Are you feeling like your enthusiasm is dipping for your small business? It can be tough to make it as a business owner when most or all of the possibility of your business’ success falls on your shoulders. How do you stay motivated and keep on pushing through, even during the lulls and the hard times?
Here is some motivational advice that can push you further and help you stay on track to success.
Keep Your Goals in Mind
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You probably have some business goals you want to achieve, but it is easy to lose sight of them. If you don’t have any well-defined goals, it may be time to write them down to help you stay focused on them. These may be goals like the following:
• Make $1 million
• Open up a physical shop
• Open a second location
• Reach 10k followers for your business’ social account
• Start earning passive income
These are just some ideas, but whatever it may be, the goal should be specific to you and the kind of business that you operate. Make your goal realistic but big enough so that you feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve it and feel some success as you near it. Goals give you something to work toward, keeping your eye on a prize, even if it takes several years to get it.
Take a Break
With all of the work and responsibility that is piled on you as the result of being a business owner, you may feel overwhelmed by it all. It can be very healthy to get away from everything for a bit and leave the responsibilities to enjoy yourself. Take a vacation or just close down the business for a little while. Don’t leave it so long that it starts to deteriorate, but set yourself up well enough so that you can take a little time off and not feel guilty about it.
The more responsibilities you can leave behind while you take your break, the better. It could be helpful to hire someone to do your housecleaning, like maid service. Taking a complete break from work of any kind will be so therapeutic and will help you to come back to work energized and motivated. Be sure to turn off your notifications so that you are not bombarded by work messages as you relax.
Get Rid of Distractions
If you have distractions in your life that keep you from getting work done, you may have trouble staying focused and motivated. You will be pulled away from your work by these distractions, and that can make it hard to meet your work quotas and take good care of your customers.
First of all, you need to identify your distractions. Are they family members, friends, social media accounts, or something else? Once you know what your distractions are, then you can formulate a plan to keep them from distracting you.
If people keep calling you with non-business-related matters during your work time, you can get a second phone just for business and silence the personal phone. If family members at home or in your work make it hard for you to attend to your business, you may need to set boundaries, hire a babysitter, or schedule time with them so that they don’t get in the way and don’t feel neglected.
Change Your Focus
So, we have talked about keeping your focus and preventing distractions to your focus. Now, let’s talk about having a different focus.
There may come a time when you need to shift your business focus, changing the way you do things and trying a different business altogether. If you have multiple skills and you have been focusing on one of them, why not try to focus on making money with a different skill? This can be a great way to keep yourself motivated when you start to experience those doldrums that most small businesses go through. If you notice that your profits are low and you have little interest in continuing the business you are in, then you can shift your focus entirely and try doing something else for a change.
Trying a new business idea may be exactly what you need to kickstart your motivation, and it could lead to a profitable new career. Your shift in focus doesn’t have to be so extreme, though. You could simply pivot and go in a different direction with your current business plan. Instead of selling your product to a wide market, you can focus on a specific market, for example.
Get to Know the Wider Community
There are many other people who are a part of the same business as you. How many of them have you connected with? If you tend to keep to yourself, it may benefit you to reach out to the larger community that your business is a part of. Check out forums and social media groups to see what is happening in your community.
In this way, you can get to know more people and extend your contact list. You may also learn about changes in your industry and what innovations are being introduced. This can give you some great new ideas and new directions for your business. You might find new ways to run your business and new products to introduce to your customers that you hadn’t thought of before.
Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself
Most of us want to be our best selves, but some of us can be really hard on our failures and make little of our accomplishments. For every little success you have, celebrate it and make a big deal out of it. This will help to drive away the perfectionist that is camping out in your brain and make you see the good even when there is only a little bit of it.
Your failures can be seen as learning experiences, and that can help you with your motivation as well. You don’t have to feel set back by every small thing that goes wrong.
