5 Ways To Stay Motivated With Your Startup Or Small Business

Finding how to stay motivated with a startup can be a real challenge as the pressure starts to mount but here are a few easy tips to help.

1. Find inspiration in other people

It’s far too easy when you're someone that works from home to get distracted. You set your alarm for 7 am but snooze until 9 am. Then after some coffee, some morning TV, a little Facebook scrolling you suddenly realise that it’s 1 pm and you’ve lost all your energy.

So instead, get a routine – just like you would if you had to go into the office. This is your office so get up and get to it! You can have fun later. Get in front of that desk – the rest will come.

Try building yourself a ‘hit list’ to tackle in the morning, to help you stay motivated with your business project. These are the most important things you need/want to achieve each morning. Here’s some of mine for an example:

1. 5:30 am: Get up, shower, get dressed.
2. 6:00 am: Make my first cup of java.
3. 6:15 am: Settle at my desk and go through emails and notifications that came in overnight, archive the stuff that’s not important, and flag things that require a response.
4. 6:30 am: Check my schedule for the day, review my priority list, and check my Trello board for the day’s tasks.
5. 6:45 am: Update my DailyGreatness™ Business Journal with key achievements I want to make that day and refresh myself of any notes I made the previous day.
6. 7:00 am: I’m ready to go back and tackle those emails that needed a response and start working through my day’s to-do list!

3. Remind yourself how good you are

It can really help your mental state to relive a little of your past success. Try putting up a pinboard in your office, behind a door, anywhere that it makes sense. Fill it with testimonials, compliments, past projects, things you really proud of creating or doing. Take a moment when you’re feeling at a low point to go and look at it.

It is one of the best ways to remind yourself of how good you are and how far you’ve come.

You may be thinking, “but I haven’t started by venture yet, how can I do this?” Look back in your past, previous jobs, or projects that you’ve worked on. Go find them, print them out and put them on the board. It doesn’t have to be related to what you’re working on right now. The whole point is that it should remind you of your proud moments in your past to remind you how good you are.

4. Get your startup organised

Keeping everything you need to do in your head or on a thousand post-it notes? You’re probably causing yourself your own stress right there.

Trying to remember to do all the important things whilst trying to remain motivated with your startup is an entire job all in itself. Find a way to get it all out of your head and on a list.

If digital isn’t your thing then go old school and get yourself a fresh new notepad. If you prefer a more 21st-century approach then try an app to get yourself organised, there are so many out there so try some out and see what works for you.

My favourite tools for productivity are:

1. My DailyGreatness™ Business Planner – it’s a book that is laid out in such a way that it really appeals to my sense of ‘writing’ and committing to something. It’s never far from my hands!
2. Trello – A free tool that allows me to use a Kanban-style approach to my task management that doesn’t let me get overwhelmed with all the things that a small business owner has to deal with every day.