There’s a reason that people idealize self-employment. The best boss you can have is yourself: you choose your hours and your workload. It sounds like a dream, and every day more and more people make this dream a reality.

There has been an exponential spike in the number of self-employed individuals and business owners in recent years. However, it isn’t all roses. 

A lot of new businesses or start-ups nosedive after just a few years. It isn’t because the formula of self-employment doesn’t work though…far from it.

The failure  of these businesses is—more often than not—a lack of motivation. Complacency can set in after just a few months or even years of working for yourself. True, there’s no boss yelling at you. But it can be hard to motivate yourself.  It’s things like rigid schedules that you tried to escape in the first place. But sometimes you need discipline, and discipline comes easier when it’s external. So sometimes people end up going back into the workforce. That doesn’t always have to be how it ends, though. Finding how to stay motivated through all this is very possible.

Say you’ve been working for yourself for a while. Maybe you’re a writer trying to make it yourself, but you’re suddenly losing your motivation to write. Or perhaps you’re an artist that doesn’t feel that they have a masterpiece hiding in themselves after all. Whatever you are, you’ll wonder why you’ve suddenly lost your motivation and maybe how you could find it again. 

The drive that helped give you the much-needed push to leave your old job and start something for yourself may no longer be there, and now you’re Googling ‘how to find motivation’ or ‘how to go about staying motivated’.

According to one study the primary reason that people decided to stop their businesses was because of one thing; stagnation. More often than not, they felt like there was no progress in their life or business and didn’t know how to find motivation again.

It is important to note that in most cases, this wasn’t true. The progress may have been there, just not as evident as it was at their old job. It may also be that they found staying motivated a tad bit difficult and don’t know how to find motivation anymore.

Another consideration is that they also might not have felt any progress at their old job. So they put pressure on themselves to feel progress in their new endeavor, and that pressure killed it.

When we don’t see our expected results, our motivation decreases drastically, and it’s hard staying motivated or moving forward anymore. The best way to combat this is by finding a way to stay motivated, and you don’t have to search any further than this article.

The first and one of the more obvious ways of staying motivated is to create a plan that you can follow. Once you have a plan, you’ll see what’s achievable.

Creating a plan and putting it into writing will help you stay on course and will work a lot better than winging it. A plan will give you the feeling of consistency and this, of course, helps you on how to stay motivated if you are self-employed. Examples of plans could include big picture plans like how much money you’d like to make for the year, and smaller picture plans like how your day and week goes and what you focus on each hour of the day.

When you’re self-employed, you usually have a lot to do by yourself. Even if you have help, there are still several responsibilities that will fall on your shoulders. However daunting they may be, these tasks can always be divided into a few pieces at a time. Taking them step by step will give you the feeling of accomplishment that will help keep you on the right track.

So set smaller goals for yourself, smaller targets that you can reach in a shorter amount of time. It not only helps you feel better about your progress, but it can also eliminate procrastination. It’s easier to do smaller tasks as they come up, whereas focusing only on bigger goals can lead to putting them off because they seem too daunting.

You may be tempted to work a lot if you’re your own boss. It is partly psychological and widespread. It will happen because you feel that there is a lot you have to prove to others and maybe even to yourself. In this way, you are more inclined to overwork without any breaks.

You can start to feel down when you work at such a rapid pace and do not get immediate results. You might get discouraged and start working less, and this causes your productivity to stagnate. 

The way to fix this is by separating your work hours from your leisure hours and keeping to them as diligently as possible. The time to take for yourself is just as important as the time you use for work. This is one great way to stay motivated if you are self employed.

There is only so much you can do. However, it will never help you to focus on the inadequacies that you face. For example, let’s say you’ve completed several projects, but you’re not satisfied with the way one of your tasks turned out. Here you are with nine tasks accomplished, yet you beat yourself up about the tenth. That should not be how things are done, and it doesn’t help when you are looking for how to stay motivated. 

It’s good to acknowledge weaknesses so you can improve upon them, but dwelling on them doesn’t help.

It’s important to recognize your strengths, because they are just as crucial for your progress. Moreover, the knowledge that there is a lot you can do will motivate you to do even more, and recognizing how your strengths facilitate your achievements helps you stay motivated.

Everybody needs help sometimes with some of the things they can’t do. People like to say they made it on their own or did everything themselves, but at what cost? Running your own business always goes better when you get support where you need it. Sure, you can file your own taxes. But an accountant can help you save more money because they know the nuances of tax law. Sure you can market your creativity yourself. But are you good at marketing?

So do not be afraid to ask for the help you need. Know your strengths, but also know where they end. It will move things along a lot quicker than you can even imagine, and you will be able to reach your goals even faster with others in your corner, giving you support.

There may be an ultimate goal in sight, but you need to understand that there are also times when you can celebrate just how far you’ve come. Just the mere fact that you’re trying to make it on your own is a sheer testament to your tenacity.

Whenever you reach a milestone, celebrate. Whenever you pass a hurdle, celebrate. Whenever you make progress, celebrate. These celebrations will instill this culture of appreciating and building on success part of our psyche. In this way, you are less likely to look down on yourself because now you believe and trust in your abilities.

It is a social age, by any standard. And human beings are inherently social creatures. The fact that we can communicate with people around the world so quickly today helps to reinforce this notion. So why not stay in touch with those around you?

It is pretty easy to get lost in our work and not have time for anything else, but if you are willing to follow the steps that have already been explained above, then this is another essential one. Take out the time to immerse yourself in the world around you.

Try to meet up with friends, go to social gatherings and parties, and have fun. You will feel better, and you might also establish connections with people that may help you in your business. Networking with other business owners and hearing their stories also helps you with the issue of staying motivated at your work, along with learning from their experiences.

To succeed, you must fail. Even though none of us wants to experience failure in our lives, a measure of failure is inevitable most of the time. It may be failing to meet a deadline or not meeting a quota you have set. These small failures and even a few big ones can sometimes pile up to create huge mountains in our minds.

We might feel that we cannot do any good if we choose to dwell on these failures. The best way to counter this is to let go of how we feel about these events. Instead, we need to understand them and learn from our mistakes. Then push them away and not think of ourselves as failures. Instead, isolate these events as learning experiences and know that you can do better as time progresses.

This isn’t about just taking breaks while you work; it’s more than that. This is about taking care of yourself. Just a few hours, days or even weeks to focus on your well-being and not doing anything work-related. This works like magic especially when you are in a funk and looking for a way to stay motivated if you are self employed.

You could try going to the gym from time to time to keep yourself healthy. You could join a community college class or join a book club to learn something new. There are a variety of sports that you can pick from.

The best part about all of this is that you get to choose something that fits into your work schedule and doesn’t affect your productivity. It creates a life outside of your work, which is essential if you are looking for how to stay motivated.

Your outlook on life and the things you do will play a big part in how things go. It may seem easier to have a grim take on life or expect the worst, but you shouldn’t do that. When you expect the worst, the worst is often what you get. And when things start to repeatedly go wrong, it brings in the complacency that we are trying to avoid in the first place.

Staying positive keeps you happy for longer. If you live, play, and work with a much more positive outlook on life, you will ultimately be happier. It keeps you constantly motivated, with fewer instances of you asking yourself what the point of your endeavor is.

People are always impacted by the things that go on around them, especially when you’re trying to cut it on your own. Unfortunately, these things often get you down more than they should, but the points above will be enough to get you out of your rut and push you back into staying motivated at your work.

Being your own boss gives you the freedom that we may try to abuse once in a while. If you can stay disciplined. You need to provide yourself with the same respect that you would give to an employer.

When you commit to something, try your best to keep to it and do not shift deadlines for yourself just because you can. Follow the tips here, and you will hardly have a problem on how to find motivation. You will stay on top of things and accomplish the goals that you have made.

Have you had an unmotivated phase in your business or at work? Times that you felt like quitting? What are the things that helped you get through this phase? Which ones of the motivational tips for self-employed do you think you’ll try?
Let us know in the comments below!

If you would love to read more on motivation tips, you can check out the following sites:

Harvard Business School;
International Journal of Economics;
Ligs University.