2. • We all know proactive, constructive and dynamic professionals, as well as those who
are passive, ineffectual and chronic complainers.
• What determines whether you yourself belong in the former or latter group?
• While external factors can have an impact on our motivation levels at work, the
attitude we bring each day is self-determined.
• Attitude explains how someone who lost multiple elections might become president of
the United States and how someone fired from his own company might then become a
business icon.
• A paper by Pablo Maella, a lecturer and consultant at the Instituto de Estudios
Superiores de la Empresa at the University of Navarra in Spain, recommends 10
behaviors and attitudes to increase both your personal welfare and your professional
effectiveness.
3. ACCEPT REALITY AND OTHERS AS THEY ARE
• Self-motivation begins with having
realistic and appropriate
expectations of work and of those
around you.
• Instead of demanding that
circumstances conform to your
wishes, accept them as they are
and, from that point, find room for
improvement.
4. KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
• Sometimes we seem to think that making a
mistake is intolerable in a good professional and
that it leads to disaster.
• If we don’t come to terms with our own fallibility,
we end up piling on frustration and missing out on
opportunities for improvement.
• Being aware of your own strengths and
weaknesses allows you to be more effective and
may save you from a downward spiral of low self-
esteem.
• Acknowledge your mistakes, but also appreciate
your successes.
5. DON’T COMPLAIN
• Imagine that you own a fast-food franchise and
a bad batch of meat is discovered in another
location of the same chain.
• You’ve done nothing wrong, but your business
will be affected.
• In this situation a franchise owner could either
complain about the stroke of bad luck or be
proactive and establish concrete measures to
minimize the negative impact of the news.
• Complaining solves nothing while focusing our
attention on that which we can’t control.
6. APPRECIATE WHAT YOU HAVE AND BE GRATEFUL
• “Psychological hedonism” is a mental
mechanism by which we accustom ourselves
with astonishing ease to the progress of our
work and then no longer appreciate this
progress.
• We must make a pointed effort to pay attention
to the positive, to what is working well.
• When we emphasize what we lack rather than
what we have, we can end up discouraged
7. BRING A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TO YOUR TASK
• A business study suggested that positive,
optimistic salespeople billed 90% more than
those saddled with negativity.
• That is because the attitude with which we
handle a situation or task influences the final
result.
• In other words, if you go to a party thinking that
it will be boring, you probably won’t have much
fun, because your initial attitude will make it
more difficult.
• Of course, don’t confuse positivity with naiveté
or a lack of realism.
8. SET RELEVANT GOALS AND CHALLENGES
• According to the goal-setting theory of Edwin
Locke, we are motivated when we perceive that
our goals can be achieved and will involve
considerable effort.
• Also, we are more motivated by more relevant
goals.
• Therefore important goals, ones that provide
something of value to others, are more inspiring
than an intrinsic objective, such as professional
development, or an extrinsic one such as a raise
or promotion.
9. IMBUE WHAT YOU DO WITH MEANING
• Given the same task, one worker may simply
carry stones while another helps build a
building.
• Going to work each morning to get paid is not
the same as going to serve the community and
develop personally.
• It’s about finding important motives for doing
what we do and giving our best to the task.
• A full life is not dependent on our occupation,
but our ability to make our actions matter.
10. BE PROACTIVE
• When we take decisive
action at work, rather
than sit back as
spectators, we take on
more ownership and
feel more motivated.
11. RAISE HOPES AND RELY ON RESPONSIBILITY
• The key to motivation is not so
much doing exactly what we
like, but instead pouring the
most possible enthusiasm into
what we have to do.
• When enthusiasm fades, take
responsibility to carry on.
12. BE PERSISTENT AND PERSEVERE
• If we give up when faced with obstacles, we head into a
negative feedback loop:
• Being discouraged and lacking enthusiasm makes us
less likely to achieve our goals.
• Trying to overcome obstacles is, in itself, a motivating
force.
• Determination and perseverance in tough times are the
way to rekindle motivation.
• Lacking determination or perseverance, Abraham
Lincoln would not have run for the presidency after his
earlier election defeats.
• Steve Jobs would not have gotten over his 1985
dismissal from Apple to return a few years later and
turn the company into the worldwide success it is
today.
