Workplace Wellbeing: How to motivate yourself when you've got the back-to-work blues

If you are struggling with lingering January blues, there are strategies you can adopt to help you re-energise and refocus

Research shows that many of us struggle in January.

Do you have to drag yourself out of bed and into work these dark mornings? Are you struggling to find motivation when it’s cold and wet outside? Does the excitement of Christmas feel like a distant memory now that we’re deep in the doldrums of January? If so, you may have the back-to-work blues.

You’re probably not the only one. Research shows that many of us struggle in January. A 2017 University of Exeter study [exa.mn/january-blues] found that our 'depressive mood' at this time of year was often exacerbated by a perception of a gap between how we want things to be and how they are.

“Three weeks have elapsed since Christmas — the shine has begun to wear off our New Year’s resolutions and we’ve begun to falter,” says consultant psychologist Louize Carroll. “The weather is bad, our motivation is low, and the debt we might have accumulated [over Christmas] needs to be paid back.

“A month that follows a glitzy holiday where we feel released from daily duties is also naturally going to get a bad rap. It’s no wonder our perception of January is often that it’s long, dull and lacking in promise.”

The current economic and socio-political circumstances may also be amplifying our negativity, says career and wellbeing consultant Pauline Harley. “We’re living in a post-pandemic era of war and economic crises,” she says. “It’s no wonder some of us are sitting with bated breaths, languishing as we commence 2023 and bracing ourselves for what’s next.”

However, just because the January doldrums may be common and even warranted, this doesn’t mean we are doomed to spend the rest of the month despairing at our desks. There are strategies we can adopt to lift our mood.

Psychologist Louize Carroll says when we battle our feelings in a bid not to feelthem, we make them worse.

Have some self-compassion

Melissa Stone, executive coach and HR consultant, recommends starting with self-compassion. “Too often people are overly critical and unreasonably hard on themselves, which serves no purpose other than adding to an already anxious and demotivated mind,” she says.

“Compassion is much more useful and it makes us feel better to accept when we feel a little blue and to ask ourselves what one thing we could do to make ourselves feel more positive and then to go ahead and do that one thing.”

Carroll agrees that acceptance is critical. “It’s key when it comes to learning how to cope with any challenging situation,” she says. “Resistance to the reality we are currently in, if we can’t change it, is often the biggest source of our misery, as opposed to the situation itself. When we battle our feelings in a bid not to feel them, we make them worse.”

She suggests we make an action plan to make our daily lives more fulfilling. “Rather than seeing January as a month to get through, we could start looking at every day as an opportunity to get closer to whatever it is that will bring us a sense of fulfilment,” she says. “Better that than wishing our lives away until our next holiday.”

Ruminating on January as a month to be endured may even make things worse. “Motivational speaker Tony Robbins says that ‘energy flows where attention goes’,” says Stone. “It’s a simple concept that tells us that if we’re focussing our thoughts, attention and behaviour towards feeling positive, happy and productive, our energy will naturally direct us there. If we’re focussing our thoughts, attention and behaviour towards feeling negative, annoyed and disgruntled at work, our energy will take us there too. It’s all in our mindset.”

Stone recognises that changing our mindset is easier said than done and believes affirmations can help. “For example, when you next catch yourself mumbling something negative under your breath, try to correct yourself. Think of three things you can tell yourself that have meaning and repeat them any time you’re trying to correct negative thinking. Something like: ‘I enjoy my job. I get a sense of achievement from what I do. I am grateful for the supportive colleagues I work with.’”

Career consultant Pauline Harley says social media encourages comparison which is not good for mental health.

Power of affirmations

Some may dismiss affirmations as new-age nonsense, but they have a scientific basis. A 2015 study [exa.mn/self-affirmation] carried out MRI scans of the brains of people practising self-affirmation tasks and found increased activity in regions of the brain associated with self-awareness. That same study asked participants to make positive changes to sedentary behaviour and those who practised self-affirmation were to be more likely to succeed in doing so. Another 2014 study [exa.mn/affirmation-stress] showed that self-affirmation decreased stress levels.

“The power of affirmations is often underestimated but I see them as an exceptionally powerful tool,” says Stone. “Try using them for 30 days and see what changes.”

Carroll finds it helpful to focus on work tasks one at a time rather than becoming overwhelmed by an endless to-do list. “Dividing your work into separate tasks can help focus the mind on the sense of achievement that comes with completing each one,” she says. “It also prevents looking at the entire list of demands and feeling paralysed by the size of your workload.”

Stone advises her clients to avoid compiling to-do lists altogether. Instead, she tells them to prioritise their top three goals for the day. “I tell them to write those three goals down as research [exa.mn/harvard-goals] tells us that we are 42% more likely to achieve our goals if we put them in writing,” she says.

She also urges people to celebrate their wins, even ones as seemingly insignificant as cleaning their desks. “It really doesn’t matter what the win is or how micro it is — a win is a win,” she says. “It feels great to know something was achieved, whether sorting files that have been sitting around for months or finding a solution to a trivial but annoying issue at work. When we celebrate a win, we release chemicals in our brains that give us a feeling of intrinsic motivation.”

Harley recommends taking a root-and-branch approach. “Apply social media boundaries as social media encourages comparison, which is never good for our mental health,” she says.

“Allow yourself time to recover from the Christmas period as your social battery may be drained. Don’t feel obligated to attend work events that take place outside of work hours and say no to working on the weekends so that you get time to rest.”

Breaks are important too. “Eat lunch away from your desk,” says Harley. “Take microbreaks to move. And when you feel overloaded with work, make sure you ask for help. And, of course, try to eat mindfully, go to bed a bit earlier when possible, drink more fluids and repeat.

“If you prioritise even one of these things, you may find that things have become more manageable, and your sense of wellbeing may have improved by month’s end and you’ll head into spring feeling more positive about your work.”