Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Motivation
I’m feeling a severe lack of motivation these days. The work load isn’t any different, but my butt has been dragging. The work is easy, I should be able to breeze through it all in half the time I’ve been taking… but I just… don’t want to. I wouldn’t call it depression—I’m not easily prone to that self-indulgent way of thinking—but I do feel a little burned out. My home life is happy as can be, which is what keeps me sane. It’s the 40 hours spent chained at my desk that has me feeling less than satisfied.
So instead of working, I spent the morning Googling “lack of motivation”. People seem to have lots of different solutions. Hypnosis was one. No thanks, I’m a control freak and prefer to have all my decisions made consciously, not subconsciously. Another one was to write down your goals. What do you want to achive in a year? Two years? Five years? My only goal is to be happy. I have no lofty career goals. I’d love to make lots of money doing next to nothing, but ironically I’m not rich enough. Rich would be nice, but it isn’t necessary to be happy. I have love, and don’t need much else. Unfortunately love doesn’t pay bills or motivate me to work harder.
Probably the most realistic article I read was by one game programmer who was feeling a bit unmotivated himself. His solution was to simply bite the bullet and just start working. He said he immediately felt better after he made himself start programming again. Sometimes this works for me, and sometimes I just fall back into the old funk again. I suppose motivation is a state of mind. Forcing yourself to do the thing you are putting off is one way to pull yourself out of it.
My sweety got laid off last week. I’m almost jealous that it wasn’t me. I think it’s a sign that I should be more serious about finding a different job.
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Categories: • Office Hijinks