There have been times in my life where I have been more or less self-motivated to do a lot of work. Most of those times where I was overly motivated, it was because a lack of self-confidence in myself and a worry that I was going to be canned at any second. Times where I have been less-than motivated have usually been out of rebellion because of micro-management. I don’t always like to be told just to DO something, just to DO it. Ya know?
But in this job, I have quite a lot of autonomy and am able to do a lot at my own discretion. There are a few tasks when I am in the office on Mondays/Wednesdays that I am supposed to get done, like advising students and getting progress reports done, etc. The challenge is, I am working mostly alone, which isn’t my strong suit. I like doing things as a team, or at least being around others to bounce ideas off each other. Sitting alone in my office (yes, I’ve graduated from cubicle to my OWN (shared with my co-teacher) office), which is sometimes more isolating than helpful (except for student meetings). The challenge with this job, though, is that there is also not a lot of direction. I don’t actually have a job description, per se. The way I was hired was all sorts of weird (the job was posted for Tues/Thurs teaching. Then, when they offered me the job they told me about the Mon/Wed advising for hourly. Granted, because of my friend I HAD known that would be the gig, but still, it all seems shady to me).
I have drive and ambition and when I get to work I get overwhelmed with the different things I could be doing, and end up facebooking or looking at pinterest, or mostly just surfing around getting distracted. I don’t necessarily know what to do. At home I talk with Boof about it, and I get super excited and motivated to do things, to make a plan or a proposal for a method of advising or do something, but at work I slide to the lowest common denominator, which is pushing the food around on our plate pretending that we are eating. It was like this in sports, when I played on a team and we were playing a good team, I would rise to the challenge. But if we were playing a sloppy team, we tended to play less well. Now I don’t give myself enough credit, as I did see about 7 students today, even if only for a few minutes at a time, and have been prepping for class tomorrow, but I wish I was working on some type of project, and that I could be motivated daily to do it!
What motivates you when those around you don’t seem to be doing anything? I don’t want to be an overachiever or put so much on my plate that I am overworked, but I don’t want to just sit around doing nothing.
Thoughts?
boof & monk-monk 