Do you ever find yourself sitting motionless, knowing you should be working on your business, yet—for some reason—you’re unable or unwilling to get anything done?
If so, you might need to get motivated in your business. The driving force that once inspired you to start your trade is now seemingly nowhere to be found. Don’t fret. This doesn’t mean you’re a business has-been. You might just need to stoke up a bit of inspiration, aspiration or even some well-focused frustration.
If your motivation meter is reading low, it’s time to fuel up again. Here’s how you can regain your fire and keep your business going strong.
It begins with your goal setting
One of the top causes of waning motivation among entrepreneurs is unclear goals. Though convinced you’d make and market the best widgets or whatchamacallits the world has ever known, you might not have thought that dream through in practical terms.
Sometimes, you can turn frustration into motivation by being determined to not be deterred from your goalDid you understand what you’d need in skills and resources to achieve your goal? Did you nail down the marketplace and how you’d make your presence known? Did you determine what your fallback plan might be if you encounter a slowdown or roadblock?
If you hadn’t addressed these matters, you might be suffering de-motivation because you don’t know how to proceed. It’s time to stop what you’re doing and determine what’s holding you up.
If you’re lacking the skills you need to achieve your goal, find someone with the needed talent. If you’ve announced your widgets but no one seems to notice, look at how you’re advertising your existence. And if you’ve encountered a setback and you’re frustrated by it, decide how you’ll press on.
Sometimes, you can turn frustration into motivation by being determined to not be deterred from your goal. It’s all up to you how you set your goals, how you define the way you achieve them and what you’ll do if you run into some trouble.
If you don’t have a clear plan to reach your goals, it wouldn’t be surprising that you lose motivation when you’re not absolutely sure what to do at each juncture on the way to success.
Establish your path to progress
Sometimes, motivation falls away when you’ve bitten off too much. This also pertains to your goal-setting, but is directly related to how you’ve defined the start of your journey and how finely you’ve charted the key milestones you’ll need to achieve.
Again, the start of your journey is where your intent is the most clear. If yours will be the best widget in the world, how will you know it’s best? What do you compare that to, and how will you be certain it’s shaping up to become what you imagined?
Setting milestones can empirically define what success along the way looks like. When you see it, you’ll stay motivated knowing you’re on the right pathClarify your differentiators at the beginning to be sure you’re starting on firm ground.
Milestones are crucial to staying motivated. You’ll need to recognize your interim successes on the way to your goal.
If you can’t identify major developments along the way, you’ll never be certain you’re moving in the right direction. When you begin to question your progress, you’ll likely begin to doubt your ability to reach your goal.
When that happens, your motivation can drop off as you fear you’re wasting time, money and effort. Setting milestones, then, can empirically define what success along the way looks like. When you see it, you’ll stay motivated knowing you’re on the right path.
Stay focused
When you’re working toward your business goals, you’re likely to discover additional opportunities and offshoots on the way to the finish line. While it’s good to note these, you risk losing motivation if you lose your focus.
The more you expand your original goal, the more difficult it can become to manage your way to the next milestone. Before long, you’ve collected a host of great new ideas, but you’re not achieving any of them because you’re not executing any to completion.
Keep focused and reach those milestones. You can always come back to make a second run and tackle some of those great follow-on opportunities after you’ve met your stated objective.
Focus on finishing what you’ve started, stay determined to do so and you’ll reach your initial finish line sooner than if you become distracted by every nuance you encounter along the way.
Give yourself a break
Keep focused and reach those milestones. You can always come back to make a second run and tackle some of those great follow-on opportunities after you’ve met your stated objectiveIt’s important you celebrate your successes on the way to your goal.
A key benefit of setting milestones, besides ensuring you’re staying on the right track, is to reassure yourself you’re making good progress.
When you reach a milestone, celebrate it. Take time to admire and appreciate what you’ve achieved so far, letting yourself feel good about what you’ve accomplished and building excitement to move ahead to the next milestone.
All work and no play can truly sap your energy and resolve. Get motivated by rewarding yourself along the way. If you don’t, then what’s it all for in the first place?
You’ve reached your goal. Now what?
Finally, think about what you’ll do after you reach your goal. Of course, you’ll celebrate mightily but after that, then what?
Some entrepreneurs suffer waning motivation when they haven’t decided what they’ll do next. You needn’t keep your nose pressed to the grindstone perpetually yet, you’ll likely want to go back and chase another goal. What will that be?
Consider all you discovered on the way to your recent goal and see if now is the time to go after one of those opportunities.
Much of what keeps businesspeople charged up is taking the excitement and confidence gained from a goal you’ve reached, and eagerly pouring that into their next quest. That’s the core of motivation and it’s what can keep you and your business moving ahead year after year.
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” ― Lou Holtz. Great read.