Motivation rarely disappears all at once. For most accounting professionals it fades quietly: a little less energy for work that once felt satisfying, a little more effort needed to begin the day. That slow drift is worth noticing, because it tends to arrive at exactly the moment the profession is asking more of the people in it.
Across Australia, firms are working through a well-documented shortage of qualified accountants. CA ANZ forecasts that the profession will need a further 31,000 accounting professionals in the five years to 2028, and its 2026 member surveys still point to national shortages of general accountants, tax accountants and auditors, with some vacancies taking months to fill. University enrolments, which almost halved after 2018, have only recently begun to stabilise. The practical effect is that the professionals already in seat are absorbing heavier workloads, which is fertile ground for motivation to erode. The pattern is not confined to accounting either. Gallup's 2026 global research put employee engagement at around one in five, its lowest level since 2020.
The encouraging part is that motivation is more within your control than it can feel when you are in the middle of a busy period. Waiting for a workload to lighten or an employer to change is rarely the fastest route back to it. This piece looks at what actually drives motivation, and at six practical strategies you can apply from your current desk without needing anyone's permission first.
What actually keeps you motivated
Decades of research into motivation tend to converge on one idea. The psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan found that people sustain genuine, internal motivation when three needs are met. When one of them runs low, motivation usually follows it down. It is a useful lens, because it explains why some perfectly reasonable advice never quite works: it was aimed at the wrong need.
The six strategies below each strengthen one or more of these three needs. That is the reason they work, rather than simply sounding sensible. As you read, it is worth keeping a quiet eye on which of the three feels thinnest for you at the moment. That is usually where to start.
1. Set goals that connect to something you care about
Feeds: Competence & Autonomy
Clear goals give the brain something to aim at, and progress towards them is one of the most reliable sources of day-to-day satisfaction at work. The trick is that a goal only motivates if it connects to something you actually want, not just something the organisation wants from you.
Set aside an hour to ask what matters to you over the next year and the next five. A short-term goal might be becoming faster at month-end close, or developing the influencing skills that get your recommendations adopted. A longer-term one might be a specific promotion, or a move into advisory work. Whatever they are, sharpen them against the SMART test so they stay concrete enough to act on.
2. Treat feedback as information, not judgement
Feeds: Competence
Feedback is one of the clearest signals that your work is seen, and being seen is a quiet but powerful motivator. The difficult kind, the sort often labelled negative, is more useful thought of as developmental. It points precisely at the skill or habit that, once addressed, moves you towards your goals.
Ask for it deliberately rather than waiting for the annual review. A short question to a manager or a trusted colleague, "what is one thing I could do differently next quarter?", tends to surface more than a formal appraisal. Then act on what you hear. A cross-departmental project, a workshop, or simply owning a task slightly beyond your current comfort all rebuild the sense of progress that keeps the work interesting.
3. Shape the environment you can actually reach
Feeds: Relatedness & Autonomy
Your surroundings shape your motivation more than most people credit. A supportive, well-run team lifts it; a competitive or neglected one wears it down, and over time can tip into disengagement or burnout. Research from Harvard Business Review has linked a strong culture directly to higher total motivation.
Employers own much of this, but not all of it. You have more reach than it can seem. Consider the parts of your working week that are genuinely yours to influence: how your day is structured, which systems you rely on, the rhythms of your team. Where something could work better, put it to your manager as a small, specific suggestion and explain the effect it would have on the wider team, not only on you. Framed that way, reasonable requests are far more likely to land.
4. Protect your work-life balance on purpose
Feeds: Autonomy & wellbeing
When you are pushing towards an ambitious goal, balance is the first thing to quietly slip. In accounting it slips fastest around busy seasons, and it is now front of mind across the profession: CA ANZ's most recent member survey found work-life balance sitting at the top of what accounting professionals weigh up, even as some workplaces have begun quietly winding back the flexible arrangements people had come to rely on. Commitment matters, but a depleted person is not a motivated one for long.
Balance rarely improves by accident, so treat it as something to design. Decide in advance where your edges are: the hour you stop replying to messages, the lunch break you actually take, the overtime you agree to only when it is genuinely needed. If the pressure is becoming constant rather than seasonal, raise it with your manager early and ask what flexibility or support is available. That conversation is easier to have before motivation has drained, not after.
5. Build connection through mentoring and networking
Feeds: Relatedness
Isolation and flagging motivation tend to travel together. Strong relationships at work create a gentle sense of accountability, a reminder that your effort matters to people beyond yourself, and they give you somewhere to turn when your own drive dips. A colleague's encouragement on a hard week is worth more than most motivational advice.
Look outward as well as across. Connecting with others in the profession keeps your interest in the field alive, exposes you to how the work is changing, and occasionally opens a door you did not know was there. A mentor is the concentrated version of this: someone a few steps ahead who can offer perspective, make an introduction, and act as a sounding board when you are frustrated or unsure. If you do not have one, start by asking someone whose career you respect for a single conversation.
6. Keep a growth mindset
Feeds: Competence
The final strategy underpins the other five. A growth mindset, the idea popularised by the psychologist Carol Dweck, is the belief that your abilities are built rather than fixed. People who hold it stay motivated more easily, because they read challenges and even mistakes as information rather than verdicts on their worth.
In practice this looks like reaching for the project slightly beyond you, staying curious about new tools and technology entering the profession, and treating a setback as a data point rather than a full stop. None of that requires a personality change. It is a habit of interpretation, and like any habit it strengthens with use. Over time it is what keeps the work feeling like something you are growing through, rather than something you are merely getting through.
A quick self-check
When motivation dips, the instinct is to push harder across the board. It is usually more effective to find the one need running low and make a small, specific adjustment there. This is a two-minute version you can return to whenever the drift sets in.
When the problem is the role, not you
Sometimes none of this quite works, and that is worth taking seriously rather than pushing through. If you have genuinely tried to rebuild your motivation and it will not return, the issue may not be your mindset. It may be a role, or an environment, that no longer fits what you want from your work. Around half of employees are quietly keeping an eye on the market, and there is nothing disloyal about being one of them.
Hedley Scott offers complimentary, confidential career conversations for accounting and finance professionals weighing up what comes next. No pressure, no obligation, just an honest discussion about your options. Talk to one of our team when you are ready.