7 Ways to Stay Motivated During the Business Growth Process

So, you’re putting your business growth plan into action. You (think you) know what you need to do and you’ve got backup from your team members. But then, shortly after putting the plans to work, you find it difficult to push through the challenges. As a hard-working business owner, you tell yourself to get back in line but still can’t get motivated.

What gives?

Believe it or not, even the hardest working CEOs tend to lose motivation during the business growth process, and it has nothing to do with laziness. Rather, sinking motivation is a simple matter of human instincts!

That said, we’re sharing 7 simple strategies that top entrepreneurs use to overcome the instinct of sinking motivation as a response to the business growth process. Each strategy combats the instinct that switches off motivation.

Regardless of where you’re at in your business journey, you can use these 7 strategies to stay motivated!Without motivation, pushing through the inevitable challenges of business growth is nearly impossible.

Why Entrepreneurs Lose Motivation During the Growth Process

Before going any further, let’s address the elephant in the room: 90% of the time when an entrepreneur experiences low motivation during the business growth process, it’s directly caused by their natural human instinct to sink motivation as a result of experiencing major discomfort.

More specifically, human instinct senses discomfort, and then reduces motivation in an effort to protect the body from an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation.

If you know anything about human nature, it’s that it DESPISES discomfort. Any situation, person, or experience that it is unfamiliar with is labeled as uncomfortable. And not just uncomfortable, but potentially dangerous.

Also, if you know anything about the business growth process, it’s that it requires A LOT of discomfort. Think about it! You must put out a lot of resources, time, and energy into a process that may or may not turn out the way you want it to.

You might start the business growth process feeling totally unstoppable, but then suddenly feel your motivation sink because human nature is suddenly realizing that it’s entering uncomfortable territory!

In an effort to protect you from potential danger, your body decreases its release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter involved in motivation, so that you don’t continue on in the uncomfortable situation.

Despite the fact that business growth does require you to get quite uncomfortable, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s dangerous. However, while you’re totally aware of that, your human instinct isn’t!

Therefore, you must be willing to look past the response of your human instinct to realize that while you’re certainly in unfamiliar territory, you certainly aren’t in danger. Thankfully, these 7 strategies help you do just that.

Here’s 7 Ways to Stay Motivated During the Business Growth Stages

Whether you run a startup or a mature business, want to expand to new markets or increase current market penetration, or simply want to make more sales to hire new team members, you can use these 7 strategies to stay motivated during the business growth process. And not just stay motivated, but get more motivated than ever before!

Remember, sinking motivation is a human instinct that activates in direct response to business growth. So if sinking motivation is something that you’re currently feeling, just remember it’s a simple matter of human instinct. You’re not lazy, you’re just human!

That said, here’s exactly how to overcome instinct to help your business grow more in less time.

1. Taking Action

Here’s the thing, you can wait around as long as you want for low motivation to subside, but it’s never just going to shoot back up from 0 to 100 overnight.

Not only that, but the longer you sit around basking in your low motivation, the harder it is to get motivated again!

With this in mind, the absolute single-best thing you can do to increase your motivation is simply by taking action. Instead of trying to motivate yourself before taking action, take action to get motivated!

Believe it or not, action itself is what boosts motivation. If you can push through the momentary discomfort of getting started when you’re not feeling like it, then you’re truly one of the strongest CEOs out there.

Stop Overthinking

Again, you can sit around all day thinking about ways to boost motivation, but it probably won’t do you any good.

In fact, it’ll probably only cause you to start overthinking, and overthinking never does anybody any good! In the best-case scenario, you’ll just waste time thinking. Worst case scenario, you’ll feel scared, anxious, and even less motivated than before.

That said, instead of setting yourself up to overthink, simply take action. Sure, you should take a moment to accept the fact that you’re dealing with low motivation, but then you should choose to do something about it!

Letting yourself overthink for days on end without taking any action is like reading a self-help book, reflecting on it, but then never actually applying its principles to your daily life.

Action Itself Turns Up Motivation

I can’t emphasize it enough: If you’re currently suffering from low motivation, the way to increase it is by taking action! Instead of waiting around trying to increase motivation before taking action, take action to increase motivation.

How does taking action instantly increase motivation?

When you choose to take action despite having low motivation, you’re rewiring the pathways in your brain. Instead of succumbing to human instinct, you’re saying to human instinct, “Hey, this situation isn’t actually dangerous, so stop decreasing my motivation!”.

Moreover, taking action despite low motivation goes against your human instinct. Over time, your instinct will learn that it’s okay to take action despite the uncomfortable circumstances.

2. Clarifying Your Business Vision

It’s really challenging to take action when you don’t have a reason to take action.

For example, if you’re taking really difficult biology and chemistry classes in college but don’t have a true passion for science, then finding the motivation to study is challenging to say the least.

On the other hand, if you’re dead-set on getting admitted to a top-tier medical school because you have a vision of yourself being a world-renowned surgeon, then finding the motivation to study is quite easy.

Therefore, if you’re a CEO who doesn’t have a clear vision of what they want to have happen in the future, then of course you’ll have a hard time getting motivated! More specifically, if you don’t have a clear business vision, then finding the motivation to work is nearly impossible.

Start getting motivated by revisiting your business vision and clarifying exactly what you want. Allow yourself to dream about the impact that you’re trying to create through your business. And, don’t be afraid to think really, really big.

Also, don’t even think about strategic planning until you clarify your vision!

Why Are You Really Doing This?

It’s currently estimated that about 5% of the world’s population is entrepreneurs.

Why are so few people true business owners?

While there are many reasons why, one of primary ones is because choosing to start a new business requires a significant amount of commitment and courage. While most people have the capacity to become CEOs, most choose not to because they believe that it’s too hard and scary.

That said, if you’re already an entrepreneur, then you’ve already proven to yourself that you have a dream that is stronger than your fears. You’ve already proven to yourself that your business vision is important enough to sacrifice a sense of personal security.

Furthermore, make it a point every day to think about and meditate on your business vision. Channeling that image in your head will increase that strength and resilience that motivated you to become a business owner in the first place.

Clear Out the Fog

The most successful businesses are built on the clearest visions.

CEOs who achieve the most amount of success are the ones who know exactly what impact that they’re trying to make on the world through their business.

Unless you have not just a vision, but a clear vision, you’ll never dig up enough motivation to keep moving forward (or achieve much business growth at all).

If your vision still isn’t clear, then don’t even think about developing any type of business strategy or setting any business goals! Instead, start with a clear vision and then build out from there.

3. Setting Energy-Based Goals

How often does this happen to you: You set what you believe are ambitious business growth goals that’ll help take your company to the next level. While you’re super motivated right off the bat, that motivation starts to slip... Why? Because, instead of kicking your goals in the butt, you’re finding it extremely difficult to accomplish them. As a result, you feel bad about yourself and start to lose motivation.

What gives?

Most CEOs fail to achieve their goals and then subsequently lose motivation to accomplish them for two key reasons, including:

1. They overestimate the importance of goals; and
2. They set unrealistic goals.

First off, goals are important, but they’re not everything. Goals are simply a means to accomplishing the business vision! Believing that goals are more than a simple means to the end is like asking for motivation to go down the tubes.

Second, most CEOs set wildly unrealistic goals, particularly in terms of energy. More specifically, they grossly underestimate the amount of energy it takes to accomplish goals. As a result, they don’t accomplish their goals and then feel bad about themselves.

Instead of letting goals work against you and your motivation, use them as a tool to increase motivation!

Most Business Owners Never Accomplish Their Goals

Here’s the thing: Goals are important, but they’re not everything.

Does this come as a bit of a shocker?

These days, it seems like all the online gurus and podcasters rave about how goals are the most important business success factor.

However, they’re wrong!

Moreover, visions are the single most powerful and important business success factor. Goals are simply a means to accomplishing that vision.

Ultimately, a goal is a box that needs to be checked, while a vision is an ultimate experience that you’re creating through your business. More than that, it’s the reason you started a business in the first place.

Instead of looking to your goals for motivation (which, again, are simply boxes that get checked), look to your vision!

Energy-Based Goals

If you want to start setting accomplishable goals, start setting energy-based goals.

To do that, realistically estimate how much energy, particularly the time and resources, it’ll take to accomplish the goal. Then, set the goal based on that estimated amount of energy.

By doing so, you’re more likely to accomplish the goal. With each goal accomplished on time, your motivation ticks upward.

4. Creating Solid Business Habits

You aren’t in control of business growth. Rather, your habits are in control of business growth!

You can be the most hard-working CEO on the planet, but if you have terrible habits, then all that hard work will go to waste.

Any CEO of a growing business should create a set of business growth habits. Then they should consistently implement those habits every day to manifest their desired growth results.

Most importantly, habits reinforce motivation. When you wake up every day knowing exactly what habits you need to implement to achieve business growth, then motivation comes naturally.

Habits Create Results

What makes habits so powerful for business and life success?

Habits are small, calculated actions you take each day to accomplish goals. Over time, it’s those small and calculated actions that accumulate to accomplish the goal.

For example, if your goal is to increase new customer retention rates from 50% to 90%, then small habits such as sending out regular newsletters and posting helpful content on your website will likely make the most difference.

Moreover, it’s the small changes applied consistently that make the greatest impact!

From now on, if you’re going to monitor any business-growth metric, monitor your business growth habits, and whether or not you're doing them each day.

5. CEO Coaching

In short, CEO coaching is perhaps the most straightforward shot to strong and sustainable motivation.

As somebody who is either a current or former CEO themselves, coaches understand exactly what it’s like to be dealing with low motivation while going through the company growth process.

Therefore, they know exactly what you need to do to overcome that slumping motivation!

Unlike mentors who may or may not be business owners themselves, CEO coaches can empathize with your experiences because, again, they’re either current or former CEOs themselves.

Sometimes, overcoming low motivation is a simple matter of getting the right people in your corner, and there’s no better person to have in your corner than a CEO coach!

Everybody Needs a Sounding Board

Real talk: CEO coaching is about more than optimizing your business model and coming up with ideas for new product development. Rather, CEO coaching is about helping you become the absolute best version of yourself on personal and professional levels.

Oftentimes, CEOs are missing out on one very, very important personal-development tool that helps them become the best version of themselves. That factor is a reliable sounding board.

By a sounding board, we mean a person who is there to simply sit back and hear you out, so that you have an opportunity to get stress off your chest.

Unfortunately, many CEOs don’t have a reliable sounding board because they don’t want to break the strong-man persona that CEOs are often expected to have.

Without a reliable sounding board, stress often overshadows motivation. The simple answer is to decrease stress by sounding off to a CEO coach!

Catching Blind Spots In Your Business Growth Strategy

In addition to filling in that sounding-board role, coaches help spot blind spots in your growth strategy.

Oftentimes, filling those blind spots is exactly what CEOs need to increase their motivation.

For example, if you’ve put together a growth strategy aimed at increasing your market share but it’s not going as well as you’d hoped, you’re likely going to have a lot of stress on your plate. Thankfully, a coach can easily come in and point out potential blind spots. Once those spots are filled, you can finally stop stressing about why the strategy isn’t working and allow motivation to come through again.

Furthermore, a coach will come in and remove stressors that are blocking your motivation.

6. Focusing on Sales

At the end of the day, sales growth = business growth.

Want to expand your target market? Make more sales in the newly defined market. Want to increase market penetration in your current customer base? Make more sales!

No matter which way you look at it, business growth almost always comes down to sales growth.

However, many CEOs often get lost in the weeds during the business growth process. When they’re in the weeds, they lose focus of the most important business growth factors (AKA, sales-related factors)!

As a result, they feel lost and don’t know which direction to head in next. When they don’t know where to go, motivation starts to sink.

Instead of allowing yourself to get sucked in by the small, less important business growth factors, put most of your attention on sales. When you’re focused on sales, motivation naturally starts to increase because you’re able to find your way out of the weeds.

B2B Sales Training

You may be thinking to yourself, “I’m already focusing on sales but I still feel lost and have low motivation!”

If that’s the case, then consider diving into B2B sales training. And, no... We’re not talking about a basic, run-of-the-mill, pre-recorded webinar training taught by a mysterious online guru.

Instead, we’re talking about a foolproof, live training course taught by an industry insider with a track record of producing amazing results.

Remember, sales growth = business growth, so sales training might be the single most important factor to your company’s growth success.

7. Work-Life Balance

Forget about what you see on social media or read about in books; CEOs aren’t super-human.

They’re prone to the same burnt-out feeling that every other person in life is prone to experiencing, particularly the kind of burnout that stems from having little to no work-life balance.

Not finding a solid balance between work and life is like asking for motivation to go down the tubes.

Unfortunately, many CEOs fall for the super-human narrative on social media, and resultantly forget about striking any sense of work-life balance. In the end, they only end up completely burnt out.

Believe it or not, but finding time to focus on life over work can actually boost business-related motivation. 

For example, you might be tempted to sneak in a few extra hours of work at night while sacrificing sleep, but sacrificing sleep will only hurt your motivation in the long run.

On the other hand, getting a full night’s sleep on a regular basis might force you to sacrifice a little extra work time, but it’ll actually make you more motivated to work in the long run.

From now on, consider striking a work-life balance as a new business growth habit.

Turn Up the Enthusiasm

Simply put, CEOs who achieve solid, long-term business growth and feel constantly motivated throughout the process are the ones who are totally enthusiastic about what they do.

By enthusiasm, we’re talking about that deep-rooted joy you experience from doing what you’re most passionate about. When you’re enthusiastic about something, finding motivation is like cake.

Unfortunately, having little to no work-life balance can undercut the motivation that stems from enthusiasm.

If you’re so overwhelmed with work and never give yourself a personal outlet, enthusiasm and motivation inevitably drop.

That said, turn up the enthusiasm to turn up motivation by giving yourself a BREAK. While it might seem counterproductive at first, it could be the thing that makes the most positive difference in your success.

Final Thoughts on Motivation During the Business Growth Process

Bottom line: Unless you’re a social media guru who claims to be happy and motivated 24/7, then you’ve certainly experienced low motivation during your entrepreneurship journey before.

Once again, don’t beat yourself up for this, because it’s simply a natural human response to the discomforts associated with business growth!

However, just because it’s a natural instinct doesn’t mean you should let it get the best of you. That is, at least, if you seriously want to take your business to the next level!