Thursday, August 27, 2009

Maintain your Focus & Motivation

Sustainability is a word we hear frequently and most often in an environmental context. It’s a concept key to your small business too. Running a business for a few weeks or months can be achieved by many, but any worthwhile venture is going to need sustained effort. Here are some way to maintain your focus and motivation:

1. Remember the original, powerful reasons you decided to go into business for yourself, and this business in particular.
2. Refresh your business mission annually, and write out your objectives. Post them where you can see them.
3. Clarify your vision. Picture your successful business as if it already exists.
4. Action-plan your objectives. Doing something not quite perfectly is better than having a perfect plan you never execute.
5. Measure your progress. You can’t manage it if you don’t measure it.
6. Reward yourself for meeting goals – annually, monthly, why not even weekly?
7. Think of three. Be good to yourself and work on no more than three priorities at a time.
8. Develop a support system. Utilize a business coach, mastermind group, networking group or buddy-system to share helpful resources and encourage positive attitude.

Share with me some of the ways you maintain your focus & motivation. I will post ideas here for others to learn from.

All the best until next time,

CB