Motivation at work

 Haven't talked about this here in recent times so it's something worth discussing.

It's about motivation at work. Namely I have trouble getting it. Or have never had it. Really, it's tough to force myself to care, even though my team, boss, group, and company are incredibly kind caring and considerate. Which puts me in a tough spot because...I'm the baddie in this scenario it feels like, and the situation needs to be fixed or whatever.

So I started talking to a counselor over lunch a month or so ago. Just so that I can be in a place where I'm more interested and motivated to do the job I'm paid alright for. Still in a starting position with base salary many years after starting, and with an advanced degree, but hey this is life.

We've identified the issue. I'm too active and get easily distracted, I need to be in demand at all the places, so I'm at my full capacity when I'm doing seven different things at the same time. Give me one task, and no deadline and it'll never get done. Give me nine things to do, all due in three days from now, and they'll all get done for the most part, even though you only wanted like one thing to be done.

So now I'm involved in all sorts of projects, doing so many things. It's fun, I'm more productive!

In addition to that, I'm also told to start meditating, and practice more mindfulness. I know meditation, I did it once earlier this week, fell asleep right after, but it was productive. It'd be good to get back into it, haven't done it seriously since my grad school days. Found a guided meditation voice thing on the Berkeley website that I posted about a couple of days ago. Need to follow that. 45 minutes a day, or every other day, and i'd be in a better place.

Not sure about mindfulness though, don't understand fully what it means and what the implications are. My original idea was that it means to be fully aware and conscious of your actions, but that feels like what Botton calls 'hyperconsciousness', something that I don't want to get into. Because it's painful, it hinders your decision-making and not a great thing.

Being aware of your surroundings and your self as a part of it sounds great though. Not sure how that would help me feel better at work, and be more productive, but perhaps the perspective of myself as an employee of a company who's paid money to do a certain job would remind me to get things done? Though if I don't enjoy it or want it, it would probably only stress me out because what's the point even, ugh.

These are choppy uncharted waters for me. I'm eager for the journey, and my guide, the captain of the ship seems to be a reasonably experienced person. Let's see how it goes.

Bid me luck.