being with others, and therefore the ratio splits. So the remote piece, it’s really not about remote, it’s about what energizes you. The more you know yourself, not your conditioned self, not the learned behavior-

ELAINY MATA: That’s important.

MURIEL WILKINS: … but who you are. Who you were, back in the day, before school and everything else taught you. The more you can align work with that, the better. And so this is where it gets really tricky, right? Because in the workplace, at least in the corporate workplace, it is often rewarded to move up the chain, to have teams to take on bigger and bigger and bigger roles, and to be out there and connecting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if that’s not what aligns with you, the misalignment happens later in life. So, the key is trying to find a profession that can align as much as possible with who you are, while still giving you the opportunities to enable whatever it is that you want for your life. So I consider myself extremely lucky because somehow I figured this out along the way, but I ended up in a profession where, man, I feel like I’m having impact in the way that I want to have it. I get to work primarily with people one-on-one, great. Totally aligned with my energy. But most people aren’t willing to do that because they don’t want to trade off the big job, the big promotion, the this, the this, the this, the that. But then they’re not feeling motivated because it’s not aligned with who they are. And again, no right or wrong, just know why you’re doing it. If that’s what you want, great. But understand eyes wide open, what it might lead to.

ELAINY MATA: So, a few listener questions moved us to talking about what to do if you’re feeling unmotivated at work, and we talked about it in the beginning of how do we talk about or how do we express this to our boss and our manager? Who at work ideally would be the best people to talk to about our de-motivation? Is it solely our manager, our boss, 100%, that’s who we should talk to, or is there anybody else that we need to also have this conversation with?

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, look, I think the boss piece, I’m just going to keep it real. I think it depends.

ELAINY MATA: Keep it real.

MURIEL WILKINS: I think it depends. If you know your boss is the type who’s going to flip out, at even the smallest notion that you’re feeling unmotivated and doesn’t know how to deal with it or takes it personally or catastrophizes and says, oh, my God, if you’re feeling unmotivated about this math problem, it means you’re not meant to be here. That’s not who you communicate it to. So you have to try to read the room, right? This is the whole managing up. Know your boss, study your boss, study your boss, okay? They are human. Do they have the ability, the capacity, to hold that conversation? If your boss has taken a vested interest in your development, in how you feel in your engagement, then you know that it’s probably a warmer conversation to have. So what do you do? Who are your supporters at work? Do you have a mentor? I think a mentor is a great place to start because they might have some separation from it and yet still understand. And if you don’t have a mentor in your early career, that is one of the very first things that you should be doing is trying to find some mentors. And that’s somebody you can go to. Somebody who might be a little bit more senior than you, who maybe has been at the still early career, but maybe has been there two or three years. Did they feel similarly? Is this normal for this company to feel that way for this job, this role to feel that way? The main thing is you want to try to not talk to your friends who also unmotivated at work.

ELAINY MATA: Oh, because misery loves company.

MURIEL WILKINS: Oh my gosh. And it just will make you feel even worse.

ELAINY MATA: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: And rather than sort of helping you pivot to what you can do about it, it can amplify the, I am just a, for lack of a better word, sort of victim to my circumstances.

ELAINY MATA: So, are there any things that we can do to motivate ourselves when we just don’t feel like doing our work? I actually have an answer to this, but it’s not a cool one. It’s just do it, which stinks. And the reason why I say this is because… So I am a producer here, but I also produce outside. It’s my personal love. I love making things in visual and audio. It’s great. When I don’t feel motivated, I can either say, “Okay, what did I do today to put myself further in this goal, in this track?” And if I think I did enough, then cool, I’ll let myself rest and be demotivated, but do something artistic still. But if I didn’t do anything today to keep this process moving, I have to suck it up and do it and at least give myself two minutes. If I don’t like it after two minutes, then fine, then I’ll drop it. But if I’m still doing it after two minutes, then keep going. So I at least give myself like, let me just try for two minutes because it’s not that bad of a time. That’s been helping me.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah, I think that is a helpful suggestion in that what you’re talking about is discipline over motivation. And I think people think they need to feel motivated all the time to do something. You don’t have to feel motivated a hundred percent of the time to get stuff done. I don’t feel motivated to do the bills, but I am disciplined because it’s a responsibility that I have. And guess what? There’s a purpose I have to do the bills because if I don’t pay the bills, I won’t have a roof over my head, I won’t be able to do all the things. And so, there’s still a reason behind it. So I think when you lack motivation or when you’re not feeling motivated, discipline is what needs to kick in. And discipline is when you do things, even when you don’t feel like it. However, I also think you need to understand, is it really that I’m unmotivated or is it that I’m just tired? And if I’m tired, then maybe the best thing to do is to take a little break, step away from it and come back to it once you have been reenergized, whatever it is that reenergizes you.

ELAINY MATA: What reenergizes you?

MURIEL WILKINS: Me?

ELAINY MATA: The gym?

MURIEL WILKINS: Oh, my gosh, yes. Working out actually does energize me a lot. Being outside energizes me a lot. And I love reading, so giving myself the privilege, even if it’s just for 15 minutes a day to dive into a book, I really try to find something every single day that is just for me. Not everyone needs all of that. I know what I need in order to be able then to do what I do every day and on most days, be quite motivated about it.

ELAINY MATA: Thank you. I loved this conversation.

MURIEL WILKINS: I did too. Thank you.

ELAINY MATA: Muriel Wilkins is not only a leadership coach, she’s also an author and the host of another HBR podcast, Coaching Real Leaders. She’s made a few episodes about burnout and motivation, and we’ll link those in our show notes. Okay, so here’s what I’m taking away from our conversation, and it’s all about self-reflection. Number one, motivation comes and goes throughout our career, and that is totally normal. What isn’t normal is if you’re feeling unmotivated all the time. Number two, if you are already feeling unmotivated at work, check in with yourself. Do you need some rest? Is there something within your control that you can change like your expectations? Are you still able to identify your reason for doing your work? Which leads me to number three. If your motivation is feeling shaky, you can lean into discipline in the short-term to get through a big deadline or a tough project. But if you’re feeling chronically unmotivated, look for patterns to help you identify this deeper cause. That’s when journaling comes in handy. And I feel like I say this in every episode, but it’s true. Get a journal, take five to 10 minutes out of your workday just to write down how the day goes, how you felt, your wins and your obstacles and you’ll have that there for when you need to go back and review. Next week, we’ll dive deep into strategies for how to make a good first impression in a job interview.

SHO DEWAN: When they meet you in the lobby and they’re like, “Hey, nice to meet you. Yeah, walk with me here,” the interview is always started. That little prelude before the actual first question starts, that’s actually the first impression.

ELAINY MATA: Check back next week for that conversation with former recruiter Sho Dewan. Thank you so much to our listeners who shared their questions about getting motivated at work. Please keep sending us your stories and questions about work and let us know what else you’d like for us to cover. Our email is newhere@hbr.org. And if you liked what you heard, follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you’re there, leave us a review and tell us what you think of the show. Then send the episode to your group chat, Slack, or wherever you talk work. Did you know the Harvard Business Review has more podcasts to help you manage your business and your career? Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Hannah Bates, Anne Saini, and me, Elainy Mata. Our editor is Mary Dooe, and our engineer is Tina Tobey Mack. Supervising editors are Maureen Hoch and Paige Cohen. Ian Fox manages podcasts at HBR. And our theme song was composed by Graz de Oliviera. See you back here next week. Bye.