I’m a to do list person. And not in a small way. I have an app (google Keep, if you’re interested) and I have SO MANY lists. Including 7 that are named each for one day of the week so I can get and stay organized about what I mean to do each day. I am 100% a person who will put a task I’ve already completed on the list for the dopamine hit of scratching it off. I know I’m not alone, where are my list people? These lists are an interesting metric for my motivation. Some days I check off allthethings – or at least a fair chunk of them – and some days I cut and paste most or all to the next day.
Why do I pay attention to my motivation? Well, it turns out that motivation is a key indicator of resilience. When you want to know how your resilience is doing (I mean I want to know about yours, mine and everyone’s, obviously) it’s useful to know how motivated you’ve been recently towards the activities and behaviors that matter to you.
Why should we check in on our resilience? Knowing how resilient you are at any given time allows you to predict, care for and improve your mental health! And leaders can use this to predict, support and improve the mental health of our teams. This is not a small advantage!
You already knew that a drop in your motivation is a sign of stress. That exercising less or sleeping more or eating more unhealthy things than you meant to are indicators that you’re having a hard time. I’m hoping to give you a new tool to get an earlier warning of waning resilience.
Have you noticed a drop recently in your motivation to do things that do genuinely matter to you? Hit reply and tell me, I’m interested. Next week we’ll dive into strategies to help!
All my best,
Dr. G
