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MOTIVATING PEOPLE
Staying Motivated After aMajor Achievementby Ron Friedman
FEBRUARY 3, 2015
In 1993, after leading his country to an Olympic gold medal, winning his third NBA
championship, and scoring more points than any player in the league for a seventh
consecutive season, Michael Jordan announced his retirement from basketball. He was 30
years old.
I just needed to change, Jordan would later recount. The regular season was just weeks
away and he was nding it impossible to get motivated. I was getting tired of the same old
activity and routine and I didnt feel all the same appreciation that I had felt before and it
was tiresome.
Jordans sentiments were recently echoed by another prominent high achiever. In a
November interview with NPRs Terry Gross, Jon Stewart made the following remark about
returning to the routine of The Daily Show after directing his rst lm. I dont know that
there will ever be anything that I will ever be as well suited for as this show, said Stewart,
whose contract to host the show expires later this year. That being said, I think there are
moments when you realize that thats not enough anymore, or that maybe its time for
some discomfort.
Many of us have experienced some of the same feelings after completing a major project, or
winning a big sale, or making a crucial presentation to the board. For months or weeks you
were ruthlessly focused on a single, herculean undertaking. And then inevitably, that
assignment is done.
When we think about achieving a major goal, we picture the exhilaration of reaching new
heights. What we often fail to anticipate, however, is that once weve scaled that mountain,
it can be surprisingly chilly on the other side. After a period of massive productivity we
have to revert back to life as usual and settle back into an established workplace routine.
Its a lot harder than it looks.
For one thing, its because of the emotional letdown of going from an exciting, challenging,
or pressure-lled situation to one thats considerably less demanding. High-stress
situations and the adrenaline rush they produce can be addictive. When the constant sense
of urgency weve adapted to comes to an abrupt halt, we experience withdrawal.
In many cases, reverting back to a predictable routine also means the work is no longer as
stimulating. To be fully engaged, we need to experience an ongoing sense of growth on the
job. At no point is the gap between rapid learning and intolerable stagnation more
prominent than after a period of intense professional development.
But perhaps the biggest reason we have a hard time motivating ourselves after a major
success is that we fail to recognize the symptoms of burnout.
Mastering new challenges involves an outpouring of mental, emotional, and physical
eort. Sustaining that eort over an extended period of time depletes your energy. Burnout
can happen when the amount of energy required consistently exceeds the amount of
energy you have available.
But heres the thing we often miss: unlike exhaustion, burnout can be surprisingly hard to
detect. You wont nd any glaring markers. The symptoms are subtle. You might notice
yourself taking a few extra minutes in the morning to get out of bed. Or delaying important
decisions. Or feeling a bit more cynical about your job.
Even mental health experts whose job it is to identify these symptoms struggle recognizing
their own burnout. In part, its because of this unfortunate fact: burnout damages your
ability to recognize the symptoms of burnout.
Were all susceptible to burnout, especially in the wake of tackling dicult challenges. That
doesnt mean, however, that ineciency, cynicism, and procrastination must necessarily
follow every major success. Here are some adjustments worth considering the next time
you transition from a big win back to your normal routine.
Recognize that your job is about to get more dicult. A common mistake we make after
succeeding at a major challenge is having unrealistic expectations about the work that
follows. After a major outpouring of eort, your energy stock is likely to be depleted, which
makes it hard to maintain your concentration. Tasks that may have required little exertion
in the past suddenly demand a lot more of you. Adjusting your expectations is important
because it helps minimize the self-blame that often accompanies and exacerbates burnout.
Separate thinking from doing. If your job is like most, its rare for you to have the
opportunity to savor your successes for very long. In fact, theres probably an enormous
backlog of work that accumulated while you were seeing your project out the door, because
the rest of your job didnt stand still during that time.
While you may feel tempted to immediately dive in, doing so is generally not in your best
interest. When were depleted we nd it harder to distinguish tasks that are important from
those that simply feel urgent. Its at this point that were at our most vulnerable to doing
busywork.
Carve out a few hours outside of the oce to list, clarify, and prioritize your tasks. A
focused strategy session will help declutter your mind and ensure that you devote the
limited energy you have to activities that have value. The sense of direction is itself
energizing, while preventing you from falling prey to easily-accomplishable tasks with
limited worth.
Unapologetically restock your energy. To achieve top performance the human body
requires periods of recovery. Laboring when our physical and cognitive resources are
depleted yields low quality work and makes engagement more dicult.
When taking extended time o after a big win is not an option, integrating recovery into
your day is especially valuable. Schedule intermissions onto your calendar and use them to
take a walk. Have lunch away from your computer. For a few days, turn o your work email
after hours, or better yet, when you arrive home, leave your phone in a dierent room.
What should you do at home to replenish your energy? A 2014 Journal of Occupation
Health Psychology article oers clues. Within the study, psychologists compared how
dierent after-work activities aect employees recovery from burnout. While many of us
assume that passive, relaxing activities are best, researchers found evidence that engaging
in exercise and social interaction can be even more revitalizing.
The lesson: slowing down isnt the only way of lling up your tank. Sometimes renewal
requires accelerating in a dierent direction. Instead of just ipping on the TV and vegging
out, consider calling your friends and suggesting a game of tennis.
Find your next mastery goal. To be at our most engaged, we require experiences that grow
our competence. Leadership consultant Jim Collins argues that organizations need a big
hairy audacious goal to achieve great things. The same can be said for employees.
If youre aiming to perform at your best, you need something new to be excited about.
Building time into your routine to explore new ideas, for example, by reading before work
or setting aside 15 minutes after lunch to review industry blogs, helps foster a sense of
growth even when the tasks youre working on are predictable.
Another method of growing on the job: mentoring. We tend to think of mentoring as a
means of educating others and improving their performance. But new studies indicate that
in many cases, its the mentor who reaps the greatest benet, especially when it comes to
mitigating perceptions of having reached a career plateau.
How does mentoring help? Research suggests mentoring prevents job monotony and
enhances the way we look at our jobs. It contributes to the perceived meaning we derive
from our work. In so doing, mentoring helps us nd growth in new ways, mitigating
emotional exhaustion.
Ultimately, how you approach your work in the days and weeks following a big win can be
just as critical to your long-term success as the achievement itself. By anticipating and
proactively addressing a depleted mental and physical state, youre more apt to turn an
isolated victory into a consistent winning streak.
Ron Friedman, Ph.D. is the founder of ignite80, a consulting rm that helps leaders build thrivingorganizations, and the author of the forthcoming book, The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating
an Extraordinary Workplace. Connect with him @ronfriedman. To receive an email when he posts, click here.
Related Topics: STRESS | PSYCHOLOGY
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Manali Shah 3 months ago
Motivation helps to accomplish goals, and its necessary for all types of success. You need motivation inhuge doses and you need it daily. An environment which i have in my company Synechron is such thatawakens enthusiasm and makes one feel motivated. Also I agree with the above article that yes mentoringdoes help to grow and improve faster. Thanks for sharing.
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