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clockwork, most corporate organizations year in and out are always on the lookout for “A motivational speaker”. Someone that can come and breathe fire into their employees so that they can work.

At times, they take the employees out to a place where they can have fun outside of work. The budget for the “motivational speaker” is at times dismal, almost as if he/she was there just to fulfil all righteousness.

Need Motivation to Work?

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why we need to motivate adults so that they can work? I mean, with work being an inherent human need as we have established, why should we spend so much energy and time and resources to inspire people to work?

Granted, inspiration and motivation are a great thing. If anything, Zig Ziglar said that they don’t last, and that’s why it is recommended daily. However, if you are to be motivated daily to work, there is something fundamentally wrong with you, or with the work that you are doing!

Great will be the day when a large percentage of mankind does not need any kind of motivation so that they can work. When we are internally inspired to work because either we love what we are doing or we know that we are contributing to a great good, there is joy and fulfilment.

Organization Culture

However, every time your department takes you out and you know that they are doing this so that they can motivate you to work, you need to sit down and ask yourself some serious questions about your work.

It would seem like the organization is committed to your work, but you are not committed to the work that they gave you. Probably that is too general a statement to make, but the best form of motivation to work is self-motivation.

Why People Do Not Work

In the previous several articles, we have examined several personal and internal reasons why people do not work. I am not talking about “going to work”, I am talking about being at work and not working.

1. People do not work because of distractions
2. People do not work because of indiscipline.
3. People do not work because they procrastinate
4. People do not work because they are tied in the culture of “jobs”
5. People do not work because they are purposeless
6. People do not work because they are seeking for comfort

7. Laziness

Laziness, I have come to note, does not stand on its own. It pegs itself on several other factors, some of which have been discussed earlier. Laziness is not a seed, it is indeed a fruit of some other things.
Take for example distraction. If you are not working because you are distracted by say, banter, social media or flirting, laziness ends up being the fruit. The seed was the original distraction.

What I am suggesting, therefore, is that if you can take care of all the things that will make you not to work, especially the things that are firmly in your control, chances are that you will end up putting a firm lid on your laziness.

Laziness is Personal

Do not be fooled. Laziness is a personal thing. It is not something that you can blame your great grandparent on no matter how much you want to label it as a generational curse.

I have found out though that the cure for laziness is mental. One has to fight laziness promptly immediately it rears its head. Laziness sneaks up on you using several enticing and illusionary feelings, but you must at once nip that in the bud before it sprouts.

Do not be fooled. Laziness is a personal thing. It is not something that you can blame your great grandparent on no matter how much you want to label it as a generational curse. ~ Lawrence Namale #Work #Purpose #Laziness Share on X

It is possible to see many people at work, but very few people really working. I have realized that laziness does not discriminate those who have a purpose at work and those who don’t. When there is no immediate “penalty” for not working, laziness comes alongside and introduces herself as your best friend. We must learn to exorcise this enemy immediately the auto-suggestion goes on in your minds.

8. Natural and Man-Made causes

The very last way that people are kept from working has to do with things that are outside of human control. The relief though is that the natural causes are not necessarily permanent.

Granted, some of these can leave a very devastating effect for a long time. That too we must overcome and continue to work.  Our best efforts would be to recover from any setback that the world throws at us so that we can begin to work and prosper yet again.

In discussing the subject of work, it is interesting to note that it is central to the make-up of the human. Work identifies who we are. Work helps us to deploy our purpose. Work is a great source of fulfilment. Works cater for nearly all our psychological needs. There are many benefits that work accrues for us as already discussed.

However, that be as it may, we find ourselves over and over again not really working. For the most part, what causes us not to work is not necessarily what’s outside of our control. No. What causes us not to work is firmly within our grasp.

We must deal with these things firmly and get back to work!