A student asked me today what I do when I feel a lack of motivation to do my work. He then quickly added “or do you ever feel that, now that you’re not in college.”
I had to smile knowingly.
I offered him a whole host of advice– learning your rhythm, finding the time to do your best work, looking for your passion, etc. I could write a little self-help series with all the advice I’ve offered to students over the years. I believe all of it, too, which either makes me legit or makes me a crazy fool.
But I stopped short of giving him the answer that I think is the key to all of it. Not because I was afraid to say it, not because I didn’t think he could stand to hear it. I just didn’t think to take it to quite the extreme that the rest of my day took it to.
I had lunch with one of my new bosses. Great guy– I’m glad to work with and for him. But after asking me about a third piece of service, he commented that he felt bad asking me to do so much when I already do so many things and he pointed out that he didn’t want to impede my tenure case by overworking me.
First– how refreshing is that? Coming out of a program where people didn’t even consider service something I was doing into a place where for the last two years my service has been respected and my time is a consideration.
But second, I told him not to worry. My other boss knows that I don’t often say no. He thinks that I can’t. And honestly, that’s often been a problem of mine. But it isn’t that for me now. My unfortunate road from being an MA student to now taught me to say no when I need to say no. The thing is I don’t say no if one of three things apply: 1) I care about the thing, 2) I know that no one will pick up the task and give it the attention it deserves or 3)I know how important it is to everyone. I’ve gotten to where I am because people listened to me make the case for why what I do matters, why the ideas I have matter. I feel very strongly about returning that karma to the world any chance I get.
Here’s the catch. Sometimes I get home and I am just done– totally exhausted, spent to the point that I’m almost worthless. I had to tell Julie one day last week– when I got home at 1 am– that I just didn’t have anything in the tank, that I needed to just catch up on news and write my blog and take a warm shower. I was done. My battery was at 1%.
But I can do that, day after day, because I want things to work. I like my job. I believe in the things that I do.
Today I got to see the two sides of this coin in my capstone class.
One of my capstone students is doing some internship work for me as well. I asked him to give me a quick example of his art (I had him draw a picture of me, because I’m an egomaniac :P). He turned it around in three hours and it’s absolutely amazing. I’ll post the picture here as soon as I make sure he’s cool with me sharing it. He’s insanely talented, has amazing work ethic, and he loves what he’s doing. He’s one of the students who wants it, and that shows in his work.
In that same class, several students have yet to respond to a prompt from last Thursday.
They’re not taking the class seriously enough, and I’m going to have to dust off “hardcore Dr. Phill” this week to get them in line.
It’s because they don’t care. And I don’t say that in a dismissive way. It’s not that they aren’t people who care about things. It’s that they’ve landed in my capstone because they need capstone credit, but they don’t care about what we’re making.
I’m not sure how to motivate a person who has that stance. But I do know that if a person doesn’t care, it will show. Everything in this life is about what you put in.
So that’s my ultimate advice. If you’re feeling unmotivated, if you feel buried, if you don’t know where to start or how to muster the power to start, you don’t want it.
And that’s okay. It just means you have to find what you want and go do something else.