Anyhoo, I'd like to pick this up to chronicle my journeys and experiences living abroad in London. Yes, London! I've moved this past Monday March 6 (or 6 March) and have begun a fascinating new career (for 1 year) at a London office for my company. Of course I am concerned with talking about work in any form {in writing} {publicly}, so that will likely not be the topic of conversation often, but it seems necessary for context on upcoming material. For example, "why are you in London?" might be a question you'd otherwise ask.
I am so excited to be here.
My experiences so far (over the course of the past 3 days) have encouraged me to think a lot about motivation. Long ago I owned a copy of Gretchen Rubin's
* Good idea: not typing so loudly everyone around you wonders wtf you're doing. Esp when new at a new job... But sometimes the keyboard is such that......... sorry everybody.
...Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life. In a nutshell, the point is that motivation is a myth and we must turn our desired behaviors into habits so that there is significantly less questioning and decision making and therefore strain on the mind deciding whether or not to, for example, exercise. Or eat healthy, or .... anything. Streamlining processes within our own minds and therefore brainwashing ourselves to robotically (apparently not a word in the UK?) attend the gym so that we are not exhausted by our own internal combat over whether or not it is worth it. Brainwashing sounds bad, but conditioning yourself to do things you want to do ultimately can be helpful.
I'll try to be brief. She divides humans into four categories of habit makers/decision makers. Questioners, Obligers,
*typing on keyboard on laptop is quieter, try that for a good idea
...Questioners, Obligers, Rebels, and Upholders. The author herself is an upholder but finds this is one of the rare ones, as is Rebel. I'm going to skip those for time (look it up or read the book!) I've been meditating a bunch on the idea of the Obliger: a person who does a task because of external pressure. Naturally, they oblige others. They workout because of external pressure, I think wake up early because they would look bad if they didn't, that sort of thing. Very conscious of the opinions of others, and therefore driven by them. Questioners, on the other hand, hold things to internal standards. I am a questioner. Why are we doing this? What is the benefit? What will we miss by not doing it? May sound like a lazy person's thought pattern (yes) but it is also helpful for staying on task and keeping everyone aware of what the end game is.
The idea of doing things for your reasons versus doing things for other people's reasons stands out to me as I transition to life in the UK. There are many differences at work. A big one is that there is no badge-in tracker, nothing that emails your boss if you happen to swipe at 9:00:01. The work week is in fact longer, but people appear (on the whole) to work longer hours than that, and yet are very happy and productive. This is of course an overgeneralization - how could it not be. But it seems like, if you trust people and expect them to do good, they overperform (on the whole.) If you expect people to take advantage of you, and as such you implement systems that make them feel untrustworthy, they act accordingly. I'm still getting used to the idea and I'm sure there are nuances I haven't considered, but this appears to be the trend... and it is new to me. This is in no way intended to be negative about one system over another, but rather an observation in human behavior in response to different sets of stimuli.
This makes me think about doing things because you have to versus doing things because you want to. There is a South Park line that has resonated in my mind for the past decade - "whatever, whatever I do what I want." I have completely forgotten the context - at this point context is more or less irrelevant. I am not always as in-your-face about my desire to do what I want, but I am sometimes, and I can say with certainty that I always want to do whatever I want. Who doesn't? So I identify with this line a lot even though it is satirical/meant to make fun of the speaker.
But the results here appear to be that, if you let people do what they want (with regard to entry/leave time, and dress code, and probably other things), they have control and are therefore happier and feel trusted and therefore are harder workers. It would be difficult to scientifically prove the correlation in a numbers-driven way, but I have to imagine there is work on the subject with regard to work happiness.
There is no one-size-fits-all method with humans. We are all snowflakes, after all. These are just some thoughts that have been steeping in my brain for a few days as I make a transition.
*Of course, The opinions I express here are my own and not necessarily that of my employer. But you already knew that.
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