Staying Self-Motivated in Building Your Online Business
Self-Motivation is a natural and required partner to success in building your online business.
Your goal in starting your own online business was, in most cases, to make money to either supplement your income or replace your income. To realize your goals a number of basic steps are required, and all of these will only be put into action by the quality of your motivation. To achieve success in building your online business you must be self-motivated.
Your Vision: Every business owner must develop a vision of what he or she wants to achieve. In so doing you may need to ask self-searching questions like, “What do I really want to achieve, and why? Will achieving success in this venture change my life? How and who can I help once I achieve my goals? What steps will I take to be sure that my goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and will be accomplished within a given time period?”
Have a Plan: It may not be a formal business plan, but there should be something in writing to use as a guide in achieving your vision or your goals. Motivation is essential in this phase because it will take time to implement your plan and there will always be negative factors that have an impact on the steps leading to your goal of building your online business. Being self-motivated will allow you to develop an action plan that will move you forward at all times.
Staying Committed: Self-motivation is critical to staying committed. Being committed to achieving your goals will involve time, work and often times sacrifice. An awareness of what is required will allow you to make the commitment and stay the course if you want to experience success.
Take Action: All the visions and plans for your business will be to no avail if you fail to take action. So rather than trying to find the perfect place to start or the perfect niche, it's better to get started and keep yourself self-motivated so as to implement the strategies needed to achieve success in building your online business.
Self-motivation is the hardest part of being a work-at-home, self-employed biz woman! It is the critical “missing link” that makes one person fail and another succeed. I actually recorded an audio to help people with this very thing pretty soon after I had started my online biz. (http://selftalkforwinners.com) If you can get a handle on your own motivation, you’ll have more success than you ever dreamed of! Good post!
1Your comments are always so encouraging and right on point, Martha. I like to think of it as half the battle won when you can maintain your own motivation. That is at least one thing that we can control. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic and the audio.
Yvonne
2Yvonne,
Self motivation is a tough one, especially for those who are new to working for them selves. And then working on line is a different animal in and of itself. There are plenty of stops along the way.
But you have hit the nail on the head. Having a vision and a plan does make taking action much easier. You do not go anywhere with out knowing where you are going.
Your self searching questions are perfect!
3Sheila, You are so right. It takes hard work to stay motivated and even harder to practice self-motivation but it’s so essential for anyone doing business.
I recall that several years ago in doing another business so many people kept telling me that I needed to be at such and such a level and I could do this and that. I could have, but it was not what I truly desired; there was no motivation from within for that position. On the other hand, when the desire is there I’m willing to climb over mountains to reach my goals.
Self-motivation is something I’d encourage every person who wants to start a business or is doing business to cultivate…but as you noted, it doesn’t come easy.
4I am finding that staying committed is the toughest part. Some days you feel like everything is going well and the next day you may feel like its failing. Perhaps writing down goals and having a visual is a good place to start in staying committed, especially having short term-attainable goals before implementing long-term goals.
5John, thanks for keeping it real. That was something I had a huge challenge with and still have to keep working on. My challenge is to avoid ‘wandering’ away from what I’m working on so that at the end of the day I’m truly productive. Short-term goals are important as they sort of lay the groundwork or foundation to the long-term goals. If you can master the short-term goals, you’ll get there 🙂
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