When employees are engaged they get a personal sense of fulfillment from achieving objectives and / or doing their work well. It can be anything from “winning”, to being seen as valuable, to feeling pride in mastering a project or pulling a team together to accomplish something exciting. External incentives and consequences such as: winning trips, getting monetary bonuses, or getting scolded for not achieving an objective, all influence behavior to a degree, but when the desire comes from within, there is an unlimited supply of energy driving success.
Whenever we make changes, either personally or professionally, we are going to run into tasks that are uncomfortable. They may seem simple on the surface, but because they are new, they take more time and energy. The good news is that once you get yourself moving and actually do the tasks a few times, they slowly get easier, more comfortable, less fraught with conflict, and they start taking less time and less energy.
Before you even open your mouth, they already have an idea of who you are, what you think of them, what your agenda is, and what you want from them. Whatever words come out of your mouth will be automatically “fit” into their existing paradigm.
You have a dream or a fantasy that you flirt with from time to time in your head. You wonder whether you should try to make it happen. You wonder if you have what it takes. Then you forget about it. For a long period of time – could be months or years, ideas pop in and out of your head. You may even have spurts of energy where you gather information or start moving forward, but they are very short lived. Throughout all of this you feel uncertain. The stage ends when you decide for certain that you will at least give it a shot.