Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:05:39: Structure for motivation

00:07:03: Purpose…

00:07:50: … idea for action: forget purpose

00:10:46: … idea for action: inspiring quotes

00:13:22: Mastery…

00:13:28: … idea for action: write a social media post

00:18:57: … idea for action: five small changes

00:21:50: Autonomy…

00:24:26: … idea for action: a no-contact work window

00:27:02: … idea for action: media, mindset and movement

00:34:38: Using ChatGPT

00:39:00: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Every week, we talk about a topic to do with work and share some ideas and actions that we hope will help you to navigate this Squiggly Career that we're all having with a bit more confidence, clarity and control.

Helen Tupper: And as well as the conversation that we're going to have today, you can also get lots of additional support too.  So we create PodSheets, which are one-page summaries to help you to take action; we have PodMail to make it easy to access all of our resources, that comes out every Tuesday morning; and we also have PodPlus, which is a weekly free session where you can talk about the topics that we discuss in the podcast with a like-minded community of learners.  It is all free and it's all part of our mission to make careers better for everybody. 

So, all of those links will be in the show notes, or you can just go to our website, amazingif.com, and you'll be able to find it all there. So, today's topic is about micro moments of motivation, as in what small things can we do to feel a bit better about what we're working on and the way we're working and how we're getting our work done, in case it might be feeling a bit difficult right now. 

And I guess the idea for this podcast has come from where Sarah and I are both at right now, sort of midway through the year, and also from some feedback we've had from lots of learners that are on our courses about how they're feeling.  It's this sort of halfway into the year, so that thought of the energy of New Year's resolutions is long gone, and there's still quite a long time to go.  I think I talk to a lot of people now, and they're sort of anchoring themselves to a summer holiday.  I feel like it's like the summer holiday's in sight, and they just need a bit of a boost to get them to that point.  And that just feels like the reality of lots of conversations that I'm having with people right now.  So, we thought that maybe some micro moments of motivation might bring those things a little bit closer for you, help you get there a little bit more quickly and easily.  Sarah, how are you feeling midway through the year?  What's your motivation levels like?

Sarah Ellis: Well, not amazing, I think it's fair to say, though I do think some of these things are almost daily.  It can oscillate day to day depending on how your day's gone and what's happened.  But I guess if your energy reserves are lower, then it affects you quicker.  I think that's what I find, is that probably some things that might previously you'd be like, "Oh, yeah, that's fine, that's not ideal, but I'll move on to the next thing", have a higher impact on me and takes me a bit longer to recover.  So even yesterday, my day was going quite well, but I had a disastrous train journey which then meant I missed a meeting that I wanted to go to.  So, I was disappointed I didn't get to see somebody and I'd worked really hard to find the time to make that meeting happen.  My train journey was so disastrous, at one point the train just started going backwards. 

It was like, "We're just going to go back, we're going to go back", and I was like, "Right, can we not, can we not go backwards?" and it was boiling as well.  I was in a non-air-conditioned train and I think it was about 26°, 27°, so I was just sweaty and going in the wrong direction.  And you know when you're just like, "Oh, God, I could really do without this"?  And it was funny, because actually then when I finally got to the station I needed to go to having missed that meeting, I was then looking at this and thinking about ideas, and I definitely started from quite a low point of like, "I'm not even motivated to think about motivation".  And then by the time I'd gone through this and I've actually took some actions in a very short window of time, in sort of a 24-hour window, it did make me feel better, I felt like I'd made some progress. 

I'd sort of rebooted enough.  Like here, I don't think we are talking about massive re-energising moments.  I think we're talking about rebooting enough so that the next day can be a bit better. I also think it's important to say that we're not talking here about burnout in a more significant way, burnout where you feel like, I guess, where you get more to the point of apathy, or you feel like you just don't care and you're not connected or committed.  I do think that is a different thing.  I think we're talking here about when your day-to-day just feels a little bit harder than it normally would do; and also, like you described, I get a bit like -- because I like to look ahead, I have got a holiday coming and I'm like, "I just need to get to the holiday".  And I don't really like that feeling, because I still want to do the day-to-day really well, but it can feel really difficult when you're just like, "I've just got to last a week", which is basically a little bit how I'm feeling right now.  How about you?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I agree, it's not the burnout thing and it's not the do-this-for-ever thing, it's sort of a get you to a date, or for me it's less of a holiday, it's a deadline.  So, we've got some really important deadlines coming up and I feel like they're quite hard for us to hit for various reasons, and so I feel like I need some micro moments of motivation just to just to keep going to those deadlines. 

I feel like if I add these into my day, it will just make it a bit easier to get to that point in time.  And then once I've achieved that, I feel like I've almost hit a bit of reset and I won't need so many of these things.  But I think whether you've got a date, like a holiday, or a deadline, or maybe it's a conclusion of a project, sometimes we just need a bit of a boost that are kind of easy things to fit into our day.  That's where I'm at the moment.  I'm not really feeling low motivation, but I do feel a bit of pressure to achieve a few things, and therefore a bit of extra motivation is just going to make that feel a bit easier for me.

Sarah Ellis: Wouldn't go amiss.

Helen Tupper: Yeah exactly, exactly that.  Why wouldn't you do some of these things?  So, in order to give you some easy, tried and tested by Sarah and me, actions, we are going to take Dan Pink's structure for motivation as a bit of a guide for the episode.  And we will link to his TED talk and his book in our PodSheet if you've not seen his work on drive, but I've always found it really useful when I'm unpacking motivation.  It structures it around these three areas.  So, there's purpose, which is about working towards something that's kind of meaningful and feels like more than just you.  So, that could be the team or that could be what the organisation is trying to achieve, or something you're passionate about beyond just doing the do.  So, purpose is the first ingredient.

The second is mastery, and that's about feeling like you are continually improving the skills you want to be known for.  And the third ingredient is autonomy.  And that's about having a sense of control over the what, when, and how of your work.  And when you put those three ingredients together, purpose, mastery, and autonomy, what you get out is drive and motivation.  So, we thought we'd take each area, and Sarah will talk about a tip that helps her, and I will talk about a tip that helps me, because if you're a regular listener, you will know that we go about these things very differently.  But hopefully in that, so you'll get six tips in total, in that, there will be a micro moment of motivation that you can fit into your week, this week at work.

Sarah Ellis: So, starting off with purpose, and I think this is when you perhaps feel a bit disconnected from the why, the why behind your work.  Maybe you've lost sight a bit of the goals that you're aiming towards, and maybe you're feeling just a bit aimless; or, I suspect more likely, maybe you're just very busy being busy.  I don't talk to that many people who are like, "I don't feel any sense of direction".  

That might happen at some point, but most of us I think just have those weeks or those days where you're like, there's so much to deliver or so many tasks to tick off a to-do list, this idea of having purpose just feels almost way too lofty, like really actually very different to our reality day-to-day. So, my idea here is actually to forget purpose, because I do think sometimes there's too much pressure on purpose to feel purposeful, to feel like you're trying to do something with purpose.  I don't think every day can be really purposeful.  So, I like this idea, which comes from Dan Cable's work; he's been on our podcast before.  He's a professor at London Business School where he talks about connecting with problems rather than purpose.  So, he talks about this idea of, like, follow your blisters.  So, you know those things that actually, they are a bit painful because they do rub like a blister would do, but you can't help but keep doing it, keep going after it, almost going through the pain?  

He describes it, and I was like, "Oh, it's a bit gross", but he describes it like going through the pain of a blister to get to the tough skin, and I was like, "Oh, vivid!"  It's a bit gross, but I get what he's talking about. I think actually that sometimes really helps me, because you know, we have a very clear mission, we have very clear goals in our company, but I think sometimes the thing that keeps me going is almost the nagging, niggly problems that we've not solved yet, and it annoys me that we've not. 

I sometimes think I really want to let go of those things, and I wish my personality was different, but it's not.  I care about solving that problem.  And sometimes it could be much smaller things, like the way something looks or a process or how we approach something.  And he describes it actually as almost something that you can't let go of.  So, even if you think, "I'd rather be doing something more fun", you still keep going back to, "Oh, but that problem is chipping away in my mind".  And I actually find having clarity on problems to solve is sometimes easier than purpose. 

That, I think, often feels more zoomed out and a bigger question. But even if you just asked yourself, "What's one problem I could solve today?" and that could be a really, really small problem, that could be, "Reordering my priorities", that's a problem to solve today.  Or one problem I want to solve is, I am going to pick up the phone to somebody because I need to have a conversation about something, to solve that problem.  So, it's not again like big, big problems.  It's just, "A problem I'm going to solve today is…", and then just try and solve that problem.  And I think it helps you to feel like you're making progress.  Well, it helps me.

Helen Tupper: I like the point you said about the kind of zooming out thing as well, because I also think the idea of waking up and going, "How can I live my purpose today?" feels like, I mean I'm full of admiration for people who do that, but normally I'm like, "What have I got to do today?" is normally my first thought.  But I think purpose and the idea of zooming out is what connects for me.  And so, doing something that makes you zoom out of that default, "What do I need to do today?" is the kind of things that work for me as these sort of micro moments of motivation. Now my tip here might not be for everybody, but this is what works for me.  So, I really like, Sarah will probably shake her head in a moment, I really like an inspiring quote and I know that might seem a bit trite.

Sarah Ellis: I already read this and ignored it!

Helen Tupper: So, for me though, when I'm zoomed in, it becomes very about my lists and my inbox and my tasks.  And when I zoom out and I read someone's quotes, it helps me think differently and think a bit bigger and it gets me away from just the -- I always talk about this difference between the human doing versus a human being.  There are certain quotes that I read that I think, "Actually, that is how I want to work and that is what I want my work to look like, and that's what is meaningful to me". 

And I often find that some certain quotes can connect me to that feeling, that sense of what I want my work to be like, what's something that's bigger than just what I'm trying to do today. So, as an example, one that I recently read from Stephen Hawking that just stuck with me, it's a longish one, it's not a super-snappy one, but I liked it, "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.  Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.  Be curious and however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.  It matters that you don't give up".  And I read that and go, "Oh, that is not about my inbox, it's about being curious and not giving up and always trying to do better and make sense of what I'm seeing. 

And I attached myself to that.  And it's quick.  To the point of micro moments of motivation, it's quick. What I have done actually in prepping for this podcast, it reminded me, I used to have this little red notebook, really cute little Smythson notebook, I like a nice notebook.  And I would write whenever I would collect these quotes in it.  It's half full and I stopped doing it for some reason.  I think I changed my bag and left it and then got out of the habit of it.  But I flicked through that book, and all of these quotes that I like I'd curated them in there, and that is a super-shortcut, because sometimes you have to find the quote in order to be inspired by it, it takes a bit longer, but if you collect and curate them, then you've got a really quick go-to for quotes.  And this is not trying to sell our book, but we did collect lots of really good quotes.  In both our first book, The Squiggly Career, and our second book, You Coach You, there are some really, I think, good quotes. 

I think, Sarah, you collected loads of those, and they always resonate with me.  So, that's a bit of a -- I guess we've done a bit of a curation for you but I think the best is when you kind of collect and curate it yourself.  But yeah, that's what works for me for my purpose moment of motivation. So, the second area then is mastery.  So, this is about continually improving the skills that you want to be known for.  And my idea for action on here also won't suit Sarah, it's about writing a social media post. 

But the reason this works for me is, and the reason it helps with my mastery is, if I'm going to write a post, it doesn't have to be a LinkedIn post, it could be an email that you send to your team or something you put on your intranet, but it's the idea that you are going to take something out of your head, like an idea or an insight that you've got, and you are going to communicate it in a way that is useful to other people.  And so I have to kind of sit there and think, what do I want to say; how am I going to say it; and what do I want people to think, feel, and do because of it?  And that mental process I feel really helps me with my mastery. So for example, yesterday I wrote a post on them LinkedIn about basically being a bit vulnerable and asking, it was all about an event that I was at last week and the fact that I had to ask lots of people if I could come to their panels and things, and be a bit vulnerable in order to create opportunities for me.  And so I had to think about, "What's the message that I want to communicate; how can I make it useful; what do I want people to think, feel, and do as a result of it?"  And just that process of sitting down and collecting my thoughts helps me to be clearer in myself and then create something that is useful to other people. 

And I honestly think that being clearer in yourself and creating something that is useful to other people, to me that's mastery.  And whatever your thing is, it could be about a data tool that you've got, it could be about some productivity thing that you've worked out how to do on a software thing at work, or for me, it's generally about career development and creating opportunities.  Whatever your thing is, honestly, the act of writing it down so that it can be shared and useful to other people, I find that really helpful, like doubly helpful, helpful for me and helpful for other people too.

Sarah Ellis: It's interesting, because when I was thinking about this, to be able to do this well, I do think you have to know, what do you want to be a master in?  And listening to you then, actually, I wasn't sure whether you were thinking, "Oh, it's mastery in writing", which actually listening to you, I go, "It's not that".  I was like, "Oh, is that because one of the skills that you've got is writing?"  So I was like, that's how you get better at writing.  It sounded to me like the skill that you want to be a master of is going, "Well, how do I take observations, my experiences, and share them in a way that is useful for other people, probably useful for other people's career?"  Is that the -- what's the skill, do you think, that you're going, "I'm an eight and I'm trying to get to a nine"?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, so I think it's less about -- my experience is sort of secondary.  So ultimately, the thing that I want to be a master of is helping people with their development.  I want to inspire people and enable people to take control of their career development; that's the thing.  For me, the act of sitting here and thinking like, "What is a story I can tell; what is an insight I've got; what's an article that I have read?" that can help someone achieve that outcome, and almost taking that and having…  The point of writing is, I have to go through the process of going, "What is it in this story; how can I connect that story to something that's going to help someone take action with their career development?"  But a LinkedIn post, because it has to be short, you know the whole point around, it's sometimes harder to write succinctly. 

Because it's a social media post, you have to think really carefully about, what's the story; what's the message; what's the action for someone to take away? For me, the writing's just a way to hone my insight to help other people.  I don't aim to be the world's best writer on LinkedIn, I want to be brilliant at career development, so it helps people be better in their work; that's the thing.  But I do find that process of succinctly getting your ideas together and then sharing it with other people in that way, and also you can see what's useful very quickly and what's not.  So, I also think with mastery, it's quite good to get some feedback because you might think you're great, but no one likes it then.  So, it does actually give you a bit of a feedback loop as well, which I find quite useful.  And I've been doing that for a while and I've definitely got better at sharing short career insights and ideas with people as a result of using that, kind of writing it down and sharing it.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so I think if you're listening to this, I think the starting point for mastery does have to be, "Well, what do you want to be a master in?"  And I think listening to Helen there, that's quite a big ambition.  That's kind of mastering something that sounds quite an ambitious goal, and I went much smaller.  So, when I was thinking about it, I was like, "Okay, so what do I do frequently?  Where does it matter that I'm sort of really, really good?" in terms of actually more of, I think, more of a specialist skill perhaps than actually listening to Helen describe.  Helen's skill there is quite a transferable talent.  Yes, Helen's using that talent for the world of career development, but I could imagine Helen using that talent in lots of different contexts.  Whereas I sort of went, "Okay, one of the things that we both spend a lot of time doing is career development workshops in companies, and I want to be absolutely brilliant at those.  When people are giving up their time to come and learn with us, I want it to be the most useful learning experience that they have about their career". So I was thinking, right, I know that we're already pretty good at that, because we already get a lot of feedback, to Helen's point.  So, I feel confident that we're already having a good impact. 

And so, I tried to think about five small changes that if I made them, it sort of adds up to more than the sum of the parts, like really small things.  So, what are small things I could do to make those workshops even better, to become even more of a master of delivering those workshops in a way that's useful?  And actually, I found that five small changes a really good forcing function.  So, I came up with a different kind of graphic that I wanted to add into the workshops; changing slightly something that we do in terms of when we ask for feedback, giving people something for free to say thank you for giving us that feedback, that we don't do today; I have started to, and it's working well, but consistently incorporate a bit of AI into workshops because it's quite fun and it's quite interesting; making sure that there's a "when" question in every workshop. 

I like when questions because they encourage everyone to be really specific, like when do you want to be more confident; or when do you want your strengths to show up more often?  It's very situational.  So, I think "when" questions are always useful. I just got into this list and it took me a bit.  I got to two or three very quickly, and then actually I came up with more as the day went on.  I started to really enjoy it, because it really appeals to my -- this starts to get into, I like continually improving and I like getting better, but this is on a very specific sort of skill.  What was interesting is from thinking about this, and it would have been in an afternoon, one of them we had sort of made happen, with a bit of help from our team, I think it's worth saying, within a couple of hours.  The feedback idea that I'd had, which was basically once someone gives us some fast feedback, let's send them a link to something free so they can get even more useful career development, I was like, should we just do this; should we just experiment with this?  We sorted it and it's going live today.  And I was like, you know to that point about if the purpose of doing this is to get more motivation?  I feel more motivated about the workshops I'm now doing today because I've made some positive changes to them in 24 hours, which I haven't run past you by the way, but just nod along.

Helen Tupper: It's fine, that's fine!  We're about to go on to autonomy, Sarah, so I think if I was like, "It's not fine", I'd be ruining your motivation during the podcast.  It makes me think about, you know that thing that we can never do the maths on, the 1% better thing that makes you whatever it is, I don't know, "If you're 1% better every day, you'll be 38%..."

Sarah Ellis: It adds up to more than -- yes!

Helen Tupper: I don't want to end up when Sarah and I can never work out the maths on it.  But I think you know when you think about mastery, you might be thinking, "I need to be this ultimate expert in the thing that I do".  I mean, that's a lot of pressure and that's going to take a lot of time.  But actually, five small changes, to Sarah's point, you think about them and you can probably take at least one of them, you could probably do really, really quickly.  And I think those five small changes are what ultimately adds up to mastery over the long term, if that's how you're approaching it.

Sarah Ellis: And so the last area is autonomy, feeling control over the what, when and how of work.  And I was reading a really interesting article actually in Harvard Business Review on this yesterday, and they were saying that there's been lots of chat about flexibility over the past couple of years, and people say everybody really wants flexibility. 

And their argument was actually, it's the wrong word.  What people really want is autonomy, as in that's the thing that really motivates people.  And flexibility is part of how you achieve that autonomy, but people feeling like they have control over how they get their job done, maybe when they do their job, it's sort of autonomy that we all strive for, because I think it's that human need to feel in control.  If you don't feel in control, if you feel like someone else is in control of your time or your work, then you just start to feel like you're going back to command and control, that sort of system of working.  And I think we all recognise we rarely do our best work in that way.

But equally, when I was reflecting on this one yesterday, I was like, "This is a tough one", I think sometimes, when you are in -- most people have managers who might take away some autonomy, just because they're like, "Well, this now needs to be done".  Most of us have lots of meetings or demands on our day.  I think it's very rare that you just go, "Oh, I just have complete autonomy over how I spend my days and my weeks".  Maybe we have more than we perhaps give ourselves credit for, so I'm sure there are definitely some people who would argue, "Well, if you really started from scratch, you perhaps do".  But if we're thinking here about small moments of autonomy, I feel like this is probably how you feel about autonomy, I was like, "How do I claw back?"  And I was like, "Hmm, claw back".  But that is what's going through my head.  How do you claw back a bit of autonomy when you perhaps feel like it's low?  So, Helen, what would you do?

Helen Tupper: Well, do you know what, this is the area where I feel like I have got the most failed ideas in, because I feel, to your point, I want autonomy.  I feel in my head, I'm like, "I'd work so much better if I had autonomy", and I've put loads of things in place that just haven't really worked because I think they haven't reflected the reality of the work. 

So for example, something that used to work well for me was having like, I would divide my week up into, "I'll do this on a Monday and this on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and this on a Friday", and I loved that, but it didn't really last, because the reality of work made that not possible.  And there've been other work systems that I've put in place about how I manage my to-do lists, and all that kind of stuff.  And that felt good for a week, until everybody else had a list for me and that was ridiculous. But the one thing that I have done that consistently gives me a feeling of autonomy, and I think it ticks the micro-moment thing, is a no-contact work window.  This is a really quick thing for me to do and I used to do it in Microsoft.  I'd do it first thing in the day in Microsoft and it gave me a sense of control before the day went mad, and I do it in Amazing If now.  It is literally putting a block of time in your diary, and it doesn't even have to be a lot, it could be like an hour or 90 minutes to be honest, and it is a no-contact work window.  And I message this to people.  I'll message it to Sarah. I was realising, Sarah, because what I normally call it is I normally say, "I'm going dark for 90 minutes", and then I was researching, I was like, "Where does that phrase come from?" 

It's one of those military statements.  You know we're always trying to get rid of military language?  Anyway, I just remember Sarah and I had this conversation ages ago about military language and how it creeps into our conversations and we don't even realise it's there.  "Going dark" is one of those phrases, so I'm not going to say that anymore.  I'm going to say, "It's a no-contact work window".  It probably needs a better, snappier title.  But basically I just say, I'm not going to be available during this time. 

And it's not such a long period of time that it's inconvenient for people.  So, I'm not going, "I'm not going to be available all Friday", it's just like 90 minutes. But in that time, I get to do what I want to do in the way that I want to do it.  So, maybe there's a prototype thing I want to create on a career tool, or maybe there's a bit of reading, oh doesn't that sound lovely, a bit of reading to do and research and highlighting and sticking my Post-it Notes in a book.  But that just gives me, I can almost cope with the lack of control I might have over my time in the rest of the week, as long as I have that sort of micro moment of a no-contact work window.  That just gives me a bit of, I have got choice, I have got autonomy over this particular moment, and that just carries through for quite a long time for me.  So, that is something realistically I've done for many, many years, and it gives me that sense of autonomy.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I find this one tricky because I think in the main, I take a lot of accountability over making sure I have high levels of autonomy, and then it goes wrong.  And that has happened in the past, I don't know, couple of weeks a little bit.  At that point, I find it hard, because I think I'm very different to you in this respect where I'm like, "This is not my default".  I'm very used to feeling like I have high levels of control. 

So, when that goes away, I was saying to you, I get frustrated and I get a bit blamey.  I get blamey of myself and get blamey of other people.  I'm a bit like, "How has this happened?"  And in lots of ways, it's really unhelpful because it doesn't really move you forward and it certainly doesn't increase your autonomy. So, I was really challenging myself on this yesterday thinking, in a moment where I don't feel like I have much autonomy and I don't enjoy that, it really does impact my motivation, what can I do that's much, much smaller?  Because I go to sort of the opposite to you.  I go to like systemic changes.  I'm like, "Right!"

Helen Tupper: You do!  You either go, "Let's stop everything or let's fundamentally change"!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I do.  I have these like real moments of like, "Okay, well…", and funny enough, I feel really comfortable doing that, which I do think is a good skill.  I'm like, "What can we take away?  What can we cut?  What can we subtract?" like, useful questions, but it's sometimes prompted by the wrong point.

Helen Tupper: Yes!

Sarah Ellis: So, I just sort of go, "Well, let's just do a lot less, like completely rethink.  That's what we need to do".

Helen Tupper: I've honestly learned to ride that response, because my default reaction is really defensive.

Sarah Ellis: I know!

Helen Tupper: When you do that I'm like, "That's the worst thing to do!"

Sarah Ellis: I did it yesterday, and I was thinking, "I bet this is really winding Helen up".

Helen Tupper: Yeah!

Sarah Ellis: I was like, "Well, let's just do loads less, because that just completely solves this problem".  And I was thinking, "I know that Helen can't reply to this right now because I know she's doing something", and I was like, "I bet you have to read this, take a deep breath, and then decide".

Helen Tupper: I just ride the response.

Sarah Ellis: I still actually think that was quite a good idea.

Helen Tupper: Oh, just let it go!

Sarah Ellis: You've convinced me, maybe, I don't know.  You actually haven't even talked to me about it, so I assume you're just going to ignore it!

Helen Tupper: I'm riding the response.

Sarah Ellis: "Riding the response".  Yeah, so I find this one really tough, yeah, because I think not my natural place.  I find it really hard, and then I think I go to really dramatic solutions, which are often not, you know, maybe sometimes they're good ideas, but sometimes not good ideas.  So, I got to three things, and I was like, "Oh, okay, I have done all of these three things in the last 24 hours, and it has been useful, and they are much smaller". So, I've gone for media, mindset and movement. 

So, social media, I have deleted Instagram and LinkedIn from my phone, I've just removed them from my home screen, so you can put them back or whatever.  And I do use LinkedIn for work, but I've got that on my laptop.  So I was like, "Why have I got that on my phone?  Don't need it".  Think I need a break from Instagram. 

I think Instagram is sometimes my default when, you know like I need a break, but I was like, I'm not convinced that is giving me a break, and it doesn't fuel my curiosity, it basically costs me money because I see things and I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to buy that thing!"  I don't think that's a good thing, so I was like, "Right, okay", so I did that yesterday.  

And it's funny, isn't it, you're so used to going to that part on your phone, and actually yesterday it did give me a break, and I was like, okay, I felt like I just got a bit more control over my time because I wasn't doing that thing.  So, I did that, feel fine about it. The mindset, I was at an event last night listening to a guy called Sal Khan, who is the founder of Khan Academy, which if you're listening in the UK, Khan Academy isn't as big in the UK, but it's massive in the US and actually all around the world.  For whatever reason, it's just not been as big in the UK.  But it's a not-for-profit where it's a lot of online tutoring.  Started in more like maths areas, but now it's gone into like loads of other areas.  And it's massive, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of people use it.  And on the back of his book, his first testimony was from Bill Gates, just to put it into context.  And I was going to that event and feeling a bit grumpy.  I was post-my bad train journey, I was questioning, is it even the right thing to do to go to this event, because I'd got lots of other kind of competing things I needed to get done, and I was thinking, "I'm not feeling great".  

But I was like, "I do have a choice and I've got autonomy over my mindset".  And I was like, "I am going to  go to this event and I'm going to go with a real learn-it-all mindset and really think about listening, and in a way where I could share what I learned with other people".  And I was like, "I've got loads of autonomy over how I turn up to this event".  And almost like, "If I'm not going to turn up to this event with that mindset, I might as well not bother".  And I was like, "I've got autonomy over that". So, I did that, and then actually it was really inspiring, I was really glad I went.  And he had a good bit of advice actually.  Someone asked him for career advice, and his career advice in terms of finding stuff that inspires you, he said, "Make space every day to explore", but small.  He was talking about small pockets of space to explore, like be curious.  And he was a big fan of the importance of curiosity.  So I was like, "Oh, okay", so that was like, actually, I could connect the dots with something I was grappling with, with something he said.  So, I was like, "Got a choice about that", and I felt good having been.

Then the movement one was again, I get a bit frustrated.  When my autonomy goes away, I can't do some of the exercise I want to do.  So, like this week, I can't do any of the exercise I'd normally do, and again I get all annoyed about that for all sorts of reasons.  But then I was like, "Okay, but what can I do?"  I can walk every day.  And so, I actually walked to this event yesterday because I was like, "I can walk".  I've got an event tonight, actually going to see Helen in action, going to see Helen speak.  I've looked, I can walk to that, so I was like, "Right, I'll walk to that later".  And so, yes, I can't do what I would normally do, but some walking is good, it's good for me, it's a bit of outside space, a bit of outside time.  And I feel like again, that's a bit of autonomy I have over my day.  I can choose to get to somewhere by walking, usually by just leaving a little bit more time, or sometimes you don't even have to leave more time.  Or, recording this podcast, we're recording it relatively early in the morning, which that tells you everything you need to know about our weeks, given I am not a morning person, which you may or may not be able to hear in my tone this morning. 

But I did say to Helen, "Could we start 15 minutes later?" because that 15 minutes is basically the difference between me being able to go for a walk and probably not.  And Helen was like, "Yeah, that's fine". Between us, we were like, you know you do have these small pockets of autonomy that you can create, and I did feel better.  Media, mindset, movement, I was like, in a week where I feel like my autonomy has gone out the window, and that is having quite a big ripple effect on me in all sorts of ways, I've gained back a little bit of autonomy in those areas and do feel a bit better because of it.  Is it ideal?  No.  But I think it helps me a little bit with the acceptance, rather than the dramatic, "Oh, let's change everything!" which I don't know why I do that, but I think… I don't know.  It's just, it definitely is where I go with this one.  It must matter so much to me, I guess, maybe.

Helen Tupper: I think it's all just a desire for control, isn't it?

Sarah Ellis: Probably!

Helen Tupper: I think it all comes from that.  And I see it, and I get it.  So hopefully, in listening to us, you have heard at least one idea that you could maybe adopt or maybe adapt so that you can get a micro moment of motivation.  But I actually think the bigger thing is to think about purpose, mastery, and autonomy for you, and maybe think about, "Well, what's my micro moment?  What's the thing that would really help me there?"  And it might be something we said or it might be something different, but I think almost having these ideas in your back pocket so that you can go, "Do you know what?  Today, I'm going to do one of those high-autonomy actions", or, "Today, I am going to write something down that I read this week and I'm going to share it with a colleague, because it's going to help me think it through and feel useful and like I know what I'm doing, and give me that feeling of mastery a little bit".  Those small things are so useful because when you're leaning into that day that just looks a bit difficult, just doing one of these small things makes it a bit easier and having easy actions to increase our motivation I think is a useful outcome for everyone.

Sarah Ellis: And I have started to put our podcast topics and questions into ChatGPT each week.

Helen Tupper: Ooh, that's exciting!

Sarah Ellis: After I've come up with the ideas, because otherwise I'm not sure yet if I could do it the other way around.  I feel like I want to continue to think for myself first and then put it into ChatGPT.

Helen Tupper: What did it tell you?

Sarah Ellis: Well, my question, because I do think the prompts are important.  Well, that's what I'm learning, the prompts are important with AI.  I'm not sure I've got my prompts right yet, but the prompt I used was, "What ideas could I try out if I need a boost of motivation at work?" because I was trying to use that boost to be a temporary thing.  Now firstly, I mean it's not necessarily always quantity over quality.  It does give you a lot of ideas.  It was like 16 points with mini bullet points under the 16 points.  So, if you were stuck, I do think ChatGPT could get you started.  So, I wasn't stuck because I'd already done the ideas. 

But I was like, if I was, there's volume here to pick and choose from.  And then you can apply your brain the opposite way to the way that I approached it. But I just picked out one which was, they talk about -- they?  I don't know, how do you describe a ChatGPT?  They?  It?  Yeah, talked about reward systems, which actually we've not talked about today.  So, it talked about having a reward system for completing tasks.  So, perhaps with any of those purpose, mastery, or autonomy, you always do feel motivated if you're like, "I did this thing and then I sort of get a thing".  We all like the carrot, right?  And they gave some examples. 

They were like, "It could be about, 'Oh, I'm going to spend some time with a friend or a hobby or have a treat or whatever'".  So, I was like, "Okay, rewards, good thing". The other thing it talked about as part of a reward system was, we boost our motivation when we have variety in tasks.  So, I guess again, monotony, you might get to the point where you're losing motivation because I'm doing a lot of the same thing.  So, it was talking about mix it up, essentially, between maybe something that's a bit more challenging or something that's a bit easier or something that's different, just to make sure, if you're doing a lot of the same thing.  And again, I can see how that would boost your motivation. 

And I probably wouldn't have thought of that last one, you and I wouldn't have thought of that last one, because we have naturally a lot of variety.  So, we probably already get the motivation boost that comes from variety.  But if you don't, I was like, "Oh, that could be interesting". Then, I actually think you and I are both quite good at rewarding ourselves.  We both know what -- our treats are very different; yours and my treats are very different.  But I think we have both got used to being like, "Oh, we need a little treat in our day".

Helen Tupper: That's so true!  I bought myself a chocolate truffle on the way home yesterday from the train station and I was like, "It's been really hard, but I've got my chocolate truffle, it's all going to  be fine!"

Sarah Ellis: I mean, talk about chocolate, I have bought some chocolate raisins for this evening.  I do like a chocolate raisin; they're really bad for you though!  It's very hot in London at the moment, so those chocolate raisins are in the fridge and I suspect I'll get to them about 10.00pm, which may or may not be the right time to eat chocolate.  But I was like, "Oh, but that is a little treat at the end of my day". 

And I also do look at my day and think, "Oh, it's not like a treat, but I definitely do think my reward is a break", a 15-minute break where I'll go and get -- and today, it's going to be an iced coffee cause it's very hot; an iced coffee, I'll walk around the block.  I mean, it's not like treat, treat, but those. I found this recently where some people have emailed us career questions, which I would definitely encourage you to do, and ideas, and we love hearing from people. 

I often respond with my ideas first, and then I actually copy and paste the ChatGPT response just to go, "But there might also be something here that might spark something for you".  And I think one of the things, one of the ambitions that we've got over the rest of this year is to keep experimenting with and keep using AI as part of the career development that we bring to everybody.  So, if you're using AI in an interesting way for your career development, let us know how it's helping you and we'll keep letting you know so that we can all learn together, because I think that's the point that probably most of us are at with AI, is the point of playing.  Let's play with it and let's experiment with it, and obviously the frame that we are particularly interested in is, how can it make your Squiggly Career even better? So, that was my small attempt this week, and that was probably a little bit of me, you know the mastery around careers, I was like, "Oh, okay, that's me trying to get a bit better at something where I still consider myself a beginner.

Helen Tupper: So, we will put all of our ideas for action into the PodSheet, so you've got those there.  And as I said at the start, you can get that from the notes, the show notes on wherever you're getting the podcast from, or just find it on our website at amazingif.com.  But if you've got any questions, or as Sarah mentioned, if you've got any feedback on AI and how you're using it in terms of your development, you can get in touch with us.  We're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye, everyone.