How do you keep from getting bored or demotivated in business?

Building a business is rarely about creating an overnight success. And even when it is, you still need to sustain that success day in and day out.

So it’s perhaps not surprising that our enthusiasm for working on our businesses can falter from time to time, and we can find ourselves wondering how on earth we’re supposed to stay motivated.

Perhaps you’ve started developing a new offer, or decided to get serious about your marketing, and initially you’re full of enthusiasm. But a few weeks later, the excitement has worn off, progress seems painfully slow, and suddenly there are all sorts of other things you’d rather be doing.

Sound familiar?

What is motivation and where does it come from?

We often talk about motivation as though it’s some elusive quality that may or may not appear.

And if you’ve spent any time teaching, you’ll probably have come across plenty of books and training sessions about how to motivate students. Much of the advice revolves around making learning enjoyable, interesting and rewarding.

There’s something in that. We’re generally more motivated to do things that we enjoy, that feel meaningful or that we expect will lead to something we want. And we’re often rather less enthusiastic about things that feel unpleasant, difficult or threatening.

As freelancers and small business owners, we can use this to our advantage by making sure, as far as possible, that our businesses are centred around work we genuinely enjoy.

But there’s a bit of a problem with that.

Reality bites

However much you love your work, there are always going to be things you need to do that you don’t particularly enjoy, or perhaps even actively dislike.

Some of those things are simply boring. Others don’t play to our strengths.

And very often, the thing we’re trying to avoid is some form of fear.

Running your own business necessarily involves quite a lot of stepping out of, or at least stretching, your comfort zone.

You might need to put yourself out there on social media, talk to potential clients about your prices, launch an offer that you’ve spent months developing, or follow up with someone who’s expressed an interest in working with you.

None of those things is necessarily dangerous, of course, but they can still feel surprisingly uncomfortable.

And our comfort zones aren’t necessarily all that comfortable anyway. They’re simply familiar. We know what to expect, and there’s a certain reassurance in that.

So sometimes, when we find it hard to stay motivated, what’s actually happening is that part of us wants to avoid the uncertainty or risk involved in doing something new.

Once we recognise this, it starts to make sense how we can simultaneously REALLY want to develop a new digital course, for example, and yet somehow never actually get around to doing it.

We’re motivated by the idea of having the course finished, being able to sell it and perhaps freeing up some of our time.

But we’re considerably less enthusiastic about the possibility that nobody will buy it, that people might criticise it, or that we’ll spend months creating something that doesn’t work out.

And so we put it off.

Maybe we decide we need to do a bit more research first, or take another course ourselves, or spend a few hours making the slides look prettier.

All perfectly respectable activities, of course. But they may also be a rather effective way of avoiding the thing we’re actually nervous about.

Which means that if we wait until we feel wonderfully motivated to tackle the project, we could be waiting a very long time.

Don’t wait until you feel motivated

So, the answer is to stop relying quite so heavily on motivation and start setting up systems that help you take action whether you’re feeling particularly enthusiastic or not.

Essentially, plan what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it.

Rather than telling yourself that you’re going to spend more time marketing your business, decide that you’re going to spend an hour on Tuesday morning writing an email to your list.

Or instead of vaguely intending to develop your new course, decide that on Thursday afternoon you’re going to work out the main learning outcomes and sketch out the structure.

The more specific you can be, the less you have to rely on suddenly feeling inspired.

And when the time comes, it helps to recognise that you may well try to sabotage or undermine your own efforts.

Not necessarily because you’re lazy or lack discipline, but because the task feels difficult, uncomfortable or simply less appealing than doing something else.

Once you know how that tends to happen for you, you can take steps to make it easier to get started.

For example, you could try the Pomodoro technique, working in short, concentrated bursts with regular breaks. Or promise yourself that you’ll just spend ten minutes on the task and see how it goes.

Quite often, once you’ve actually started, the resistance begins to disappear and you find yourself getting into the flow.

You could also shut down distracting email and social media notifications, put your phone somewhere out of reach, or arrange to work alongside someone else so you’ve got a bit of external accountability.

None of these things is particularly revolutionary. But they can be surprisingly effective because they reduce the number of opportunities you have to talk yourself out of doing the work.

What if you’re genuinely bored or demotivated?

Of course, there’s another possibility worth considering.

Perhaps you’re struggling to motivate yourself because what you’re doing genuinely isn’t particularly interesting or rewarding any more.

Maybe you’ve been delivering the same kind of lessons for years and you’re ready for a new challenge. Or you’ve been pursuing a particular business goal because you thought you should, rather than because it’s something you actually want.

In that case, forcing yourself to stick to the plan may not be the best answer.

It might be worth stepping back and asking yourself whether the goal still makes sense, and whether there’s something you could change to make the work more enjoyable or meaningful.

Because there’s a difference between avoiding something worthwhile because it feels uncomfortable, and continuing to pursue something that no longer fits with what you want from your business.

And you need to be able to recognise which is which.

Motivation often follows action

Ultimately, I think it’s useful to stop treating motivation as something we have to wait for before we can get anything done.

Sometimes we’re motivated and enthusiastic, and the work flows beautifully.

Other times we need to make a plan, remove a few distractions and persuade ourselves to get started, even though we’d much rather be doing something else.

And very often, once we start taking action and seeing a bit of progress, the motivation begins to come back.

So, if there’s something you’ve been putting off, perhaps the question isn’t how to make yourself feel more motivated.

Maybe it’s simply, ‘What’s the smallest useful step I could take towards this today?’

Then put it in your diary, make it as easy as possible to get started, and see what happens.

And if you discover that you really don’t want to do it at all, perhaps that’s worth paying attention to as well.

Want to feel more confident running your business?

If you sometimes find yourself procrastinating, doubting your decisions or getting in your own way, I’ve brought together some practical resources to help.

In my Feel more confident running my business Resource Centre, you’ll find articles and videos about self-doubt, motivation, unhelpful beliefs and developing the confidence to make decisions and take action in your freelance business.

Explore the Mindset and Confidence resources