Q: I am really struggling to stay motivated. I attribute it to burnout at my previous job, perimenopause symptoms, being an empty nester, mild depression and just being “done” with work. I’m 52 and don’t see retirement coming anytime soon, but need to pay college tuition for the next four years or so, so I don’t see a way out. Plus, I work for a company full of young, superintelligent high achievers, and I feel like I can’t keep up, nor do I want to. How can I make it through the next several years?
— “Done” but not finished
A: It sounds as if there is a lot on your plate. I feel optimistic for you, though, mostly because I believe getting or staying motivated isn’t about pulling a lever marked “Motivated!”
It can be counterproductive to think about motivation as a binary. That shrouds the basic building blocks of a workday — the things that energize us, the things we dread, the natural lulls, the unglamorous necessities, the spikes of dopamine — in one catchall state.
Instead, I think in your case you want to alleviate ennui with productive novelty. And in many modern corporate settings there are opportunities to add that: a lunchtime speaker series, an employee resource group, tuition reimbursement toward learning new skills or languages, signing up to be a mentor or a short-term assignment on a different team.
This list may seem as bleak to you as most litanies of perimenopause symptoms. I realize you have written in to say: I don’t feel like doing anything. And I am saying: But what if you did even more things? Things you don’t even technically have to do to earn your paycheck to pay tuition to keep trudging through midlife.
What I am getting at, though, is this: What would it feel like not to change everything, but to change your routine for 45 minutes every other Tuesday?
Instead of the brick wall of your inbox, what if your view for a sliver of the day was practicing conversational Spanish in the cafeteria or at a brown-bag lunch talk?
Or, perhaps even better, having coffee with a 30-something colleague who wants to talk with you about how you balanced your career with the demands of a family?
That could be a fruitful mentoring relationship, where the view of your path through a mentee’s eyes could potentially shift how you feel. But even if nothing as profound as that emerges, literally getting up and out of your current routine is likely to shake free some mental space and energy for the tasks that feel like a slog.
It’s not a magical motivational mantra. But it could be energizing, even for an afternoon. And one energizing afternoon can build momentum for a better morning the next day.
One other note: You say the company is full of “young, superintelligent high achievers.” That may be true, or that may be how it feels to you. I doubt you would have a role at a company full of high achievers if you didn’t also fit that description in some way. So proceed with confidence as you figure out what will be most energizing to you at this stage of your career. You are done — with feeling exactly as you do now. That’s fair. The tools and skills you’ve used to get this far will get you somewhere different.
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