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Top 5 Motivation Killers

Written by: Laura Yeates

Article Overview: Do you have peaks and troughs in your levels of motivation? What do you think the top 5 motivation killers are? What would change in your business if your motivation levels were at 100% all of the time?

Top 5 Motivation Killers

Do you have peaks and troughs in your levels of motivation? What do you think the top 5 motivation killers are? What would change in your business if your motivation levels were at 100% all of the time?

Today I want to share with you the secrets of keeping high on motivation. As a business owner I have been through the ups and downs of starting up my own business from scratch. I have worked with Small Business Owners and intrapreneurs - those people that work as an entrepreneur within a business. I have worked with them through business start up to year one and beyond. We all know year one is supposed to be the toughest in business. But what happens when year one ends – are you not allowed to have bad days anymore?

Top 5 Motivation Killers

It’s easy to think of what your top 5 are – we all have them. Look at the list below and then consider how many of them you have and what others there are for you. I would be interested to hear from you if you come up with some different topics. For each motivation killer there is a solution – read on.

Getting a Knockback
We all know how it feels to hear when you have just won a contract. You feel like punching the air! The opposite of that is the knockback. It comes in many shapes and sizes. Perhaps you’ve had a day of cold calling and nothing good has come of it. Maybe the contract you had counted on this month went to your competitor at the last minute. It makes you feel down and the mind chatter gets going ‘You didn’t do this right’, ‘You idiot, if you had spent an hour longer getting the service part right…’ the list goes on.
• Control the mind chatter – stop yourself talking yourself down and find something good to say to yourself. If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all!
• Learn from it and move on. Don’t allow it to become a bad day or a bad week just a bad 30 minutes.
• Take a 10 minute break. Get outside and walk. Clear your head and come back to it.
• Focus on the last positive thing that happened and wallow in how that felt.
• Think about the next thing you are working on that will give you that feeling and get on to it now.

A quiet period
You’ve had three weeks of non stop activity. Have you ever noticed that the more you have on the more you do? Then it goes quiet – what’s going on? One day passes, then two and you start to get inactive and down. Your motivation dies and you stagnate, procrastinate and hide in passive marketing. You stop getting out of the house/office – it’s a downward spiral.

• Number one – do something. Immediately. Now. Anything at all that will get things moving again.
• Make the things you hate doing top priority every day. Hate cold calling? Do it first and save the other things for later. Far better that than to have it hanging over your head all day.
• Active Marketing. This means speaking to people. Not emailing, not sending letters but actually speaking. The more active you are, the better you feel and the busier your business will be.

Don’t know where you are heading?
When you don’t know why you are doing something, what it means to your business there is little motivation to do it. If you don’t have performance goals that are set in line with your end goal how will you know you are going in the right direction. How will you know you are succeeding? How do you feel good about what you do every day?
• Have you got a marketing plan? A business plan? Do they sound like huge tasks to you? They don’t have to be. Spend 2 hours putting together a plan and some deadlines.
• Use Outlook – print out the next month and put in some deadlines.
• It’s 90% about the ‘why’ and 10% about the ‘how’ when it comes to achieving goals. Make sure the ‘why’ is there and the ‘how’ will become easy.

Pain and Pleasure
Motivation is all about either moving away from pain or towards pleasure. Why would you be motivated if you have nothing to lose or nothing to gain?
• Identify what you will gain by doing whatever it is and what you will lose if you don’t.
• Everything you say yes to involves saying no to something else. What are you saying no to when you say yes to procrastination?

Fear of Failure
The biggest stumbling block to doing what we should is fear of failing. We don’t do so many things because we might fail. ‘I’ll look stupid and it will damage my reputation’ Sound familiar? How will you know if you will fail if you don’t try?
• Find a mentor – someone who has been there and done it. It will give you the proof you need to know that it works.
• Stop preparing presentations that may never get used. Get out there and find the opportunity and then prepare.
• Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Related Articles
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  Why Motivation Malfunctions at Midlife
  5 Ways to Motivate Your Salespeople
  Motivation with consequences

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Related Forum Posts
Re: How To Stay Motivated In Your Business - Motivation spurs people into actions every time. When there is no motivation the reason to move forward seems lost. Thanks so much for this post Evan
Re: Finding AND Keeping Good People - Employee retention or as you mention “Keeping the Good People” is one of the biggest challenges for any growing business. It takes a huge effort from the entrepreneur’s end. I can come up with the following when it comes to KEEPing the good people- 1. Motivation of the employees 2. Recognition of the needs of the employees 3. Activities to make the employees feel valuable towards the organization 4. Make benefits more accessible 5. Offer profit sharing incentives 6. Create clear career paths at the company 7. Consider telecommuting, job sharing and other flexible working arrangements 8. Incentives are essential and they don't have to be huge 9. Have other managers praise an employee's work 10. Be sensitive to the balance between work and private life
Re: What Franchisors Want From Franchisees - Kevin - Here's a rough summary of your questions. Your credit score - below 600's and you're considered high risk. Best if you are in the high 600's and above... if you're in 700's you're golden. Franchisers want to see people who can relate to other people. If you are very shy or you dislike working with the public, then this can count against you. Even if you can fake it... why would you bother? Great customer service is a benchmark any business owner should strive for... Financing arrangements will vary - if you can show that you have 20% above all of your start-up costs, this would help. The more assets you own the better. Motivation can be expressed in HOW you plan the start-up. It's all in the details. Are you taking the opportunity seriously? Are you learning and studying business attributes like marketing, salesmanship, and customer service? Demonstrate that you are motivated. Subscribing to their system would be about following their rules. If you have a maverick mentality... then consider starting your own business where you make the rules... not a franchise. Franchisers have different ways in how they evaluate their prospects. Your professional background or history can play an important role in the final evaluation. This is really about common sense...


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