Are you not excited to get to work?

This happens even in the best and most exciting job. No one is immune from demotivation and postponement. 

You want your motivation back? Here are some self-motivation tips:

1. Tell yourself you are starting anew

There are many reasons why we often do not get started with work: stress, boring tasks, annoying meetings or even the fear of failure.  Try to treat your work like a new project: research shows that “new mental periods” can promote new perspectives and improve motivation

2. Smile! 

Even if that sounds weird, just make a big smile! Whether you are feeling happy or not, the body doesn’t really know the difference between a fake or a real smile. Research shows how smiling reduces stress and helps you feel better about the work you need to do.

3. Give yourself a reward before you begin

Try to watch a short comedy video, or eat a slice of cake. Research shows that higher levels of dopamine, can boost self-motivation prior to engaging on a new task.

4. The incredible Hulk

Standing or even sitting, with an open and expansive posture can augment testosterone levels, and thus, decrease cortisol. This will help you to feel more powerful. Try to put your hands on your hips, push up your chest and keep your chin up. 

5. Baby steps

Break down your work into small, achievable and measurable tasks. Commit to completing just one simple thing at a time. Write down your ultimate goal, to remember the big picture and to visualise the benefits of your work. 

6. Talk to others

Studies show that if you ask for input from someone else, and keep them updated on your progress, this can increase your motivation to achieve your tasks.

7. Create a mantra

Research demonstrated that telling yourself out loud that what you are going to do is important and achievable,  can help your motivation! 

8. Dream

Day dream with your eyes closed for 10 minutes about your success on your work (or task). 

9. Looking Back at the Day

When we look at tomorrow’s to-do list, we often forget what we’ve done in the course of a day’s work. However, the (small) sense of achievement of today gives you momentum for tomorrow. Take some time at the end of the workday to reflect on what you’ve done. Of course, celebrate the achievements, even if small!

Days without motivation at  work are completely normal. Try these few tips, and tell us how did it go!

Most of our guests contact us to organise team building activities which can assure afterwards increased performance. 

Unfortunately there is no one solution that fits everybody – however we identified 7 key basics that will ensure your team building experience will provide increased motivation and collaboration. 

Deep learning. Engage with participants on an emotional level, let them not just think what they should do, but rather how they should feel. Design your activities focusing on deep learning, in which people examine new facts and ideas critically, tie them into existing cognitive structures and make numerous links between ideas. On surface learning people accept new facts and ideas uncritically and attempt to store them as isolated, unconnected items.

Stop working. Funny enough in the perfect team building event, people must feel that they left their work in the office. It shouldn’t be another excuse to get people together to somehow address office issues in another setting. Don´t be afraid to plan your team building experience during week days, nobody wants to work on the weekends, even if that work includes play. Team building events should foster community feelings!

Leave the usual settings. A simple way to boost motivation and increase energy is to get your team away from the usual settings they are used to. However consider everyone in planning the location. Don’t book a sailing challenge if somebody can’t swim or plan it when half of them are on vacation. Choose a time and activity (or a range of different activities) that’s right for everyone.

Invite family. Inviting family members to a team building activity may be a simple way to make everyone feel more relaxed, have more fun, and get more connected. 

Mix it up. Challenge the team by mixing them between people they don’t know. Let them interact and leave their usual comfort zone.

Simulate it. Come up with dynamics, games, insights or rewards that people can easily relate to real life examples. 

Follow through. Close the team building event with a feedback session. Make each person identify actions that will be implemented at work, even better if they commit to follow up on these among themselves.

At Barcelona Ambassadors we strive to address our guests needs in tailor made fashion. It is deep in our mind and heart to make your experience with us, unique and unforgettable. 

Abraham Maslow was an academic working in the field of Psychology and became well known for his work on the Hierarchy of Needs model in 1943. This theory still remains valid today for understanding and utilizing human motivation in various contexts.

Maslow’s pyramid of hierarchical needs consisted of 5 levels:

Levels 1 to 4 are deficiency motivators; level 5, a growth motivator (and rare to find). Preventing someone to accomplish those needs usually causes detrimental stress. Most of employees in organizations should at least reach level 2.

Further on, Maslow realized that the self only finds its actualization in giving itself a higher goal outside oneself (altruism) — this led to the revisions of his initial model, resulting in the following 8-stage hierarchy:

At the 8th level, self-transcendence consists in going beyond oneself and helping others to achieve self-actualization. 

How does this translate in practical terms for an organization? 

You can’t motivate someone to achieve their targets (level 4) when they’re having problems with their relationships (level 3): Team building events or Incentive travels can help in addressing those issues.

You can’t expect someone to work as a team member (level 3) when they’re having their health challenged (level 2) health and good living initiatives at work can help address this.

As you can see, solutions are simple; it just takes some motivation to make the first step! 

Let’s give it a try?

How motivated are you at work?

And, at which level of Maslow’s pyramid are you?

Have you ever found yourself in a team in which you felt a total stranger?

Or in a team where you felt unheard?

Maybe a team in which shortcomings where more than the actual achievements?

Many of us out there shared at some point these feelings and often the answer lies on how that team was built and put together.

The most influential theory in this field is the one developed by Bruce Tuckman which may be slightly outdated but still very relevant to most of today’s organizations.

Tuckman’s model is significant because it emphasizes the fact that groups do not start off fully-formed and functioning. He suggests that teams grow through clearly defined stages, from their creation as groups of individuals, to task-focused teams.

Tuckman’s Teamwork Theory

Tuckman argued that there are two features in common to groups, a) the interpersonal or group structure and, b) the task. From this he identified that groups evolve into teams via four common stages. The first stage is during which individuals are still busy finding their place and wondering why they are there. Followed by a storming stage in which people begin to see them as a part of a team and they start challenging each other. In this stage conflict may arise and this may lead to a decrease in performance. However, the storming stage often leads to a more socially cohesive phase, the norming stage, in which people start to come together, establish ground rules and clarify roles. Ultimately the final stage is where people increase their performance by working effectively together.

Tuckman’s teamwork theory is best illustrated on the graph below which shows the link between group relationships (the horizontal axis) and task focus (the vertical axis).

In our experience, not all teams evolve chronologically through Tuckman’s stages but may go back and forth until they either begin to perform or are dismantled. Regardless of these limitations, at Barcelona Ambassadors we apply those models which can be useful in helping you to understand and better manage your teams.

Why employees engagement?

There is extensive scientific literature on the relationship between employees engagement and companies’ results. The higher the engagement, the higher the results: the higher the results, the higher the profits.  With this linear correlation, how easy or not, it is to enhance people’s engagement at their daily tasks?

Easy, it´s like playing.

It seems that gamifying some parts of their routine tasks can help boost their performance, but what is “Gamification”?

In a nutshell, gamification is the application of elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, and rules of play) to other areas of work. Companies can use gamification to train employees in a fun way that encourages motivation, competition, and solidarity as well as to motivate workers and optimise the workforce. It also helps to gather data that can be used for actionable insights into a business.

At Barcelona Ambassadors, we feel the need to tailor incentive trips so that they also include gamification components such as:

• Competition; igniting the fire of competition is a tried-and-true method of motivation for most (if not all) employees;
• Tangible achievement: some employees need more than just the satisfaction of a job well done to motivate action. Awarding badges for completion and mastery could make all the difference;
• Group sharing and collaboration; imagine that an employee gets stuck on a specific quiz question or activity, she/he might give up and disengage from the situation, but imagine if she/he had the capacity to use tokens or points toward asking a group of colleagues for their inputs. Social tools make collaboration simpler, creating a symbiotic relationship between the learner who needs help and the learner who wants to demonstrate his knowledge base.
• testing for knowledge; social gaming is the ultimate test for where each employee falls in the pack. Sizing up proficiency against other co-workers helps each learner understand his or her strengths and weaknesses.
• Feedback looping; don’t forget that social gaming also offers benefits for leadership and management. Scores, leader boards, and badges are simple ways for management to see real-time feedback in form of proficiency and engagement. Issuing feedback and pointers then become more effective and personalised, based on a learner’s actual performance.

Gamifying incentive trips allows the employees to boost their motivation and engagement whilst having fun and discovering new things through authentic experiences.