Tag: motivation

The Silence After Good Work

Good work often receives silence, while mistakes receive attention. A look at why appreciation at work is often forgotten.

Employee Appreciation Day • March 6

Many employees actually feel underappreciated.

Not always because bosses are bad or companies are cruel. Most of the time it is simply how work culture works. A job comes with expectations. If you do your work well, people assume that is just normal. No reaction. No spotlight.

But the moment something goes wrong, everyone notices.

Typical pattern in many workplaces:

• When you do your job right, silence 
• When there is a mistake, meeting 
• When there is a delay, follow-up 
• When something succeeds, sometimes the credit spreads out, sometimes it disappears

So a lot of employees slowly feel like their effort is invisible.

Another reason is familiarity. When someone consistently does good work, people get used to it. Their reliability becomes part of the background. Like music playing in a café. It sounds good, but after a while nobody notices it anymore.

There is also human nature at play. The human brain is wired to detect problems first. It focuses on what is wrong before it celebrates what is right. That instinct helped humans survive long ago, but in offices it often means appreciation gets forgotten.

That is partly why Employee Appreciation Day exists, observed each year on the first Friday of March. Not because appreciation never happens, but because people sometimes need a reminder to say thank you.

And the funny thing is, most employees are not looking for grand ceremonies.

Often something simple is enough:

• “Thanks for handling that.” 
• “I noticed the effort you put in.” 
• “Good work today.”

Those words take only a few seconds to say.

But to someone who has been carrying the weight of the week, they can feel like opening a window in a stuffy room.

⌨ ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ

Unbroken Pisces of a Tangled Mind • Darem Placer

Lazy, Unmotivated, or Anhedonic? Part 2

Not all “laziness” is the same. This Part 2 looks at what actually helps—and how to fix the right problem.

Let’s Try to Fix Them

For those who’d rather listen.

If you feel stuck and don’t know why, the first step is naming what’s really happening. These three often look the same on the outside, but they don’t come from the same place.

Laziness is about comfort winning over effort. You have the energy. You know what to do. You just keep delaying because starting feels inconvenient.

Example: you’re not tired, not overwhelmed, just choosing “later” again and again.

The fix is to remove choice. Decide the task in advance, set a fixed time, make it small, and start even if you don’t feel like it.

People who are consistently hardworking are often aware that laziness is a vice. Even if they don’t call it “sloth,” they recognize comfort as something to watch out for. They don’t avoid effort because they feel energetic all the time. They avoid laziness because they know giving in to it too easily weakens them. That awareness alone already changes behavior.

Lack of motivation is about losing meaning. You want to do something, but everything feels pointless or endless. Effort feels disconnected from results.

Example: you sit down to work, stare at the task, and think, “What’s the point?”

The fix is to reconnect effort to something real. Pick one clear reason, one small outcome you can finish today, then stop.

Sometimes encouragement comes after the effort, not before. When you do your best at a task, people notice. Appreciation often shows up quietly—trust, respect, being relied on. That kind of recognition is more motivating than praise given too early. You don’t work for approval, but doing your work well often creates it, and that eventually fuels motivation.

Anhedonia is different. It’s when feeling itself goes quiet. Even things you used to enjoy don’t land anymore. This isn’t a choice or a mindset issue.

Example: you do the things you normally like, but nothing sparks.

The focus is recovery, not force. Lower stress, keep routines gentle, and try familiar things in different ways. Sometimes feeling returns not by repeating the old pattern, but by approaching it differently.

Same behavior. Different causes.

That’s why one solution never fits all.

When you stop calling everything “laziness,” you stop fighting the wrong problem.

And once you’re fighting the right one, starting doesn’t feel so heavy anymore.

If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, it explains the difference between the three. You can read it here.

Behind the Anhedonic Walls • Darem Placer

⌨ ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ