At some point in our career, we meet individuals – sometimes, even groups of people – who lost motivation towards their work. Though we understand the struggle of losing interest, we can’t help but feel frustrated. We find it hard to sympathize with coworkers who become unproductive due to how disengaged they are. We tend to forget what it felt like when we were there and we would often end up being unkind to them, wishing they would just suck it up and snap out of it.

Leaders are prone to falling into this mindset. But what most managers don’t know is that these kinds of approach are usually counterproductive. It’s a band aid solution that ignores the underlying reasons as to why people lose passion for what they do.

The reality is, in order for managements to find the root of the problem, they have to know that it’s crucial to understand the need of humans to feel motivated and to find meaning in the things that they do. It’s simply part of our biology. As a matter of fact, there’s a certain part of our brain commonly known as the seeking system. This specific section creates natural impulses to learn new things and to take challenging yet very meaningful tasks. And whenever this urge is satisfied, we receive a jolt of dopamine – the neurotransmitter responsible for motivation and pleasure – making us want more engagement to these kinds of activities. And, whenever our seeking systems are stimulated, we become more motivated and feel purposeful as well as zestful. We feel even more alive.

In an ideal circumstance, we should be able to freely explore, experiment, and learn – this should be our way of living and working. But the harsh reality is that a majority of us are members of organizations who each have their respective restrictions that prevents us from doing so.

When we’re left in a box with no room for growth and learning, we tend to shut down – a reaction we are engineered to have. It’s our body’s way of saying “we’re meant for better things”. Our brains are basically telling us that we’re wasting our potential.

Activating your employee’s seeking system is one of the biggest keys in bringing back their motivation. The question now is how should managers do it? Surely there are road blocks in the way – many of which are beyond control. Admittedly, it’s almost impossible to ignore these metrics and other bureaucratic red tapes but despite of this, there are ways in which we can stimulate the aforementioned structure without creating too much of a change in the organization.

With three small but significant steps to triggering employee’s seeking systems: encouraging them to play around their strengths, creating opportunities for experiments, and helping them personalize the purpose of their work.

Philosophers through the decades have emphasized the human mind’s innate drive to showcase their true selves to those around them. Yet despite of this notion, the working industry have ignored our desire for self-expression.

Regardless of the progress we’ve made in our way of working – the rise of remote workers, the growing population of coworking spaces and how the industry is now lauding creativity and innovations – there’s still administrative positions, inflexible roles and standard evaluation systems that creates anxiety instead of excitement.

Allowing talents to think for themselves and utilize their respective unique skills, their seeking systems are activated. They feel more alive when they feel that they have a larger role to play in the company.

Another way of activating the aforementioned system is creating “safe zones” wherein they can experiment, play, and have supportive social bonding.

Not only to these zones elicit positive emotions, it also creates intrinsic motivations that can unleash creativity. Organizations become more agile when they encourage employees to look for new approaches and allow them to test it out as well as letting them learn through feedback sharing.

Research have said that framing change and innovation as an opportunity for experimentation and learning instead of viewing it as a performance situation is actually better.

The sense of a greater purpose doesn’t just revolve around solving global problems like curing epidemics or changing the world. It can also start with seeing how our input contributes something greater. We find our jobs purposeful when we learn how we affect the team’s progress.

I am twenty-six days away from being officially, truly, a twenty-one year old.

It doesn’t sound weird to other people, but boy, does it seem bizarre to me.

See, six years ago, I firmly believed I would never make it to nineteen – much less, sixteen, if I’m frankly speaking – but here I am, a twenty-year old girl who once believed that the end of the line lingers near. Now I am sitting in front of  a computer – with a regular job.

Somehow, I’m still anticipating the moment when everything is full and it’s finally the time to cut it all out. Yet unlike my younger counter part, I can confidently say that I’m relatively smarter than her. With a braver heart, a clearer perspective and a deeper comprehension of what truly matters in life, I’d say that I’ve learned a couple of things when I got to this age.

Like, true friends don’t lie and not everything that they think important isn’t actually important.

And, time, really, is of the essence.

As cheesy as it may sound, it is true.

Over cups of coffee and late night sessions of breakdowns, I’ve come to realize just how important it is to have a deep understanding of one’s existence. Hate to be the one to break the bad news, but we humans are only here for an ample amount of time and the bitter reality we oh so love to ignore is that anytime – and I mean, anytime – everything around us could disappear.

In the grand scheme of things, our lives are simply drops of water in the ocean. And because of the relatively limited time we have, shouldn’t we squeeze the most joy out if it? Why are we wasting time over things that make us unhappy and overworked? Why can’t we simply choose what fulfills us and be truly happy?

This is the one thing that a majority of us fears – choosing our career.

Some of us choose to follow the degree we worked so hard on, while some chose to stay away. Where do I belong between the two? Right in the middle.

I didn’t exactly stuck by my degree but I didn’t veer too away from it. Did everyone agree to it? Of course not.

To them, the idea seemed preposterous. Higher education has the tendency to scare us away from doing something courageous. And we, too, get easily anxious with the idea of putting ourselves at the mercy of other people’s opinions – it gives them a power over us that isn’t easy to reclaim.

So instead of simply doing what makes them happy, majority of my folks simply settle.

Unlike most of them, I’ve already made up my mind before I even got up that stage to get my certificate – I cannot, and will not, let myself be glued to a job that I despise.

Yes, not everyone agreed with the decisions I’ve made and yes, I was terrified of handing my creative sanity to another person’s hand but I’ve made the conscious choice of not putting myself through years and years of possible misery.

It wasn’t easy – but then again, nothing is ever easy.

I stopped wasting time and gave myself a try. Because, truthfully, we can never ever tell what would happen next. Our fears and anxieties are most definitely there but sometimes, they’re just vague foresights of what the future might hold.

Whenever I talk to close friends – or anyone close to my age, to be honest – I always try and remind them that their future lies in their hands. That everyone has strong opinions but it doesn’t necessarily make them true.

So why not just do what truly makes you happy? If sticking with your Law degree and slowly making your way to that sweet position of a judge fills your heart with warmth, go do it. And if making content for Youtube makes you smile, do it.

What they say don’t matter; because for one, it’s your life and two, there’s plenty of opinions around but it’s not always right.

Our generation is pretty lucky. Lucky in a sense that, the mindset towards work is changing. Digital nomads are ruling the workforce and traditions such as nine-to-five jobs and ordinary offices are now replaced by flexible time and coworking spaces that inspire people to be themselves. A community lies within these shared offices whose sole purpose for existing is to become a support group to everyone who made the brave choice of doing what they love. We’re not alone anymore. You and I, have become part of something larger than ourselves.

The older generation have managed to give us the freedom that they never have. And though the stigma to these non-traditional trends still remains, everything seems possible – that is, of course, if you put your mind into it.

Go, give yourself a try.

Who knows what the future entails for you, little dreamer. And if it still scares you, talk to us today and we’ll give you a few words of encouragement.

Over the recent years, much emphasis have been given to the importance of keeping one’s employees happy. With several literatures on how it affects their work performance and tenure, it got organizations in a frenzy to turn their working environments upside down. Tech conglomerate Google has installed slides in its Zurich office while online retailer Zappos have encouraged some of its workers to dress up as their favorite animal on certain days. Fussball as well as pool tables and other gaming facilities can now be found in several contemporary offices – proof that organizations are going great lengths just to make their talents happier in order for them to work longer hours and be more productive.

The aforementioned ideology roots way back during the 1930s. Little do managements know that you can’t force everything to be rose-colored. The moment that you start coercing, it creates a crack in the system that could cause a greater gap in the long run.

From inspirational Instagram accounts to self-help books teaching us how to harness perpetual positivity, everyone – literally, everyone­ – is berating us to “look on the brighter side”. Though statements of the same nature are usually said in with good intent, there is a truth that is hard to accept for a majority of us; that not everyone wears their rose-colored glasses everywhere.

In fact, science says that in order for us to actually be happy, we need to take them off once in a while

Danish psychology professor Svend Brinkmann says that forcing ourselves – and other people – to be consistently cheerful creates more damage than good.

Of course, he takes into consideration that there are individuals who carry a brighter outlook in life than most. Yet at the same time, he acknowledges the dangers of forcing other people to be rose-colored.

When happiness becomes a constant necessity, it hinders us from the ability to cope during or after bad situations. Brinkmann adds we should be able to feel what we feel whenever unfortunate events happen. Fear, anxiety, sadness, and all the other similar negative feelings are the necessary evil that life comes with. We need to be open to dark times so that when they happen – and they will, as he says – it won’t strike us as intense as it would if we’re accustomed to nothing but pure positivity.

Brinkmann adds that when a company turns their employees’ happiness into commodities, they are exploiting them as humans who carry emotions. Hence, it’s not safe to simply settle on a one-size-fits-all solution.

If managements want to really increase the engagement of their talents and keep them upbeat, they shouldn’t just settle on bandaid solutions. It’s detrimental that companies view their workforce as complex human beings instead of oversimplifying their emotions. This means creating a proper dialogue with them in order to consider their individual needs.

When you enforce employees to “smile their worries away”, we are banning the negative emotions they need to truly deal with difficult circumstances. Therefore, creating a deeper emotional damage.

As mentioned earlier, organizations are encouraged to take a deeper look on what would make their employees happier. Each workforce would have a different view on what can cheer them up and some would simply be downbeat interventions. Overall, organizations shouldn’t force feed happiness. Instead, they should focus on looking for different ways of reaching the needs of each talent.

For one, allowing some employees to work from their respective homes can be a good start. And if your management is feeling a bit generous, maybe you can give certain teams access to coworking spaces for all the hard work they have been doing.

These shared offices gives members the chance to work in a much more lax environment and allows them to concentrate and work on projects on their own pace – a perk that satisfies a majority of workers.

The reality that not everyone can – or should – be always positive or happy is quite hard to accept for most people but a person’s happiness is more than just vodka shots or slides. Don’t reconstruct so easily, talk to us today and we’ll help you find a desk for your unhappy employee.

Pets have always been a thing.

Since time immemorial, these adorable creatures have accompanied us through majority of our lives. We take them with us to almost everywhere – restaurants, shops and even during our travels.

Remember that one woman from New York who tried to bring her pet peacock to Los Angeles with her? The aforementioned artist bought her service animal a seat to the flight yet in the end, it was denied entry – much to her dismay. The colorful bird is actually an emotional companion and he’s not the first one to go through that same airline. Last January 2016, a turkey boarded a Delta flight and later that year, a duck flew from Charlotte to New Carolina – both of which are service animals to their owners.

It’s a thing and though it stirs confusion to a majority of the audience, it’s an actual rising phenomenon. Pets can now be seen not just in airplanes, but even in offices.

Newark Liberty International Airport reports that there’s a 75 percent year-over-year increase of customers bringing emotional support pets or animals on flights. Its administration understands the need of passengers with disabilities, hence, they are doing all that they can to serve them whilst still taking into consideration the safety and well-being of their employees and other customers.

This growing number has a scientific explanation; over the recent years, experts have found evidence showing that animals don’t just bring health improvements to the table, they can also help improve their owner’s mental health – and this includes individuals with challenging disorders.

Though admittedly, the studies are significantly small, the reported benefits carry enough weight for clinical settings to open themselves up to animal-assisted interventions such as pet therapy alongside conventional treatments. Science have said that social support – a well-proven cure to anxiety and loneliness – can sometimes come on four legs. Animals can help alleviate stress, fear and anxiety in kids, elderly and basically, everyone in between.

Because of the growing awareness of the upside of having these cute creatures around, the number of households with pets – commonly, cats and dogs – are rising. Their owners? Majorly members of the millennial generation.

With full time jobs, these professionals are constantly on the look-out for pet-friendly offices. What made dogs and cats wandering around corporate floors possible? The movement of coworking spaces.

Not only did they open their doors to pets in order to attract the younger demographic of today’s workforce, providers moved by the positive impact the aforementioned animals creates — such as, improved productivity and higher job satisfaction. Moreover, they promote a warmer and friendlier culture – a kind of environment that everyone seems to be looking for.

These shared offices allows its members to bring their own pets with them to work. Its open plan layout gives plenty room for them to wander around and spreading smiles throughout the premise. Though there are hygiene and noise concerns with having them around, certain coworking spaces balances the interest of both pet and non-pet owners by allowing them in once a week or once a month.

As weird as the whole concept of pets around the office is, it’s one of the many living evidence that we can create a happy work environment that will benefit everyone within the facility. Talk to us today and we’ll help you warm up your company culture!