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Falling Out of Love with Your Business? 14 Ways to Rekindle That Fire Again

Starting your own business can be a lonely affair and full of hardships before you hit your goals. And on top of that, if entrepreneurs fail to motivate themselves in challenging times, it can seriously affect their business. Being your own boss comes with a lot of uncertainty and anxiety. The difference between financial forecasts for the first years and the actual profit you make can discourage you. But before you decide to quit, read this! By the end of this post, you’ll be imbibed with motivation and be back on track with your startup and entrepreneurship journey. 

Several solopreneurs and small business owners start on the path of falling out of love with their own creation because they see only the hard work and lack of satisfaction. They put their primary focus on the hardships instead of the benefits and the purpose behind starting a business.

According to statistics, 22.5% of small businesses fail in the first initial year.

Therefore, if you can’t keep your stance when things seem vague in your business, you’ll be putting yourself in the rabbit hole of self-doubts. So pull up your socks and get back to the grind!

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Why Is Motivation Important In Business?

Whether in life or at work, motivation holds a significant amount of importance in growth. It’s like a habit that, rather than momentarily pleasure which helps you sail through storms.

The importance of motivation in a business is paramount, and here are some points which will convince you to remain encouraged in your startup journey.

1. Boosts Performance Levels

The efficiency of carrying out a task successfully in business requires grit and devotion. If you lack the will to perform a task, it takes a toll on the organization’s overall productivity level.

Sure, every business owner experiences a level of dissatisfaction at some point, but that doesn’t mean you get to slack all day. But motivation is the secret ingredient that sails you through difficult days without affecting your business’s performance levels.

Instead, it boosts the overall performance levels so that everyone works effectively and efficiently in the business.

2. Better Return On Investment

The more motivated you are in your business, the more profits your business will fetch. The return on investment depends on how effective you and your employees work towards achieving organizational goals.

If you fail to encourage yourself to do better, it’s likely for your employees to lose their motivation as well. The ROI of your business is highly linked to the employee motivation of your organization.

3. Better Customer Retention

There are so many factors that make entrepreneurs’ lives hard in today’s world. The economic crisis of 10 years ago has left permanent changes in the fabric of society.

Consumers are more careful than ever about spending their hard-earned money, and along with that, financing institutions have set stringent conditions for business loans and lines of credit.

In short, it means that retaining your customers who won’t hesitate to invest in your service should be the top priority.

Staying motivated in your business allows you to bring in customers who need your product and services and retain them in the long run. After all, it’s the customers and clients who determine any startup business’s success.

4. Improved Customer Service

Did you know that 65% of a company’s business comes from its existing customers?

This is because of the incredible service every successful business provides to its customers. It’s almost impossible to serve your clients if you lack the zeal to stay motivated in your business. With motivation, every startup goes the extra mile to present its customers with the best service.

14 Ways to Rekindle The Fire In Your Business

4 ways to rekindle the fire in your business

Ways To Rekindle The Fire In Your Business

If you are willing to give your business a second chance, here are a few helpful steps to take, which will fuel you with some serious motivation.

1. Change The Track

Did You Know?

  • Coca-Cola was invented by a chemist and was initially advertised as a tonic.
  • Samsung used to make video cassette players.
  • Western Union used to be a telegram service.
  • Nokia started as a rubber manufacturer.

Every startup business begins with a specific idea in mind, followed by strategies to promote that idea. While it takes time for your business idea to come to fruition, many entrepreneurs lose the motivation to stay on track on their startup journey. They lose sight of why they started their business in the first place and its purpose.

Changing your business approach will bring back that lost motivation in times like these.

Technology is continually changing, and if you don’t get accustomed to the change in market trends, your business idea will become obsolete. Perhaps the idea in itself is still relevant but needs a fresh approach.

So how to change tracks in your business?

  • Determine the purpose of starting your business.
  • Define your target customers to the object of your business in itself.
  • Prepare an action plan and follow them diligently.
  • Outsource experts from LinkedIn, Upwork, Freelancer to help you with administrative tasks.
  • Leverage social media channels to build a robust digital business presence.

Although it seems hard to believe, many companies did implement all the above strategies in their history.

2. Start Networking

Your network is your net worth! And when you feel devoid of any motivation in your startup business, it’s your network that helps you focus on the vision.

Joining professional associations and attending business fairs is how entrepreneurs stay engaged and manage to get over their businesses’ difficult times. Networking means meeting new people, exchanging ideas, finding mentors and business partners.

You will always find an answer to your question and helpful advice for your issues if you are an active member of business groups, both online and offline.

In the online medium, the number one place for networking is LinkedIn.

Here, you can join groups focusing on your industry or explicitly dedicated to small business owners. You can connect with former colleagues and managers, get useful recommendations when looking to hire team members, and even advertise your business.

In the real-life world, attend as many business conventions as you can and take advantage of the coffee breaks to mingle with the crowd and socialize.

3. Remember Your ‘Why.’

Remind Yourself Why You Started Your Business In The First Place!

Think about the days when you were planning to launch your business. Think of all the pros and cons you created and how the pros won in the end. If you were to repeat them, most probably the advantages would still win.

You wanted to be your boss and believed that your business idea would improve people’s lives and solve real problems.

Deep inside, all these reasons are still valid for you. All you need is to remind yourself of them every once in a while and realize that abandoning your dream would hurt more in the long run than being strong now when you are in doubt.

4. Carry Out A SWOT Analysis For Your Business

SWOT for business-alignthoughts

 

S – Strengths

Some key points that can highlight the strength of your business are:

  • What are the key advantages of your business?
  • How can you outsmart your competitors?
  • Why customers get attracted to your business?

Examples of strengths for businesses include a highly skilled workforce, brand value, good product quality, cheap process in comparison to your competitors, etc.

W – Weaknesses

Finding your business’s weaknesses at an early stage can save you from hazards that can cost you a lot during the later stages. Here are the key questions you must ask to figure out the weakness of your business plan:

  • What are the pain points of your business?
  • Do you have a labor-intensive business life cycle?
  • Are your business goals unachievable?
  • How’s your customer satisfaction rate?

Common examples of small to big business owners’ weaknesses include a slow production lifecycle, higher product prices, lower profit margins, and lack of customer base.

O – Opportunities

Opportunities are factors that help your business grow, when acted upon, can leverage your business to large folds.

Some of the business opportunities that you must not overlook are:

  • There is a growing demand for the product in the market.
  • The production costs can come down by automating your process.
  • You have an expert team that can solve complex challenges that other businesses lack.

T – Threats

A large number of competitors is usually one of the most common threats for business owners, making it difficult to surpass customer expectations.

SWOT for business plan examples worksheet-alignthoughts

5. What Is Your Mission & Vision Statement?

Every business starts with a vision and mission statement. Your business’s vision refers to the goals and objectives, whereas your business’s mission stands for solving real-world problems.

A loss of motivation can drive you away from focusing on both these areas in your business. Whenever you feel less motivated, reminding yourself about your business’s purpose will ignite that spark back to get back to your work.

In fact, some entrepreneurs maintain a vision board for motivation whenever they feel dry spells in their business.

You can create your own vision board and write a vision and mission statement for your business and place it somewhere where you can always have a look at it, preferably your work desk.

6. Learn To Set S.M.A.R.T Goals To Stay Motivated

SMART goals for business2-alignthoughts

 

 

Often, entrepreneurs have a vague idea about setting goals and how to accomplish targets, which can further affect the motivation levels.

One way to tackle this problem is to implement the S.M.A.R.T goal setting strategy. This is an effective strategy that can help you stay on track with your business.

S.M.A.R.T stands for:

  • S: Specific.
  • M: Measurable goals that are easy to track.
  • A: The actionable plan to achieve goals.
  • R: Goals that are set on realistic grounds.
  • T: The time-bound you set for turning goals into reality.

Following the S.M.A.R.T strategy allows you to proceed with your personal and professional goals with a clear perspective and fetches you more results.

7. Prioritize Your Health

Health is wealth! We all have heard about this phrase, but how many actually follow it? Feelings of burn out creep in if you compromise your health in your entrepreneurial journey.

According to a Harvard Business Review study, every entrepreneur experiences some amount of burn out in their business, where 25% of entrepreneurs felt moderately burned out, and 3% felt intensely burned out.

And this feeling of burnout manifests into several health problems in later stages of life, and you may as well feel less motivated to work in your business.

Here are a few tips you can follow to feel good and healthy:

  • Eliminate sugar and refined carbs from your diet.
  • Minimize consuming processed food as it can take a toll on your energy levels.
  • Eat more foods with Omega-3 fatty acids.
  • Include more fruits and vegetables in your daily diet.

8. Get Enough Sleep

Did you know your sleep impacts your productivity levels? And the more productive you feel, the better the motivation you have towards accomplishing your business goals.

Research shows that sleep deprivation leads American companies $63.2 billion a year in lost productivity and is one of the major causes of feeling burnt out.

Lack of sleep can result in low motivation while working on a startup business. After all, it would help if you had all the energy to tick off your business goals. How do you expect to attain them if you are always low on energy and exhausted all the time?

Prepare a night routine and sleep for at least 7-8 hours every day. Within no time, you’ll find back that lost motivation and strive toward turning your dream business into a reality.

Also, having a healthy sleep pattern will help you make better decisions, improve your memory, and instill a positive mindset.

9. Learn To Work On Your Business, Not In Your Business

Believe me, there is a massive difference between the two concepts. If you want to stay motivated in your business, learn to work on your business.

Working in a business means performing daily repeating tasks without enthusiasm and productivity. You spend long hours, postpone family events and vacations, you are never available when friends ask you to get together – yet your overall prosperity is close to nil.

The truth is that you are caught in a vicious cycle of keeping your business afloat. You are not a business owner but a diligent laborer. Working on your business doesn’t mean that you lose the motivation to live your life.

If you’ve been stuck in this vicious loop, it’s time to take a step back from this unproductive and energy-draining way of running your business. In fact, you are not running your business; the business is running you.

Here are some ways to take charge of your business.

  • If you spend too much time on daily administrative chores, outsource people to complete those tasks on your behalf.
  • Hiring professionals to create effective lead generation and sales strategies effectively save money on inefficient marketing strategies.

All the time and money you waste trying to be Jack-of-all-trades are more efficiently spent by delegating tasks to others and freeing up your schedule to create strategic growth plans for your business.

10. Take A Break To Refuel Your Energy

Sure, the hustle is attractive, but if you don’t know when to take a break, you’re only exposing yourself to innumerable mental turmoils. Like our body needs rest to rejuvenate, the human mind needs to switch off from the daily monotony for rejuvenation.

Research has shown that traveling is good for mental health and lowers stress levels. Working in business often calls for unnecessary stress and tension, which impacts every entrepreneur’s motivation.

In times like this, taking a break and going on a mini-vacation helps calm the mind and relax the soul.

11. Celebrate Your Failures

As much as it’s dreading to hit rock bottom while starting a business, it is when you celebrate your failures, you become motivated to do better in the business. True business leaders always celebrate and learn from their mistakes.

In the beginning, the motivation for starting a business is at its peak, but only after some time, you realize there’s so much to learn and implement in your startup.

Embracing your failures will save you from achieving perfectionism, which is a complete myth. When you accept to fail, you learn better and grow more professionally.

12. Learn From Others Business’ Mistakes

Starting your own business can be overwhelming in the beginning. The feeling of overwhelm can result in low motivation, which negatively affects your business growth, leading to making more mistakes.

However, taking help from a business coach and learning from their mistakes will save you from making the same mistake in your business.

In fact, you can study your competitors’ past and present business processes and analyze what mistakes they have committed in the past and how they worked on them.

Doing this will give you clarity about the things you should and shouldn’t do in your business.

13. Reward Small Victories As You Grow Your Small Business

Entrepreneurs often forget to pat their own back after achieving new successes in their business. Instead, they easily recognize other achievements rather than their own.

This is an extremely detrimental quality to have as it can result in self-doubt, loss of motivation, impostor syndrome while running a business.

It’s even more shocking that 84% of entrepreneurs and small business owners experience impostor syndrome at some point.

Entrepreneurs with impostor syndrome reject their achievements and worry about being found out due to their false belief of having a “Lack of skills.”

But that’s not the truth!

Your success is your own, and you should be proud of that.

Here’s how to deal with impostor syndrome in business and reward yourself instead:

  • Acknowledge your past achievements.
  • Maintain a gratitude journal and count your wins.
  • Believe that there’s always room for improvement.
  • Remember that a mind is a tool, and what it says is not the truth.

14. Find Your Inner Source Of Inspiration

Great startup leaders always provide motivation and inspire others to start their own entrepreneurship journey and solve society’s problems.

But how do you expect to inspire others if you lack the inspiration deep inside you?

To find inspiration, listen to podcasts, interviews, and read biographies of eminent leaders. Doing this will inspire you to do better in your field and will make you feel that you’re not alone in this journey.

Concluding Thoughts,

Without motivation, it’s near to impossible for your business to thrive in the long run. While it sounds tempting to start a business, motivation keeps an entrepreneur on track and accomplish their vision. Without motivation, any business success is unattainable.

Key Takeaways On How To Stay Motivated In Business

  • Staying motivated in your business is a constant task that every entrepreneur has to work on regularly.
  • Without motivation, it’s impossible to accomplish any business goals, whether it’s long term or short term.
  • Statistics show that 22.5% of small businesses fail in the first initial years. Hence, the importance of motivation in entrepreneurship is paramount.
  • To be truly motivated in your business, prioritizing your health is a necessity.
  • A true entrepreneur never compromises with their health and sleep. Instead, they strive for better health, which keeps them motivated to perform better in business.
  • Moreover, they work on their business smartly by outsourcing experts for additional tasks rather than doing everything independently.
  • Changing tracks in your business is mandatory because of the continuous growth of technology and market trends.
  • A good network is imperative whenever entrepreneurs lose motivation toward accomplishing their business goals.
  • Great entrepreneurs always know when to take breaks to keep themselves away from feeling burned out.
  • Lastly, celebrate your failures and remember why you started your business in the first place.

Why is motivation crucial in business?

While starting a business, motivation helps you strive to attain goals and turn your dream into reality.

How to stay motivated in business?

Here are a few tips to help you stay motivated while starting a business:

  • Prioritize your health.
  • Get enough sleep.
  • Learn to work on your business.
  • Change the track.
  • Start networking.
  • Go on vacations.
  • Celebrate your failures.
  • Remind yourself why you started your business in the first place.

How to stay motivated when my business has slow progress?

  • Analyze why your business is yielding slow results.
  • Plan out steps to improve the progress of your business.
  • Implement new actions to work on your business.
  • Monitor the progress.
  • Take help from experts for your business growth.

 

Silvia Constantin
Silvia Constantin
SEO and Content writer, translator, dreamer. These are some of the words which describe Silvia. She believes in the power of words - both for good and for evil. She also believes that we can all choose to use words in a positive manner, to share information, ideas, feelings, and truth. There is nothing more rewarding than to be the instrument through which knowledge is shared among other people. From this point of view, she considers herself in a privileged position of trust, which she strives never to betray.

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