After your holidays it is quite common that you don’t want to get back to work. And it is reasonable; t is much nicer to be on the beach drinking a mojito than at work drinking machine-made coffee, surrounded by demanding people and stressing tasks. Otherwise they wouldn’t pay for it, would they?

But sometimes some people feel a deeper reluctance to resuming work. Why? There are two main reasons:

• Many people really dislike their jobs or can’t find meaning in them anymore, very often due not to the nature of the work, but because of meaningless rules and bosses.
• Other people can’t find the energy or resources to cope with a new year full of coronavirus, work or unemployment issues, family or couple problems, etc. You feel exhausted even before starting!

These two situations have a huge effect on motivation, as it depends greatly on meaning and achievement. If you don’t find meaning or you feel you can’t achieve much because your problems are bigger than your resources, your motivation disappears.

The usual advice from other people or yourself goes like this: «don’t listen to yourself, this feeling will go away, don’t be lazy, you need the money, think about the next holidays, work harder, you have no choice, etc.» But when you can’t find motivation, discipline and routine can only keep you going so far, and at a great personal cost, including mental and body health issues.

Then, how to deal with your lack of motivation instead? Well, it would take a whole coaching process to find out your solution, but as a first step I highly recommend these two priceless speeches:

Leading on empty, by Patrick Bet-David.

The danger in meaningless work, by Jordan Peterson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQAv0Bn96Gc

So now that you have these powerful insights and advice, what are you going to do with your life and work when you return from your holidays?