There will be days when you just don’t want to do any work at all. Period.
I was having one of these days a couple of weeks ago when this post by Heidi Grant Halvorson, How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To, published on Harvard Business Review appeared in my feed. Coincidental? Maybe. But I think not!
Heidi examines five possible reasons that might be behind your “I just don’t want to work” feelings and offers solutions for each of them. The options she suggest can and do work — for that reason you should take 5 minutes to read her post and see if any of her ideas might work for you.
But then there are times when you just don’t want to work and the best thing for you to do is anything else but. Especially if you love your work and rarely, if ever, have a difficult time motivating yourself to get down to it.
In these situations, it can often be best to go with your instincts and take a break from working for a day or two. Or seven. (Possibly even more!) Sometimes we need to take that step back to find our groove again. And it’s only when we put some distance between our selves and our work that we can see our “what next“.
Work should provide you with regular joy and satisfaction. When it stops doing that, something is wrong. You owe it to yoursef to explore all options so you can “love your work” again. Just sayin’.