How To Stay Motivated When You Feel Underappreciated

Do you feel demotivated in your workplace? There might be a time where you’re in a slump. You sometimes feel that you are underappreciated despite your efforts. It’s normal. It regularly happens. To help you, here are five ways to remain motivated when you feel underappreciated in your workplace.

Celebrate Small Victories

It might be too small for others, but not for you. Celebrate small milestones in your workload. Finished a task ahead of schedule? Take a short breather. When you can’t seem to accomplish a big task, put that aside for a short time. Go accomplish a bite-sized task to get the ball rolling. 

By focusing on the small victory, your brain gets rid of negativity bias and informs you of the positive things happening around you. 

Set Personal Goals

It wouldn’t hurt if you set goals for yourself. Your company might have its own goals that you need to achieve. That’s fine. If you aren’t getting feedback from your superiors, motivate yourself with your own goals. Track the progress you make on a periodic basis. It’s how you view your work that affects your total performance in your unit. 

Example: If you are in charge of answering customer support tickets, keep track of the tickets you close daily and tally them weekly. Challenge yourself by doing more and giving more quality solutions each week. 

Exercise

It goes without saying that you need a healthy body and sound mind to be in top shape. A quick lap around the neighborhood or a quick set of exercises might do the trick. Make sure that you track your progress and keep it in plain sight within your workspace. 

When you feel defeated, take a glance at your diary. Focus on the areas you need to improve on. By doing this, you allow the positive outlook to come back to you. You begin to make mental notes on what to do better so you set a new goal every time to keep you motivated. 

Example: if you were able to run 5KM a day this week, try aiming for 6KM next week. Keep challenging yourself to get extra motivation to do better in all things you do, including work. 

Recognize The Value of Your Work

Sometimes, we feel down because we can’t clearly see the value we put in the company through our work. We tend to underestimate the value we contribute because we see our jobs as small things that wouldn’t transform anything.

Take some time to reflect on your own. Think deeply about the things that you do in your job. Reflect on the real effects of what you do on the people availing your assistance. Out of the bunch, this is the simplest way to motivate yourself. 

Look at your job in a deeper sense rather than looking at it as something low or menial. Do not look at your job as “just” your job. Look at it as “your job”, and you are expected to perform your duty to help others perform on their end. 

Speak Up

Sometimes, your boss might not recognize that you feel underappreciated. He might have his own problems and he might be too busy to take action. Sometimes, speaking up is a good choice. 

Be strategic in going about this route. You do not want to come across as whiny. Tell your boss that you sometimes feel that you are not living up to the expectations. Discuss how you could stay motivated to continue your path to success. This allows your boss to identify where you situate yourself. 

The General Lesson

The general lesson here is you should try to develop your self-confidence. Do note that the world doesn’t revolve around you. There might be others who share the same sentiment as you. What you could do is try to foster a workplace that gives importance to the appreciation of the members’ efforts. Even if you are not in a managerial role, this is quite easy to implement.

You may be just a simple team member, but the things you do and things you say to yourself and your colleagues would make a positive impact on the workplace dynamics. If you are interested, you may want to read on ways how entrepreneurs can stay healthy here.