Starting a new company brings initial excitement, which can soon wear off if desired results keep escaping the founders. There are also plenty of wanna-be entrepreneurs, who dream about launching their own company, but something keeps them from taking the leap: fear, insecurity, or simply the lack of motivation.
Launching a new business is not easy. You give up the comforts of secure life and stable paycheck, and delve into an unknown, unpredictable abyss. If that wasn’t enough, 9 out of 10 startups fail in America. Some of the top reasons for failure involve losing focus and lack of passion (Fortune magazine, 2014), while main challenges have to do with lack of market need, not enough cash and problems within the team, among other things.
In order to safely get to the other shore of the river and to avoid being eaten by sharks, one needs one thing above all the rest: motivation, according to Inga Stasiulionyte, former Olympian athlete and founder of Onbotraining, an online training course that helps people achieve their goals.
Ms. Stasiulionyte is no stranger to feeling stuck in life. Since she¹s been training with some of the best coaches in the planet during 20 years of her sports career, the former athlete wanted to convey her knowledge about motivational psychology and training to her own clients, but that was not as easy as it first seemed. Without proper motivation from her coaches, it felt extremely difficult to take the first steps in creating her own company.
I looked back at my days as an athlete and understood what was different. I remembered what made me push myself even when I didn’t want to. The difference was that as an athlete I had structured days and a coach to report to. Structure keeps us focused and a coach keeps pushing and challenging us, says Ms. Stasiulionyte.
After having passed this stage, and founded a successful company that provides the services of an online coach, the former athlete offers her recipe for structured path to success. Here’s what you need to keep in mind:
- Focus on commitment, not motivation. Just how committed are you to your goal? How important is it for you, and what are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it? If you find yourself fully committed, motivation will follow.
- Seek knowledge, not results. If you focus on the excitement of discovery, improving, exploring, and experimenting, your motivation will always be fueled. If you focus only on results, such as becoming an owner of a successful company, your motivation will be like weather – it will die the minute you hit a storm. So the key is to focus on the journey, not the destination. Keep thinking what you are learning along the way and what you can improve.
- Make the learning journey fun! It’s an awesome game! The minute you make it super serious, there’s a big chance it will start carrying a heavy emotional weight, you will lose perspective and become stuck again.
- Get rid of stagnating thoughts, related to doubts, fears and insecurities. Thoughts influence feelings, and feelings determine how we view our work. We have a lot of thoughts in our heads, and we always have a choice on which ones to focus on: the ones that will make us emotionally stuck (fears, doubts) or the ones that will make us move forward (excitement, experimenting, trying new things, challenging yourself).
- Use your imagination. Next step after getting rid of negative thoughts is to use our imagination. When things go well, we are full of positive energy, and when we are experiencing difficulties, we need to be even more energetic! Therefore, rename your situation. If you keep repeating to yourself I hate my work, guess which feelings these words will evoke? However, it¹s a matter of imagination! You can always find something to learn even from the worst boss in the world at the most boring job. I have a great exercise for you: just for three days, think and say positive things only. See what happens.
- Stop being nice to yourself. Motivation means action and action brings results. Sometimes, our actions fail to bring the results we want. So we prefer to be nice to ourselves and not to put ourselves in a difficult situation. We wait for perfect timing, for an opportunity, while we drive ourselves into stagnation and sometimes even into depression. Get out there, challenge yourself, do something that you want to do even if you are afraid.
- Get rid of distractions. Meaningless things and distractions will always be in our way, especially those easy, usual things we would rather do instead of focusing on new challenging and meaningful projects. Learn to focus on what is the most important. Write a list of time wasters and keep yourself accountable not to do them! For example, limit the time you spend watching TV or browsing social media pages.
- Don¹t rely on others. You should never expect someone else to do it for you, not even your partner, friend or boss. They are all busy with their own needs. No one will make you happy or achieve your goals for you. It’s all on you. So roll up the sleeves and let’s go!
- Plan. Know your three steps forward. You do not need more! Fill out your weekly calendar, noting when you will do what and how. When-what-how is super important to schedule. Revise how was your day by what you learned and what you could improve.
- Protect yourself from burnout. It’s easy to burn out when you are very motivated. Observe yourself to recognize any signs of tiredness, and take action to rest. Our bodies and mind rest when we schedule relaxation and fun time into our weekly calendar. Do diverse tasks, keep switching between something creative and logical, something physical and still, working alone and with a team. Switch locations. Meditate, or just take deep breaths, close our eyes, focus on one thing for 5 minutes.
You lack motivation not because you are lazy or don’t have a goal. Even the biggest stars, richest businessmen or the most accomplished athletes get lazy sometimes. What makes them motivated is the curiosity about how much better or faster they can get. So above all, be curious and this will lead you to your goals and success.
If you are ready for a motivational coach to help you with your life goals, try Onbotraining, our 30-day online training course.
To find out more, please visit www.onbotraining.com.
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About Onbotraining:
Onbotraining is an online coaching tool that has a goal to inspire and motivate people to reach their dreams. Developed by an Olympian, Inga Stasiulionyte, and a motivational writer/ entrepreneur Alex Monaco, Onbotraining is a very hands-on approach that provides 30 daily training sessions and personalized exercises to help people achieve their goals, get rid of inner barriers and inspire positive thinking. Onbotraining is based on proven training methods, which are used to train Olympic athletes. The Onbotraining course has already been successfully used by University of Monaco, University of Southern California, and other educational institutions. The program has been awarded by MIT during startup bootcamp challenge in 2014.
