Last night I spent much of the evening on my couch catching up on all of the posts that had been piling up in my Google Reader inbox. I was a little late jumping on the Google Reader bandwagon, but after using it for several months I’m not sure how I functioned without it. My inbox is filled with posts on sports, social media, celebrity gossip, personal blogs, marketing, cooking, communications – basically any Web site I have visited and enjoyed has been added to the list.

Unfortunately, with all of the subscriptions, it is rare that I have the time to read an entire article. However, last night one particular post titled, “Hamster on a Wheel” on PR-Squared caught my attention. The overall message of the article really resonated with me, and I’m sure many other young professionals. There were several key points that I found particularly interesting:

• It may be hard to recognize sometimes, but “getting frustrated” is not the same as “getting stale” or “burning out.”
• It is not your manager’s responsibility to motivate you on a consistent basis. You have to take personal responsibility for motivating and challenging yourself. (This applies to everyone, at all levels in an organization).
• Sure, it’s great to get good feedback in your annual review. But ultimately, achieving small, personal goals will be just as satisfying, if not more. “Cuz only y-o-u know what you’re really bad at, terrified of, need to work on; only y-o-u know what’s going to make you feel like a world-beater.”

I plan to put the advice from this article to use throughout the rest of the summer months. I guess I’m still a kid at heart because when it’s sunny and 80 degrees outside, it’s a little bit of a fight to stay motivated and focused on my work. Hopefully setting some small personal goals will help me fight the fight and stay on task.