How to give your best, when you are not feeling your best?

Think Like a Proton, Always Positive, and other mantras from social networks make it difficult to be fully motivated every day. Sustaining motivation across all active fields of life is akin to Don Quixote's feats against windmills. Trying to be highly motivated in every task, project, or throughout your entire career path can sometimes feel like pulling yourself out of quicksand by your hair. Most of us naturally resist persistent effort and a falsely upbeat attitude that no inspirational quote, rosy LinkedIn testimonial or vast amount of caffeine can pull out of us. 

Okay, enough with the vivid descriptions. However effective self-motivation is one of the main traits that distinguishes high achievers from everyone else. So how do you motivate yourself even when you don't feel like it? To some extent, motivation is a personal matter. What drives one person may not affect another. Some individuals simply have more initiative and persistence than others. Experts have identified several options and strategies that can be effective for most of us. Whether you're trying to lose weight, save for a house or retirement, or carry out a major project at work, these guidelines should keep you afloat. If you've fallen short and failed to achieve a relatively achievable goal due to procrastination or lack of commitment, keep reading. 

Design Goals, Not Job Specifications 

We don't need to emphasize the importance of setting goals for motivation. Take the example of sales departments in any industry—when salespeople have goals, they close more deals. Similarly, fitness beginners improve their fitness when they commit to a training plan (or pay a trainer dearly). Abstract, Pinterest ambitions like "giving your all" are usually much less effective than something concrete, such as bringing in 10 new customers per month or walking 10,000 steps a day. As a first general rule, any goals you set for yourself should be specific. 

Goals should also, whenever possible, stimulate internal motivation. An activity is internally motivated when viewed as a goal in itself. External motivations serve a separate, hidden purpose, such as some rewards or avoiding punishment or sanctions. These internal or intrinsic goals better stimulate achievement and success than external ones. 

Focus on the Parts of Your Job That You Enjoy 

Take the example of New Year's resolutions or, in parts of the world, popular Lenten sacrifices. People who choose tasks they enjoy are likely to stick with them longer. Of course, if the reward is large enough, we will endure even unpleasant tasks for a long time. Consider an extreme case—undergoing chemotherapy. 

In a business context, many people stay in their not-so-good and unsatisfactory jobs because of money, feeling like "slaves." In such situations, they usually do the minimum needed to achieve agreed goals. In an ideal world, everyone would have work roles and environments that they enjoy, thus maintaining engagement and motivation at a high level. Unfortunately, this often fails for many people. 

Most people will confirm that satisfaction and effort at the workplace greatly depend on their relationship with superiors and colleagues. But what's also interesting, most of them don't remember or think that office morale was crucial for success in previous jobs nor that it will play a significant role in future careers. Thus, simply reminding oneself of the initial internal motivation when choosing jobs and undertaking projects can greatly help maintain success. 

In cases where it's impractical because we don't all find jobs and get tasks we like, the trick is to focus on the elements of the work that suit you and that you perform above average. Consider how satisfying completing a task might be by, for example, demonstrating your skills in front of your company's management, building important internal relationships, or creating some form of additional value for customers. Compensate for undesirable actions with activities you find stimulating. Disconnect and listen to music while catching up on emails or paperwork at work, while boring tasks in private life are done in the company of friends or family. 

Find an Effective Reward System 

Some tasks at work or even an entire work period at one job can be completely strenuous and demotivating. In such cases, while seeking some form of a better solution, it may be useful to create short-term and medium-term external motivators that build on the terms of your current employer. For example, reward yourself with a trip or dinner for a well-done project. But even with these rewards, caution and good judgment are necessary. Choose either quality or quantity because no one wants a hasty accountant or OCD declarant. Another common trap is choosing incentives that undermine the goal you achieved. If the reward for losing weight is a cheat meal, it will likely undo some of the hard work and reestablish bad habits. If the reward for a week of excellence at work is allowing yourself to slack off the next, you might diminish the positive impact of the overall job performance. Research on what psychologists call "balancing" shows that achieving a goal sometimes makes it easier for people to indulge in temptation and take a step back. 

Besides, some incentives are more effective than others. Most people work harder to qualify for an uncertain reward (such as a 50% chance of earning a bonus) than for a certain reward. Maybe because the former is more challenging and exciting, and therefore we want it more? A dynamic reward system is difficult to set up at most workplaces, but not impossible. 

Maintain Progress 

When people set a goal, they usually get a big boost of motivation at the beginning, then fall off in the middle of the journey where most give up. Have you ever tried to run longer distances like a marathon on your own, without the motivation that comes with a race and previous gradual preparations? If you break your goal into smaller segments, such as weekly instead of quarterly sales goals, you reduce both the time and space for a drop in the middle of the project. Another mental trick involves focusing on what you've already done by the midpoint of the task and then shifting attention to what you still need to do. 

Leverage the Influence of Others 

Humans are social beings. Fundamentally, we observe what others around us are doing, and in such a way, the actions and reactions of our environment influence us. On this principle, it's good to surround yourself with high performers. 

But when it comes to motivation, this dynamic is a bit more complex. When we see how a colleague rapidly progresses through a task that leaves us frustrated, we react in one of two ways: either we are inspired and try to copy that behavior, or we completely lose motivation assuming that the task is better left to someone else. This is not entirely irrational, as people have advanced as a species through individual specialization and maximizing their comparative advantages. 

The problem is that, especially at work, we can't always delegate tasks. But we can still use our social influence to our advantage. Generally, the rule is to never passively observe ambitious, efficient, and successful colleagues because there's a high risk that it will be demotivating. Instead, talk to them about what they are trying to achieve with their hard work and why they would recommend it. Recognizing the motivation behind work can motivate. 

Interestingly, giving advice instead of seeking it can be an even more effective way to overcome motivational deficits because it boosts confidence and thereby encourages action. For example, job seekers assume they need expert advice to succeed. It served them better to offer their wisdom to other job seekers because when they did, they laid out concrete plans they could follow themselves, which proved to increase motivation. 

The final way to leverage positive social influence is to recognize that the people who will best motivate you to perform certain tasks are not necessarily those who perform the tasks well. Instead, they are people who share a significant goal with you: close friends, family, or mentors. Thinking about these people and our desire to succeed on their behalf can help provide the strong internal incentives we need to achieve our goals.