Keeping Dread at Bay
Motivation always has and always will be on the agenda
It’s a typical Sunday evening on a typically hot Aussie day. I am lazing about after an alcohol fuelled weekend full of my usual pleasures - socialising, sport, and time with my wife, Jana. As the sun goes down, I do what I do every Sunday evening. I turn my mind to Monday. The trepidation of Monday…
Conference calls, reports, and dealing with the huge agenda overhanging from the week before. It’s not much different than the list from last week except it is a little longer with a pinch of extra pressure. The dread is building. The anxiety starts to develop as I anticipate and play out all the possibilities and conversations I don’t want to have. My energy levels are low enough as I haven’t slept well due to over-eating and binge drinking and now I am asking myself:
“What story could I spin to take the day off?”
It’s tempting, but as a Manager, it is not an option. For once my rational brain pipes up and reminds me that hiding under a blanket in bed for a day is not the answer. All that work will be waiting for me, only with less time to do it. I will drag myself to work, put on a typically smiley and positive face and do my best.
What I didn’t realise at the time is that I was not only the person having these feelings every Sunday night. With a little research, I found out that it happens to many people. In fact, 81% of people according to a research study performed by The Sleep Judge. This experience is called The Sunday Dread, where anxiety starts out mildly on a Sunday morning and gradually builds momentum throughout the day to the point of serious anxiety symptoms including headache, irritability, depressed moods, and an eventual bad night’s sleep turning Monday into a serious trauma.
The contemporary workplace is riddled with anxiety, pressure, and complexity. Every manager is working tirelessly to manage themselves through this while desperately trying to keep the team on track as everyone battles their own struggles in their own way. When I work with Brand Managers and Executives in a facilitation or coaching setting, these themes are at the forefront of what is holding them and their teams back. From an organisational level, a departmental level, a team level, and an individual level. The snowball effect from this dread is felt by many throughout the week and compromises productivity in many ways.
Dan Pink's work on Motivation tells us the three key fundamentals to human motivation in professional work environments.
Motivation is an intangible beast and it can be difficult to understand where the accountability lies. If the company that employs me doesn’t give me a reason to buy-in, then there will be a limit to how much I can fake my ‘care’. But it is also up to me to find a purpose and passion within my role that relates to the company vision.
Motivation experts like Dan Pink tell us that it is the prospect of Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose that will lift a professional’s motivation. If we provide an environment for this then our workplaces will be bursting with highly motivated people. I think there is merit in this idea, but like many concepts, it is all in the implementation.
How do you deal with Monday Dread? And, what tools do you use to embed a deeper motivation in yourself and your staff?
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