Another Year, Another List of New Year’s Resolutions
It’s ironic that I have the word “motivates” in my title, since I have been avoiding writing this blog for two days now. It got me thinking, are there tasks that the super successful like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos have a hard time motivating themselves to complete? Or are they just naturally motivated to get done what needs to get done because they are the Super Unicorns of our generation and these things come naturally? I am sure they both have “people” to handle most of those things now at this stage of their careers, but what about when they first found their niche? Were they always motivated to hustle? Maybe some of you have the answers to these questions through another article or Google search, if so please share. For now, I choose to simply ponder.
Based on my experience, just because you own your own business, doesn’t mean you are motivated to hustle. Prior to starting my own company, I worked for a few folks that didn’t seem invested in their own business. “Hustle” wasn’t even in the vocabulary. Don’t get me wrong, the desire to succeed was there, however the implementation needed to make that success happen just…. well, it wasn’t present. In fact, with all of my activity, constant questioning, long hours and cockamamie ideas, I often felt out of place. It turns out, I was indeed out of place, and it was simply time to take my hustle elsewhere (even if I did have to be hit over the head and practically escorted out of the building. Letting go? Not a strong suit).
So what do you do to combine that desire to succeed, create, innovate, etc. and match it with the hustle necessary to take major action and make it happen? How do you cross that line? How do you get motivated? I thought I would share some of the things I do and have done to motivate my hustle. This is the short list:
Read – Some of you may say this is boring, but for me it works. Whether I am reading other blogs, business books or novels, I often find myself inspired by other people’s work. I love being reminded that anything is possible, and I can often find that reminder in a book.
Meditation – finding just 15 minutes a day to really go inside myself and meditate….okay, not really. This is a lie. I don’t meditate. I give it a good go about once every 4 months or so. But I wind up falling asleep or making mental to do lists. I hear lots of entrepreneurs are doing this. I’m not one of them. You should check it out for yourself. Let me know how it goes. Don’t fall asleep.
Work Out – it’s an amazing phenomenon, however, when I am working out regularly, I really do feel on point in other aspects of my life. I eat better, I think more clearly, and it really reflects in my work. I don’t do it as consistently as I should, but when I do…watch out!
Get Up Early – Yes, it’s true, getting up early can really get your productivity back on track. If you are up early, you can read, meditate, work out…you catch my drift, right? Even if you aren’t doing one of my “motivate your hustle” activities, getting up early allows you to have some quiet, uninterrupted time to get your head on straight. It really is so valuable in our fast paced environments. And if you aren’t a morning person, you can be trained. I was never a morning person, then suddenly I found myself training for a half marathon in the dead of summer in Florida. The only time to run without getting heat exhaustion was before dawn. It strangely reset my whole gig. Now, mornings aren’t so bad! So quit whining and try it.
Dig In – this is the last one, and the most important. If you find yourself stalled in front of a big project, or task or crossroads of some kind, the best thing to do is simply dig in. Just start somewhere. You can always go back and adjust, but if you don’t jump in and get some activity started around whatever it is you are trying to start, you will be forever stalled. There is a saying, “activity begets activity”, and it is so true; one activity leads to another and another and another, and next thing you know, you have finished that blog you have been avoiding for the last two days!
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