Staying motivated and focused when running a business is challenging – even at the best of times.
When you’re stressed, whether due to personal or business circumstance, you can keep motivated and focused.
Take comfort in the fact that nearly all entrepreneurs go through phases like this at some point or other.
At times they may feel like they lost all motivation or desire to run the business. At worst, one may feel like giving up on the business altogether.
Note: Even though this was written for home business owners, it’s also a helpful read if you’re pursuing a work at home career as an employee or freelancer/contractor.
5 Tips For Staying Motivated And Focused
If you’re stuck in a bad place and feel you’ve lost the motivation to carry on with your business, we have a few ideas to help you overcome these tough times.
#1 Write down your thoughts
It’s often easier to understand our feelings if we write them down on paper.
You may find that simply putting all your worries and issues onto paper is enough to lighten the load and help you feel re-energized and ready to face your business once again.
Write a list of the reasons you started your business. What did you want from your business when you first started out full of hopes and dreams?
Did you want more free time? Did you hope to have more financial security?
Write down your initial goals and compare them to where you are at right now. It may be that your business simply needs a little readjusting and tweaking to meet up to your initial goals.
#2 Take it one day at a time
If your stress stems from your personal life, then give yourself a break. Start by realizing that you don’t have to achieve everything you wanted with your business right away.
Give yourself a little time to deal with personal issues while still taking small steps to build your business. It may be that you can just do a little each day, give up a few clients or make adjustments elsewhere.
The trick here is to take small steps towards your big goals and not to let your business overwhelm you. By taking small steps towards your goals, your business keeps growing.
When life gets easier and you feel ready to go full force, you can add more tasks to your schedule.
#3 Plan your days
It may help to plan your tasks for each day so that you can stay focused on the end result rather than the big picture. Instead of using a long to-do list, spread the tasks into a few a day.
This way you can accomplish daily tasks with a feeling you’ve had a productive day – rather than beating yourself up for not getting that long list done.
It will also help you better understand how much you can get done in one day and better plan for future days.
You’ll end up feeling more positive, motivated, and able to focus better which helps you to get more done.
#4 Think positive
This may seem daunting, especially when everything looks bleak all around, but it’s important to stay positive about your business and life.
You can only do your best in your current situation. Accept it for what it is and take the steps you can to change it while maintaining a positive attitude. If you’re having trouble staying positive, start a gratitude journal.
Each day write down the things you’re grateful in your life.
Create a vision board on your wall to remind yourself of why you want your business to succeed. Keep an accomplishment jar.
Decorate a jar and whenever you complete a new goal, learn something new, get a new client, etc.. put it in your jar. Later when you need some encouragement, you have a reminder of all you’ve done!
#5 Get help from others
Just because it’s you who owns the business doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. Find others that can become part of your support team.
Seek out other like-minded people to network with and support your goals and accomplishments. This is especially helpful for work at home entrepreneurs with families that don’t really understand what being is a business owner is like.
On that note, come join our Entrepreneur Moms Facebook Group!
When finding a fellow entrepreneur that you click with, ask about becoming accountability buddies. Get a virtual assistant to do tasks for you.
This will free up time for you to do money earning tasks while your virtual assistant takes care of your blog, social media, or newsletter management.
If you still feel unmotivated and focused, consider hiring a coach to help you figure out why and where you can make changes to move forward.
Related: Where To Get A Virtual Assistant Or Coach For Free
Sometimes life can be challenging for any business owner, but a positive attitude and a few practical strategies help you to get through in a better way.
I’ve found that I need a visual calendar to be able to get anything done.
Definitely something is needed. I’ve tried planners and found that right now what works best for me is a graph paper notebook. I make a page for each month’s goals and a page for each week’s to-do’s. I use different colored pens for different topics.
Katherine, you are so right about staying positive and reaching out to others for help. There’s so many people who are willing to help if we just ask. Thanks for some great reminders.
I don’t have any hired helpers yet, but I do reach for advice and help from fellow entrepreneurs. At some point it will be necessary to hire some help.
Can’t wait for the day when I can work at home full time! I relate to the small steps comment- and if you just consistently make small steps you can achieve great things!
I am finally trying to plan using a planner, I even got my daughter involved and gave her a planner. Thinking positive and taking one day at a time helps a LOT but often hard. Thanks for the advice.