How To Keep Yourself & Your Employees Motivated

Lack of motivation and "drive" is often a big problem for business owners, both in their own work and in their employees' work. Below are a few action items that will help motivate everyone in the office.

1. Set a clear goal

A lot of times when people are told to set a goal they pick an arbitrary measure of success, for example, "I want to be rich" or "I want to be in shape". But when it comes to motivating yourself it is very easy to see that arbitrary goals don't help. When you have an arbitrary goal it is like running a race without a finish line, you're going to quit eventually. Setting a specific goal and giving yourself a finish line will help push you to improve performance and attitude to obtain that goal. For example, I want a Red Model 3 Tesla with the extended battery, all white interior, and full self driving. With this goal in mind I have something to push towards and I start to optimize my day.

2. Give yourself something to run from

A lot of the time, a goal to run towards isn't enough. When this is the case it is useful to have something that you are running away from, because fear is just as good a motivator as desire. Taking my Tesla example, I might just not be in the mood for a Tesla one day, when that happens I need to have something to run away from. Maybe I don't want to drive an old beat up car that tops out at 70 mph. Now that I have something to run towards and something to run away from, it is a lot less likely that I will flat out quit the race.

3. Make your goals obtainable, but still ambitious

I am all for setting big goals, but it is very easy to set a goal that is too big and starts to become arbitrary. If you say I want to have as much money as Bill Gates, that is a very specific goal but it is too big a goal to easily quantify. After a certain number of zeros our brains don't even recognize the scope of the number we are looking at. This is often just as discouraging as it is motivating. Set a goal that would be ambitious but not just out of this world crazy, and then after you accomplish that you can move on to bigger and better goals.

4. Make a plan

Setting a plan into action is not only a way to improve productivity, it actually improves motivation as well. Think about it, doesn't it feel good to check an item off of your to do list? I mean sometimes I will do something and then add it to my to do list just so that I can check it off. Setting a detailed plan will stream line production, yes, but it will also give you reassurance that you can accomplish the goal that you have set which is very motivating.

I hope this post helps and I would love to hear if you have any input or suggestions of your own.

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