In search of motivation

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly. - Stephen R. Covey

Motivation is the one thing that I have trouble with all the time. It is hard to be efficient and tuned to your task all the time even in normal development circumstances, but right now I am working in 2 projects and both in them the rest of the team works in other town. So my work social life is quite poor and highlight of my day are the morning scrum meetings. But even when you have your team close motivation can be a real issue. 


Human brain works like a rechargeable battery and motivation is like a charge booster. With motivation you can work longer, rest quicker and get better results. The need to achieve your goals will give you the energy that you wont get any other way. Truly motivated people can change the world because it is impossible to keep them from their goals and break their will. In our field it is hard to see how we change the world but every big achievement is only possible because of those smaller contributions. To be able to be motivated you need to love your job because love makes us care, desire and believe, all are the requirements for motivation. To test this think if there have been times when you feel "butterflies in your stomach" when you have just thought of a new way to test something or found a new bug. You don`t have to feel it every day or even every week, but if you feel it from time to time than it means you are able to love it and need to help yourself find ways how you can feel it more often. 


There are some techniques that I have come up with to improve my motivation level. First thing you need to do is find out how your work matters or makes a difference somehow, for example right now my projects are related to big bank systems and that means a lot of bussiness rules and byrocracy. Ofcourse you may think that well your work will improve economy or something like that but that really doesnt work for me, I want to help make world a better place for people who are really in need of it. So I started to researh the bank that I am working with and found out that it is doing a lot of charity work, like donating money to childrens hospital, conducting projects for youths to help them find work and etc. I discovered that this bank had significantly more charitable side than most of its kind and I like to be part of something like that, because me giving them an application that will help them make their work easier and faster means that they can help others faster. Ofcourse all the glory goes to them but, it may sound like a cliche but real heros dont do it for the glory, they do it because they can help. Ofcourse different things work for different people, you just need to find what works for you in your project. I believe every project has something that can motivate.


Second thing is not to waste time on pointless things, luckily in my firm I can say when something I am doing is just wasting my time and their money. Doing something that you know wont matter in any way is a real motivation killer. So when you are doing something first think why you are doing it, you may be doing it just from a habit and there is no real benefit from it. 


Third thing is not to be afraid of challenges, it is easy to let yourself get caught in a routine and do things the way you are used to and not the way that is most effective. Challenges keep us alert. You cant achieve something great without taking risks, doing ordinary things means being ordinary but we all want to be special so keep finding those unique solutions.


And finally don`t be afraid of slacking. I have heard many people worry about not being able to work efficiently all the time but that is totally normal. Youtube, facebook etc are our work tools like any other. We need to de-focus sometimes from out work and let our mind digest everything we have done and when we come back to our work we may see the solution we are looking for or problems we didn't see before. Just make sure if you are working than your mind is focused to your work and when it is break time than really take a break. This kind of system will make you more effective and your work gives you more pleasure.