Just as employee motivation is very important to business growth, so also is entrepreneurial motivation. An entrepreneur must first be self motivated before trying to motivate the employees. Staying motivated in business is an art as well as a science.
“People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” – Andrew Carnegie
Motivating yourself to excel in business is not something you do only when you are in the mood. It is an ongoing self help process that should touch every facet of your business life. Staying motivated in business starts with an assessment of your mental attitude, physical well-being and appearance, work atmosphere, your manner of interaction with others (clients and employees alike), and your off-the-business environment.
“Be careful of the environment you choose for it will shape you. Be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.” – W. Clement Stone
Entrepreneurial motivation is very crucial to the entrepreneurial process of building a business and that’s why motivational experts get paid big bucks. Staying motivated in business is also the reason why most successful entrepreneurs have personal coaches. Now how do you stay motivated in business? Below are five self help action steps to staying motivated in business.
“I enjoy myself a lot but I derive more joy in working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secrets is hard work. It’s hard to see a youth that will go to bed by 2am and wake up by 5am. I don’t rest until I achieve something.” – Aliko Dangote, the richest black man in the world
Self Help: 5 Easy Steps to Staying Motivated in Business
1. Maintain a Positive Attitude
“There is little difference in people but that little difference makes big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.” – W. Clement Stone
To stay motivated in business, you must realize that life is only 10% of what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. You must accept the fact that you are responsible for our own actions and attitudes; and you can change them when appropriate. When you are around people, say things that are uplifting and positive.
“Like success, failure is many things to many people. With positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, and a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order to prepare to try again.” – W. Clement Stone
Even in the face of business failure or challenges, express enthusiasm and optimism. You must strive to be a source of inspiration to your employees. If you can maintain a positive attitude, you will create a workplace filled with happy workers and this will in turn lead to an increase in employee productivity. You might even be surprised to find out that your employees are always looking forward to seeing you at work.
“To be happy, make other people happy.” – W. Clement Stone
2. Leave Personal troubles at Home
Everyone has problems; be it at business, home or work. But as an entrepreneur, you must learn to separate your personal life from your business life. You must learn to leave your family or personal problems at home. You must solve personal problems at home and solve business problems at the office.
“Even if it’s your day off or you are on vacation, business comes first before anything else.” – The Mafia Manager
A self help rule of thumb is this: “don’t go brooding over your personal problems during business hours; you must focus your attention and energy entirely to your business tasks.” This will actually be good for you because you will get a mental break from your personal troubles.
3. Create Positive Affirmations
“Self suggestion makes you master of yourself.” – W. Clement Stone
The reason for writing goals for your business is just the same as creating positive affirmations on paper for yourself. Creating positive affirmations is an effective self help strategy entrepreneurial motivation technique. Creating positive affirmations is another way of staying motivated in business.
Psychologists propounded that what your eyes see and ears hear, your mind will believe. So try it! Write down positive affirmations about yourself. After you have written them down, read them aloud to yourself. Do this every morning before going to your place of business.
“There is little difference in people but that little difference makes big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.” – W. Clement Stone
You will be amazed at the outcome. Come up with a set of new positive affirmations every month. Self help affirmations such as, “I am an important and valuable person,” or “I know I’ll make good use of my time today.” Repeating them out loud everyday at a set time will help reinforce positive actions.
4. Make Sure Break Times Are Really Break Times
This is an area where self help plays an important role because this is where most entrepreneurs fail. Sometimes, you become so intense and deeply involved with a project or situation that you refuse to ease up or give up. You allow yourself to be deeply engrossed with the project, thinking that it will be solved in the next few seconds.
Though this is good for critical problem solving in business, it’s bad for your health. Almost every successful entrepreneur is guilty of this act including myself.
“The most important thing is to enjoy yourself and continue to work. I know life is a journey, not a destination. That’s also true in business. Your objectives keep moving.” – Thomas J. Burrell
I want to tell you that staying motivated implies regularly adhering to a specified break schedule, even if you are the boss. Taking breaks eases stress and releases the tension.
If you work more on a computer, this could even be a greater problem. Before you realize it, you have been working in that same position for hours. The best self help answer to this is to set yourself a reminder on your appointment calendar for every 2 hours, and let the computer reminder chime send you the alert to move around or take a break.
5. Exercise, Exercise, Exercise
I know that lately it seems that “exercise” is the cure-all to every physical ailment or your love life. But despite that, there is some truth to that ugly word. By “exercise” I don’t mean that you should go out and join a gym and spend your lunch time, 3-days-a-week there working out.
What is really beneficial and workable is that at those chiming alerts from your computer, get up and walk around your desk, office or room. You may even go outside, get the mail and enjoy the sunlight (if you’re an entrepreneur that has a home office), or just get up and do a few stretches.
“Work hard, have fun; make history.” – Jeff Bezos
With respect to exercise, I think every entrepreneur needs to get a self help coach and the reason is that we are always on the edge. Entrepreneurs are known to be passionate beings who love their calling. They are known to be ambitious and result driven; and these attributes make them work longer than most employees. Entrepreneurs go about their duty with zeal, as if on the notion that:
“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber and a little folding of hands to sleep; so shall your poverty come.” – Proverbs 6: 10-11
I think entrepreneurs really need self help here and to be sincere with you, I am one of such entrepreneur. I think I will go look for a self help coach who can help slow down my adrenaline pump because I sometimes stay up twenty hours a day.
“You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. Thrive on stress! Even If it means getting physically fit, having a psychiatric overall or losing 50 pounds before you can handle it, do it. ” – J. Paul Getty
Concentrated thoughts, intense thinking, typing, plotting plans or whatever your work is, makes all your muscles tighten up and knot up. Periodic stretching, even at our desk, or just getting up, walking over to the window and getting a different view can really help.
One of the greatest disservice modern business décor has done to us, is making our offices pristine, sleek, unencumbered spaces. There is nothing more relaxing than getting up from your desk and walking over to a peaceful, serene, seascape or pastoral painting and just drinking it in visually.
Momentarily transporting your mind out of work and into that place does wonders. A few good paintings and less shiny chrome in offices would benefit us all. In conclusion, it only takes a little concentrated effort on our part to remain motivated and productive in business. Staying motivated leads to success, be it in business or any other thing.