Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast and you are listening to another one of our Squiggly Shortcuts. These weekly quick episodes are designed to help you with something you might be dealing with right now. So you get some very quick ideas for action. And what I want to talk to you about today is how to boost your motivation if you are in the middle of a knotty moment.

What do I mean by knotty moment? I mean a situation, for whatever reason feels like it's a struggle right now. And that might be because something unexpected has happened and there's been a change to a project you're working on, for example, or maybe you've had some feedback that you weren't expecting and you know, you thought was okay, but now it feels really difficult to do. Or maybe it's a situation that's been going on for a while. And what makes it knotty is that you know, it's not going to end really quickly. Like that could be, you know, like a knotty moment can sometimes be a person that you're working with and you can't see them, you know, going away. Or it can, I think sometimes it can actually be the job that you're doing when you know you want to do a good job, but you know this isn't the right job, but you can't do anything about it. I think that can feel like a knotty career moment. So hopefully you get that we've all got knotty moments and in fact, probably most of us have got some kind of knotty moment right now.

And the point is that these can be energy sapping situations. And so having some quick boosts for our motivation can be really helpful when we're experiencing them. So I've got three things that I would recommend that you do if you are in one of these moments right now.

The first one is a bit of a dopamine hack. Now, you can't rely on this for that long, but if you just need a bit of a boost in the moment, I'd really think about either music. Have you got a go to track that you feel like gives you a bit of a boost? Honestly, I will put it on sometimes in my office and I will just sing that track really, really loud and it does something to the chemicals in your brain. It makes you feel better for a moment. Now it could be going for a walk, like a really, really fast walk. A bit of fresh air can the same thing too. Sometimes people might like just do a bit of a dump on a piece of paper, gives them back that sense of control. But whatever your dopamine hack is, this is the time to deploy it. So know what works for you and just prioritise it. Don't dismiss it because shouting at a song doesn't feel like the right thing to do right now. It will help you to do a bit of a mini reset.

Second thing I would say for a bit of a motivation boost in a knotty moment is progress. Something that might sound weird, but the thing that you are trying to deal with probably isn't that sortable that quickly, else it wouldn't be a knotty moment. So find something you can progress. It could be a post you want to write on LinkedIn, it could be an email you need to send, it could be three things on your to do list. It doesn't really matter. What matters is the sense of control, the sense of progression, the sense that you can do something and this situation is not getting in your way completely. So I definitely like, find something you can progress today and do it.

And then the third thing is pick up the phone. Pick up the phone and talk to somebody. Because in a knotty moment, although it can feel demotivating, it can feel hard in your head to manage all this stuff that's going on. Just picking up the phone to someone that you trust, someone perhaps outside of work, that can give you a sense of perspective, is really, really useful. I might call my nan and I might just have a chat with my nan and I might think, o, oh, my nan's great. And suddenly this thing that I've zeroed in on with work that seems really important suddenly I think, okay, well, if my nan can manage that, then I can probably manage this. Or somebody that can remind you that you've been in a tough time before and whilst it isn't easy and they're not trying to undermine that, they do recognise that you're pretty good at getting through this stuff. It's those kind of people.

And if you do those three things, if you do your little dopamine hack, you progress something and you pick up the phone and talk to someone, those things can be enough to that motivation that can help you get through some of those knotty moments. So good luck. If you are in that situation right now, I get it, it does feel hard. And I hope these three ideas help you to take back a bit of control and give you that little bit of a boost that helps you keep going. Don't forget we've got episode 200 which is on energy at work and that could be a really good listen if you want a bit more support in this situation right now. But we'll be back with you next week with another squiggly shortcut and our standard Tuesday episodes where we borrow a bit of brilliance to help you with your career.