there's only so much i can want to do
and it's not always what i want to want to do
As some of you may have noticed recently, my dedication to content creation has wavered. A few weeks ago, I had a couple of negative interactions that threw me off balance and into some self-indulgent melancholy. I didn’t really fancy doing much of anything, and the thought of sitting down to write just didn’t appeal. The irony here is that had I sat down and written something, I probably would have pulled myself out of this funk sooner. I have started to feel more positive in recent days, which has given me just enough motivation to sit and write this piece. And even though I’ve only written these few sentences, I already feel better still.
My motivation to write didn’t completely go away; it never does. I was well into my thirties when I realised that writing was a hobby and creative outlet that has been a constant throughout my life. When I feel more dysregulated, my ability to sit and get the words out of my head is significantly suppressed. Over the years, I have become better at setting up the environment to write, but my laptop screen often remains blank. I hope that over the coming months and years, I improve my dedication and get to a point where I can motivate my fingers to tap something out on the keyboard – even if only something I never publish – and receive the desired dopamine and achieve the regulation I am lacking in those moments.
Motivation is something I’ve not given as much thought to in the past as I have this year. Thanks to having children, I have begun to understand myself in a way that I was unable to before. However, my reflections about motivation have not come directly from watching my children but from understanding my neurotype better and understanding that motivation is something that I can manipulate in myself and others.
I miss facilitating meetings in the real world primarily because of the lack of impact I can have when motivating participants to attend and the level of engagement I can encourage. Virtual whiteboards are great, but they don’t have a patch on a bag full of Lego to encourage people to attend. The dopamine hit you can offer someone by providing the opportunity to fiddle and idly create something is appealing. Although virtual whiteboards allow interaction, they don’t have the same rewards of creating a poster that can be hung up (even if only for the length of the meeting) for all to see, and the creator to lovingly reflect upon whenever they glance at it.
Unfortunately, writing online content remains my hobby, so the effort I can put into motivating myself to focus has to be on the role that pays my bills rather than the one that feeds my soul. The same is often true for most of us; we’re at work to earn the paycheque, but it isn’t what gives us a sense of fulfilment at the end of the day. As leaders, we need to be aware that work is such a small piece of most people's lives. We need to consider the motivation of the individuals we are working with. When approaching how people show up to work, we need to consider the system beyond them that we never get to see.