How to Stay Motivated in a World of Uncertainty

As we move from staying-at-home to learning how to safely venture out, we’re navigating the added uncertainty caused by the challenging economy and the emotions of civil unrest. As a result, the “new normal” is feeling decidedly not normal.

With everything that’s happening in the world, our individual reactions are shaped by highly personal perspectives and experiences. Even so, I’m hearing common themes from clients as they work to define their new normal. How do I stay motivated and productive? How do I continue to motivate and lead my team? How can I better balance work and life as demands continue to shift?

Frankly, a lot of the advice being given speaks to only one aspect or the other without acknowledging the interdependence. It’s impossible to be the productive, resilient leader you want to be if you’re not able to strike a healthy balance that includes taking care of yourself. Two elements warrant closer examination in this context: motivation and self-compassion. In this post, let’s look at how leaders can stay motivated and motivate others in the midst of uncertainty. Then, in an upcoming post, I’ll share some insights about the critical need, as a leader, for self-compassion.

The motivational link

Along with focusing on mindfulness and being present as vital enablers to being there for your team, your job, your family, and yourself, my work with psychometric, evidence-based insight tools underscores how it’s all inextricably linked to motivation. 

Recently, I attended a webinar presented by Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, and he shared a good way to think about motivation. The basic premise is that a “carrot and stick” approach to motivation is no longer useful. Instead, in our rapidly changing world, there are three basic components of motivation: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. As leaders adapt to continually changing circumstances, understanding these different drivers can help us motivate ourselves and our teams.

1. Autonomy

At the heart of autonomy – or the desire to direct our own lives – lies structure. Traditionally, work has provided structure that helps to enable autonomy. In recent months, a lot of the work rituals we count on – like our daily commutes or regular coffee meetings with a mentor – have been upended by extended work from home mandates, business disruption, and in some cases, furloughs and layoffs. 

Creating new rituals and structure is key to motivation. In work from home scenarios, that has meant establishing a work schedule, making a clean break at the end of the workday, and weaving in the flexibility for additional responsibilities like homeschooling.

Leaders who recognize the need for autonomy as their teams figure out how to make working from home – or a return to the office – work are able to offer  “autonomy support” by giving employees options for when and how to get work done.

2. Mastery

Our desire to get better fuels us. We get frustrated if we don’t see progress being made. We gain satisfaction from personal achievement and contributing to something that matters. When workplaces shut down, so did many of the touchstones for how we measure our progress.

As work from home models are extended or returns to the workplace begin, it’s important to be mindful of establishing and maintaining new progress tracking rituals that fit. For example, make a habit of ending your day by journaling your progress. By taking 60 seconds to reflect on what you accomplished, the forward steps won’t get overlooked.

As a leader, acknowledge progress made by the team as well as individuals. Set milestones to break longer-term projects down so that everyone shares the same metric for measuring progress toward a larger goal. In addition, encourage members of your team to find the tracking rituals that work for them as they monitor their daily progress, as well as ongoing personal development.

3. Purpose

The third component driving motivation is the desire to contribute to something larger than ourselves. Connecting what we do to something that matters is what drives our deepest sense of motivation.

In recent months, the connectivity that helps to solidify our sense of purpose has been disrupted. As work routines shifted, it sometimes became difficult for individuals to see how their work fit into the bigger picture. Some creative ways to do this when working from home include picturing a person that your effort will help so the specific task feels less abstract, or setting up virtual working sessions with a coworker – not necessarily to collaborate but to recreate the sense of working “side-by-side” on related projects.

It’s up to leaders to help teams connect the dots. Cultivating a team that cares about the outcome of their work is invaluable. One way to do this is to have more “why” conversations than “how” conversations with your team. When people invest in the why, they’re motivated to innovate, tackle challenges, and accomplish stretch goals.

Maintaining personal motivation and inspiring it in others is more important than ever in an uncertain world. I’m here to help. Contact me to explore tools and resources to help you and your team understand your individual motivators and thrive in the new normal.