Igniting the Passion Back into Your Role

By HR Heads

So it’s back into the daily swing and routine of work and for many of us this will be a welcome event. A nice long break over Christmas coupled with too many relatives underfoot is enough to inspire most of us to head back to the office, batteries re-charged and ready to take up forthcoming challenges that seem far less daunting than the in-laws.

Whilst it’s fantastic that the New Year inspires so much optimism, energy and vision, there are also some of us who find it hard to shift the shackles and stresses of the year gone by. If you’re one of these slightly jaded individual’s it can be even harder to recover your joie de vivre when surrounded by colleagues brimming with ideas and enthusiasm.

If any of this resonates with you then rest assured, you’re not alone and all is not lost. There are some simple and effective ways to reignite your love of your job:

1. Remember why you wanted your current role and take time to acknowledge previous achievements. One of the key elements of job satisfaction comes from realising you can make a difference. Whether this relates to your team or the wider business, knowing your role has a clear purpose will be key to maintaining your motivation levels. So think back to all those times when your work had an impact and let yourself feel some well-deserved pride for your successes. It will help give you the confidence and drive to start to making your mark again.
    
2. Think about what you enjoy and what you want to spend your time on and take steps to include it in your schedule. It’s not always realistic to have total autonomy (even at a senior level), particularly for those working within large, national and multinational organisations with several different reporting lines and numerous stakeholders bringing a surfeit of different demands to the table. That said, having control of your workload is paramount to self-esteem and can help re-ignite your passion and creativity. Google proved this philosophy with the invention of their “20% time” benefit (http://usat.ly/1HvZoHq) which allowed employees to channel energies into their own projects at work for 20% of the week and which famously resulted in the creation of gmail. So decide what matters to you at work and prioritise it, as utilising your passions and expertise will often yield the best results.
    
3. Understand the areas you want to improve on and make a commitment to your own development.  Many roles are multi-faceted, requiring the post holder to wear a range of different hats. As a result, part of the reason we lose confidence and enthusiasm links to the high levels of expectation imposed upon us to be good at everything where realistically this is rarely achievable. By tackling a gap in your expertise you will start to feel more in control, your work will reap the benefits and you’ll have many more successes to celebrate.

Purpose, autonomy and improving our skills can go a long way towards instilling the spark back into work and we hope that everyone reading this takes the time to invest and have faith in themselves this year because; “you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will” – Stephen King