7 Habits to get you Self-Motivated in a Toxic Work Environment!
Self-motivation is energy that keeps you moving. Producing this energy on our own is a daunting task. This task becomes more challenging when you have to perform it in an environment that oozes the negative vibes 24/7. In that case, listening to some of your favorite motivational speakers or reading out their famous quotes may successfully inject you with an antidote for uplifting your morale for an hour or two but after that, you feel as if it was just an illusion that has distorted the reality.
Take an example of the schools. We have heard it many times from the parents, “My child needs to be motivated in the class”, “Make him sit in the front-row” or “Tell him to hang in there”. Moreover, in 2015, there published research conducted on motivation in the students and its findings showed that the schools are responsible for unmotivated students. It is very important to know how the teachers feed their intellect especially if they serve in a demotivating work-environment where they are rarely appreciated for an extra hour that they give to their students. Because paying monthly wages to them at the end of the month has now become the only tool available with the school’s administration to motivate their teaching staff extrinsically. At this point, there comes a question, how can a student be motivated by an unmotivated teacher or how can an employee be motivated by the unmotivated employer or the co-workers? An unmotivated individual never encourages others to come out of their comfort zone to dream big. Such an environment is echoed by comments like:
“It is not possible?”, “This idea will not work for you”, “Don’t question the system”.
A proverb has beautifully summed up this entire argument as:
“An army of sheep led by a lion can defeat an army of lions led by a sheep”
One cannot suspect the capabilities of skilled leadership that has to lead some unskilled individuals because success is guaranteed to them but the capabilities of the skilled individuals are always questioned if they are led by some weak and incompetent administration. They are then destined to meet the failure because an incompetent leader would not make use of all the skills that the team- members might have.
What creates toxic work environment?
a. Fixed setting cannot cultivate the flexible mindsets
A fixed setting ceases your growth whether you are at your learning or professional stage. It does not allow you to have your own voice because nobody within that setting is ready to think differently or to accept any challenge. On the other hand, cultivating the growth mindset demands every voice be heard.
b. Lack of collaboration releases stress and anxiety
A work-environment with a fixed setting never endorses the importance of collaboration because such interactions quickly highlight the flaws in a system according to which any social institution is running. So an individual when left alone while dealing with his problems and worries, undergoes stress, anxiety, and fear. Therefore, collaboration is needed to initiate an exchange of ideas among people that might offer the best solution.
Though learning to be self-motivated is an onerous activity yet there are some useful strategies with the help of what you can cope up with a toxic work environment. If you keep exercising 7 habits on regular basis, they become a part of your personality, and then you do not need anyone else to motivate you because every time you want to do something, you get the spark from inside.
Habit # 1: Enjoy your work
You cannot enjoy your work if it is to earn money or fulfill some of the social responsibilities, thence it can never motivate you. Moreover, each new day will be boredom for you. On contrary, if your work has an objective, you put all your energies to bring yourself to the best level and in turn, it will give you a sense of pleasure and completeness. Every morning you wake up with so much energy inside that will not only be sufficient to lighten up your day but it could also motivate the people around you.
Habit # 2: Stay away from the distractors
If you want to be self-motivate, you must latch on to all such links that uplift your morale with their light talk and you must block all those contacts that drain out all your energies from inside. Staying in a company that think about all possibilities will get you to stay focused by providing you with all possible solutions. It will naturally give you a boost for self-motivation. Whereas the company of someone having all possible excuses will distract you from your objective too by talking about the problems that you might face on your journey of challenges. Such social networking weakens your morale.
Habit # 3: Think outside the box
If people laugh at your goal, it means that you have set the right goals for yourself because you are ready to accept challenges. You can never judge your actual potential by staying in your comfort zone because your fear stops you there. When you start questioning the odd things and behavior around you, you come out of your comfort zone to find answers for them. This is how you start a journey having a lot of challenges. It is the right time to look for opportunities in them. You must go beyond your limits and put all your efforts to overcome your fears for grabbing those opportunities. During this process of struggling and testing your potential, you achieve self-motivation.
Habit # 4: Join different platforms to publish your work
What gives you happiness after doing something unique or different from others? You show it to people around you so that you could get their acceptance as well as their feedback. This is how you find your audience to publish your work. When you gain confidence, you dream big and look for a bigger audience too for your work on different platforms through social media. When you are getting acceptance from a bigger audience, you stay self-motivated so the toxic work environment will never bother you.
Habit # 5: Find happiness in little rewards
Since the little drops of water make the mighty ocean so does the happiness found in small achievements. From DOSE (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins), dopamine is one of the brain chemicals that drops the level of anxiety. You must carry on all such tasks that reward you at its completion that serve as an extrinsic motivation but in reality, it is working as developing your intrinsic motivation too. For instance, if you are attending webinars on a regular basis, you get a digital badge or a certificate at its completion. Sharing it on the social media with your friends and colleagues will work as increasing the level of dopamine in your brain that will keep you self-motivated.
Habit # 6: Keep a record of your success and failure
Normally, we highlight all the moments of success in our memory but the moments we lose are placed among the faded memories. I think it is not a wise approach because your win-win moments accelerate your progress whereas your failures work as brakes that stop you from taking a wrong turn. Therefore, you must make a record of both in your journal. While writing, highlight those tasks which bring you success because they will work as a navigation key which will keep you on track and get you straight towards your target. Moreover, the tasks that you lose will not waste your energy. You get unmotivated when you pick up the wrong task for yourself at your workplace. But when you know what you are good at, it will keep you self-motivated.
Habit # 7: Build mental resilience
Writing a journal of your success and failure will naturally build your mental resilience because you will start considering your failure as a part of your success. Work hard and try to give your best, don’t lie to others or to yourself, and be yourself if you are either in the company or alone. If you follow these tips, you can be mentally strong because people build up their thrones only on your weaknesses. If you are in the habit of lying, you cannot walk far. Similarly, if you hide your real identity from others, the people will get you sooner or later. But if you are honest, people will find nothing to stress you. They can only give you pressure but your strong personality inside will work as a shield for you to keep you self-motivated even in a toxic work environment.
Conclusion:
Frankly speaking, the suggestions that we have not acted upon first, are mere words that are wiped off easily from human memory since they carry no credibility. Therefore, if you ever suggest something to somebody, try it out yourself first. Therefore, I can undoubtedly say that
Motivation is not nature, it can be nurtured.
