Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” To this end, staying motivated in your work is critical to success.
The potential within you is vast and unmatched as long as you remain motivated and inspired as an entrepreneur. However, far too often it’s easy to get discouraged along the way. The role of an entrepreneur is a difficult one, and it can often be challenging, especially during stressful or difficult situations.
However, the following are handy tips to keep yourself motivated, fully functioning, and succeeding.
Set a Standard Routine
In terms of productivity, a standard routine is best for the mind. Infamously, Albert Einstein took this to a literal extreme, wearing the same outfit every single day to establish routine and free his mind for more important matters.
You certainly don’t have to wear the same outfit every day, but a degree of structure and regularity in your daily routine can go a long way. A well-planned work routine makes it easier to stay on track and see what you’ve already accomplished toward your daily goals.
Plot Out Specific Goals
How do you climb a mountain? If you stare up at the mountain from the base of it, you’ll inevitably convince yourself that there’s no point in even getting started; the journey is simply too long and you’ll never make it. Rather, the way to climb a mountain is the same way you do everything else: one step at a time.
Setting specific goals for yourself in your schedule is a bit like setting distance markers on your uphill ascent. By doing so, you can more properly gauge the success or failure of your efforts, knowing where you stand in relation to your ambitions.
Rebecca Arwine, the assistant professor of management at UC’s Lindner College of Business, says, “Goals are important, but so is flexibility for founders. Instead of rigid goals, founders should focus on objectives and key results (OKRs). This framework encourages setting ambitious objectives with measurable key results, but it’s designed to be adaptable.”
Take Care of Yourself
In order to be productive, you must be healthy, optimized, and ready to take on the world.
Everything from your diet and fitness regimen to your sleep schedule and work hours matters when balancing entrepreneurship with your physical, mental, and spiritual health. Work as an entrepreneur can undoubtedly get crazy and hectic, but allowing this to derail your own body’s needs is to court disaster. You need food, sleep, and regular exercise, and if you don’t get it, your work will surely suffer as a result.
“Keeping multiple well-being components in balance,” Arwine said, “enables entrepreneurs to show up as better versions of themselves both in and outside their work.”
Keep Distractions Away
Everyone falls prey to distractions occasionally, but when they become dangerous and detrimental, they begin to pile up. Especially in this day and age, where you are essentially carrying around a fully functioning computer in your pocket, it can prove incredibly difficult to stay on-task. You can do practically anything at the touch of a button, so the question instead becomes what don’t you do?
Pushing away temptations makes staying motivated as an entrepreneur less complicated, maintaining a sense of active momentum rather than retreating into passive viewing.
Know What Drives You
An easy way to stay motivated is to make a meaningful impact through your 9-to-5 role. You got into entrepreneurship for a reason; there was a passion burning so brightly within you that you took on the heavy workload against all odds and started climbing the mountain. In this way, keeping that original motivation at the forefront of your mind can help to remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing, and why you’ve incorporated such discipline into your regimen.
“Have a vision statement that you always return to and ensure that everything you’re doing is working toward that vision statement,” Arwine said. “It will help to anchor what you’re doing with even the most menial of tasks.”
Reward Successes
Perhaps most importantly of all, you must reward yourself for your successes. Entrepreneurship is indeed like climbing a mountain; a long and arduous journey. Because of this, you need to allow yourself to truly relish the moment and savor the fruits of your labor when they come, because then they will serve to motivate you all the more.
