More on motivation.

This comment came in on yesterday's post and I think is really worth discussing:

"What do you do when you lose the motivation? Or when your day job becomes too routine and you lose the ability to jump out of bed each morning and be excited about your job?"

I would say there are a couple of different things to consider here.

First would be that old addage "life is a sine wave" and has its highs and lows. Jobs can certainly be the same way. I can think of times in my job I have felt this way, but the periods were short and do not define my career. If this is a short term event, you should look for ways to bring the routine to an end and bring excitement back into your career.

Second is to ask us to determine the root cause of the loss of motivation. Is it the job environment? If so, consider switching environments.

Or is it internal? I am a firm believer that we control our own happiness and thus our own motivation. If the root is internal, we need to find a way out ourselves. Here is a quote along these lines that I saw at our conference today:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven" - John Milton

TBL: For the most part, we control our own abilities to be motivated and need to take charge. In the rare events when an external person or aspect is the cause, we need to either remove ourselves from the situation or find another way to cope.

Thank you to the anonymous commentor. This is a topic that all of us face at different times and we should all spend some time thinking about.