This is a dangerous place as it’s easy to con yourself, to make excuses and to be less brave than you could be about your business, your goals and your dreams. You see, a lot of the time we are driven by ‘away from’ motivation, by fear essentially. Our brains are designed to keep us alive – not to keep us stretched, happy and fulfilling our dreams. That’s fine, but as soon as you move far enough ‘away from’ the perceived fear, pain or the thing you don’t want, your motivation goes away and you settle back on to the familiar path.
Many people spend their entire business lives repeating this cycle, which is at best hard work and at worse demoralising, demotivating and ultimately destroys your business.
How do you break the cycle?
Some people are lucky enough to be very ‘towards’ motivated, they are driven by aspiration, desire to achieve and what the impact they want to have. I’m one of those people, and here are my tips for being ‘towards’ focused:
- Do things that matter more to you than your fears.
- Be very clear about the outcome you want – it’s very hard to drive towards something that you can’t visualise or feel.
- Be persistent in your pursuit of your goal or dream, but flexible about how you get there. If one way is not working don’t be afraid to walk a different path.
- Know what you are prepared to do and what you are not prepared to do and stand by your values. It’s no good planning something in to your business that jars with your values because chances are you won’t do it.
- Keep your excuses in check, they can quickly become your habits and your default position.
Bottom line – it often takes more effort to stay in the same place, by doing the same things than it does to grow. Yet growing can feel more risky, especially if you already have a following, some success, and financial responsibilities to uphold. If you are OK with OK, that’s cool; but if you really want to leave an imprint behind, to make a difference in your corner of the world, then you probably need to step up and act as if your business survival depends on whatever it is you are doing.
If your business survival did depend on it, what would you do differently in your business? Go do that today!
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