When you feel engaged at work, you’re energized, focused, and motivated to do better. And that energy spreads – you’re a joy to be around! And not just for your co-workers, but also for your family and the coffee shop baristas. Everyone benefits from the ripple effect of engagement.

But feeling engaged is a moving target, and you’re not going to feel on top of your game 100% of the time. No one can. In fact, Gallup estimates that roughly 36% of employees in the U.S. feel engaged in their work and workplace. That tells us there is a lot of room for improvement. So when you need a lift, we’re here to help you feel more engaged with your work and your team members.

Read on for helpful ways to be more engaged at work.

Remind yourself why you’re there

Write down your own personal engaged purpose – why are you there, at your desk, right now? Make this into your own motivational quote for why you want to be at your job. Of course, nobody loves what they do every single second, and it’s easy to forget why you really, at your core, love what you do. Or, maybe you don’t love what you do, but you love the results of what you do, like being able to take care of your family.

Whatever your reason is, write it down and place it somewhere you’ll see it every day. Read our Engaged Purpose instructions here to gather inspiration for writing your own!

Observe, recognize and appreciate

Actively show appreciation for your co-workers who make your job easier and more delightful. Sometimes, the best way to feel better is to acknowledge what you’re grateful for, and you’ll be motivated to reciprocate and help them out in turn.

Try an Impact Filter for the mind

Employee engagement is really an attitude adjustment, so if you’re feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, take a moment and try this Impact Filter exercise:

  • Write down what went wrong,
  • what you can do to improve or fix the situation,
  • and what’s actually good about the situation.

This way, you can take a positive lesson out of anything that isn’t going well, and you will do better the next time. You can do the Impact Filter exercise for any area of your life, not just work!

Contact Engagement Multiplier to receive your own copy of our Impact Filter Template!

Set yourself up for a game you can win each day

One of Stefan Wissenbach’s frequent mantras is “set yourself up for a game you can win each day.” That means: Don’t over-schedule yourself. If you have 25 items on your To-Do list, and you can only realistically do 5 of them, then you need to shorten your To-Do list. If you don’t, you’ll subconsciously feel like you’re failing all the time, draining your motivation and energy, and stressing yourself out.

Explore our tried and true tools to help increase your productivity at work.

When it comes to time management, we talk a lot about “rocks and sand” around the office (check out this video for an explanation of what this is). What it comes down to is: You have only so many hours, and so much focused energy, in a day. So choose one, two, or three very important tasks you have to complete today, and do them.

If you have time leftover, you can add more tasks to your list. And with your spare minutes, you can do things like check email and respond to short questions. But, if you do this the other way around – answering emails and questions and doing the less important things first, you’ll likely find that you’ve worked the whole day without getting any of the really important things done.

Take care of your overall well-being

Employee engagement requires emotionally investing in what you do, and that requires a lot of energy. That energy comes from the rest of your life. So take time to do the things that energize you and fill you up, whether that’s making time to get to the gym, or spending weekends without looking at your smartphone. Employee engagement and employee well-being aren’t the same things, but they are connected. Learn the different between employee engagement vs. employee well-being here.

Engagement isn’t just something your company is responsible for – we’re each, individually, responsible for our own engagement at work as well. And the best part is, when we feel engaged, we really are doing our best work and becoming our best selves.