040 What Motivates You ON Your Business
This episode explores the importance of identifying personal motivations to stay focused and disciplined in running your business.
Topics Discussed This Episode:
00:00: Introduction to the importance of identifying personal motivations.
04:00: Differentiating intrinsic vs extrinsic motivations and their impact.
08:00: Challenges of self-motivation and the role of accountability partners.
12:00: Strategies to overcome procrastination and build discipline.
16:00: The importance of reflection, weekly reviews, and setting realistic goals.
20:00: Balancing the need for recognition with business objectives.
22:40: Closing thoughts on finding and maintaining motivation.
Discover how understanding your motivating factors can help you align your personal and business goals more effectively. Learn practical strategies to balance internal and external motivations, and take control of your business direction with confidence.
This episode dives into the critical role motivation plays in small business success. The discussion highlights how motivations evolve over time and how factors like intrinsic drivers (personal growth and passion) and extrinsic drivers (financial rewards and recognition) shape business decisions. Emphasis is placed on recognising your unique motivating factors, such as the need for human connection or achieving a sense of accomplishment, and aligning them with your daily business activities.
Listeners will also gain practical advice on creating routines that foster discipline, such as weekly reviews to plan and reflect, and using external accountability to stay on track. The episode challenges entrepreneurs to take control of their business operations rather than being reactive, ultimately leading to sustained growth and personal satisfaction.
Set aside time to identify your key motivators and take a proactive step by implementing a weekly review process to align your actions with your goals.
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0:00
I'm not very good when it comes to work that involves my own business, but when it comes to my client stuff, work as fast as I can, work as consistently as I can get it out on time,
0:11
but I'm my own client, and I could get away with stuff because it's me.
0:18
So if you're coming across that yourself in your business, or in your solo or micro business,
0:25
maybe either get a friend or a family member, or maybe even hiring someone who is maybe training to be a business manager, just get them on the side, get them once a week and just have someone else to rely on, or, better yet, find your motivating factors, because that's what's helped me over the past, honestly, three months, is figuring out what, in relation to my business, motivates me. Now, apologies, I'm going to pull this out for a little bit, and I'm going to run it because I've had a couple of questions about that this week at networking events and a couple of my mentoring sessions. What I mean by that is there are plenty of things that can motivate you very closely linked to your values, to be perfectly honest. And this is not your business. This is you as the person in the business, working in the business. So what I mean by this is over your lifetime, and say, for example, when I was younger, I was very food and money hungry. So I was very
1:18
motivated by money, which equaled food,
1:22
because I very much had to survive and fend for myself for a very large part of growing up. So food, money meant food. Therefore I was very focused on money and getting the bag, getting the money, doing what I need to get money go like that was my focus, because I needed to survive. I needed to eat. And now as I've gone to a stage of life where I'm honestly healthier, better and slightly more mentally stable, not entirely but slightly better.
1:49
Now my motivations on what actually motivates me to get things done has changed, so I've moved from purely food money food does help, but because now I'm in a position where I work from home. Whenever I'm hungry, I don't need to sit in that discomfort of hunger. I can just go get food. Go cook food. I can just
2:09
get it so that motivation is no longer ever present in that focus, that line of focus for me, what I have found for my situation is that I need people. I need people to motivate me, and I'm not saying this to have a coach or someone that like literally, physically behind me, pointing at my computer, going do this. Zo, what I'm saying is having someone that
2:35
this may sound quite childish, having someone say they will be disappointed in me if I don't do the work,
2:42
having a business associate or friend or co worker saying they will be disappointed in me if I don't get this thing done that I said I would get done
2:52
is somehow motivating me more than money, more than food, More than the pressures of like work life balance. So I'm going to tell you now. So what I'm going to quickly do, if it's all right with you, is I'm going to quickly just Google with motivation. And as I've been discussing the types of their intrinsic and extrinsic. So as you can imagine, internal and external, intrinsic motivation is
3:21
incisive of something that you do based on the interest in activity with no external factors, so something that is picked from within you, where extrinsic is motivation that occurs from external rewards, such as money, influence on your behavior, those type and that influence your behavior to then motivate you to do those things. And as I've been discussing with my business manager this week. It's not necessarily motivation for me that is the problem, because I wouldn't be running a business if motivation was my factor. For me, the problem that I have is discipline when it comes to things that ultimately end on me. Yes, I could spend more time in my business, or I could just go sleep.
4:02
I could spend more time, you know, following up leads and following up, you know, these, these type of things that will, you know, boost my business, help me get more money, help me grow my network, Help me Help Help me, help more people. But those people don't exist, and that's the problem that I've been having, is that, yes, I can do these motivating factors for the people out there that definitely need my help, but because they're not in my line of sight, because they're not in my focus, and because I maybe have met them, but I don't know if they need me yet, and I don't know if they if I need them yet, as clients, there's this nebulous feeling Of like, this black void of
4:41
sure I can help I can help them, but I don't know who they are, or I don't know how they are. Now, I'm not saying this as someone who is in the marketing, especially digital marketing, fields, where I highly recommend that you have a client avatar. This is again, someone who you work with, or who someone you want to have as your client. You.
5:00
Or someone you currently have at your client, and you want to get more people like them. I'm not saying that I don't know who my client or my target market is. I definitely know who my target market is. It's just doing the energy and work that is around that to make sure that it's clear that they know who I am, then that I know that they know what I do, and they know how I can help solve their problems. And that requires time, dedication, energy and money to be able to achieve now, of course, over the however long I've been doing business for,
5:30
I'm almost 30, and I've been
5:33
doing it since I was 14, so around 15 years so far. And yes, I have lots of people. I network twice a week on minimum. I like people,
5:45
and when it comes when it comes to the clients and leads that I'm working with, I am very motivated, highly motivated, even to be able to serve them, to get them the solution that they need and give them an outcome that they deserve.
5:58
But when it comes to working within my own business, setting up my website, setting up my email lists, making sure, making sure that I can save myself time and energy from doing Dredgen admin tasks that can easily be automated, all of these things that are going to then help me save energy, time and money to then give myself more opportunity to help people feels like a very nebulous thread that is very clear and is it is a very broken down focus.
6:30
But I'm also finding that that it's still quite nebulous for me
6:36
so when it comes so the reason that I bring in motivations is because over these three months, I've had to really sit down and focus in on myself of what is something that will mean that I get the work that I know will support me, that will serve me and my clients, what is going to help me do that? So as I bring up my sheet again,
6:59
so there are plenty of things that can help you motivate so there is tasks or activities that align with your larger goals. As you can probably imagine, running a small business and helping and serving people in marketing and coaching is my intrinsic goal, but there's a lot of barriers in front of that,
7:19
creating history again, that's leaving a legacy. For a lot of people, leaving a legacy is really important to them in their business. It's not for me. Unfortunately, when it comes to that, I just my legacy is like, When I die, I die, I don't really care. Yes, like my family will care. But when it comes to when I'm helping people and helping people in the moment, I'm helping people
7:42
protect their business. I'm helping people protect their brand. I'm helping people do what they need to do in the moment. For the long, long term, I don't need to worry about leaving a legacy of myself, for example, and that's not exactly a motivating factor for me, for example, if I pass away and the stuff and like my live streams and my podcasts are still on the internet, and they help people, awesome, great. That's a legacy that is great, but I'm going to be dead, so I don't care. So in regards to a motivating factor that is not something that can help me again, get to that point of actually doing what I need to do,
8:20
as I said, not just for myself, but for my business.
8:24
So meeting a deadline, having a time frame, can very much help people be able to say, hey, I want to achieve this. Here is a deadline. I'm going to push to meet that deadline, if it is realistic or not, is another question entirely. But for some people, that is what is a good motivating factor, and almost a soul motivating factor for them. For me, a deadline is very useful when I'm working with clients. Again, it's that human element for me and the way that I work, having that human element in front of me means that the deadline is real. I'm not just making it up because I want to achieve this for a nebulous person that doesn't exist.
9:00
And I want to stress here that every time I'm saying me, here, I'm like, I'm saying me and my business. This is for anyone who is human centric. This is for anyone who runs a personal brand, a small business, a micro business, where you are people motivated. You want to see people succeed you and your clients and your leads, and even people who aren't working with you. You You just want to be able to spread that positivity and love, essentially, for them to be able to achieve what they want to achieve, you want to help people succeed, and that
9:32
is very consistent in what you do. So when I'm saying me here, I'm saying, if you resonate with everything that I've discussed so far, you and I are on the same page, and if you are not, that is okay. It is okay to be motivated by money. It is okay to be motivated by
9:48
keeping your employees housed, fed, and living their beautiful lives. If that's what motivates you, awesome. It's a motivating factor. It's something that you would need to think about. If deadlines are the thing, the.
10:00
That is keeping you going, then keep doing it if that works for you. But if you're in a situation like me, and especially over these past couple of years regarding the state of the world and business in general, having that motivating factor that is not solely reliant on my clients is something that I've had to investigate and find out. And the reason that I'm reading right now off a web page is because all of this feels intrinsic to me. Now I don't exactly have all of this written down. I do. I just don't want to find it right now because this is a spur of the moment. This is a podcast episode that I've done spur of the moment. I didn't exactly plan to record. But here we are. So as we cucked in going down this list, there is like being able to speak. I think this is because this current list is from indeed, wanting to be the best. That's a pretty motivating factor. If you want to be the top dog, if you want to be on top of your game, in front of everyone. Personally, for me, again, there's no real human element for me on that front. Sure, if I'm like the best in whatever category I'm in, awesome.
11:05
But am I helping people with that? Sure that's a more motivating factor for me in the work that I do, having clear expectations. Again, we're falling into the more the employee route, receiving recognition. Now, this may seem a bit strange, but I think that's kind of, one of the motivating factors for me is having someone not who not me, but someone outside of me
11:27
recognize the good work that I've done,
11:31
and, you know,
11:34
praise and gratitude.
11:36
Oh, they feel so stupid to say out loud,
11:41
oh no. And I'm saying this, and not as a negative, but I'm saying that I think that's what it is that I hate to say out of this entire list, that receiving recognition, and again, not for the accomplishments that I've made, the leadership, the authority in the space. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is recognition from my clients at the end or even during a process, or even during the hard slogs of a project where they turn to me and they recognize that zo this crap is hard.
12:13
Thank you for being here with me.
12:16
I have received that numerous times throughout my business and throughout my life, and
12:23
I don't necessarily strive for that. So if you're one of my clients, do not worry. That's not what I'm not needing you to give me praise immediately. I'm just saying it happens intrinsically, because I put the human first. I put the person first. And
12:39
it seems really stupid to say, but that's a motivating factor for me, and when it comes to the work that I do with myself, but also the work that I do with clients, to have someone be there, like, recognize the work that you recognize the good work that you're doing, not necessarily in awards. I like awards, don't get me wrong, but I like the, you know, the networking before and after the awards, having a good gossip or chat with your pals as you're waiting for the awards to be read out. That is more where I'm at and where I enjoy being compared to, like standing up on that stage and talking to everyone or talking to you while holding the award. Can it be a good doorstop? Awesome. The award will be useful. Can it just be something nice to put on my shelf? Sure,
13:28
I don't have any shelves, but I'm sure I can get some
13:32
somewhere. I'm not entirely sure where, but that type of recognition, especially from clients, but also people who genuinely need my help, and if you are like that, yourself, being able to be recognized by the people that you genuinely help is going to be a good motivating factor for you. I just hate how I've realized that now, while I'm recording a podcast,
13:57
damn
13:59
other lists, other people on the list
14:02
are helping others, which again, very much intrinsically related to serving people gaining power and fame. Again, doesn't really resonate with my type of person, but if this resonates with you, that is fine. Does it get getting notoriety and fame really important to you,
14:19
and everything that comes with both negative and positive, awesome, beautiful. You found something that motivates you and hopefully fulfilling your passion. At the end of the day, there is also the last six ones I'm just going to mention off right quick. Right here is overcoming opposition. Spite
14:39
is a surprisingly good motivator. I have found spike to be quite useful in my personal life, not necessarily in my business life, because I found that when it comes to spike in a business context, it's very good for the short term goal stuff, not the long term vision or goal and but hey, for some people, Spike can be.
15:00
Holding a grudge can be a very long term thing and very powerful and ongoing and a fruitful endeavor for you. Just keep in mind that running your entire life on spite
15:12
may not be healthy for your mental health or your spiritual health, just speaking from experience. So if, when it comes to spite, if you want to get something like short done, or, for example, a good example that's come recently is I worked with someone who, essentially, we were getting them on different types of awards and getting them to win awards because they were very good at what they did. And essentially they didn't add a spike because their previous business partner had just essentially left him in the left, left, left the country went completely quiet
15:47
and left them with a lot of debt and a lot of other worse things. And they were able to turn the business around in under 18 months. So that's a year and a half. In under a year and a half, they went from a business that was absolutely failing almost in the negative, very much in the red to in the black financially, as well as, you know, all of their they managed to keep all their employees, they did a really good job in such a very short amount of time. And now that they were rewarded for their efforts, and then they won, you know, won the awards. And they very much made it clear to me, Hey, this was a wider spike to say, you know, fu X business partner, who are they still definitely, definitely seeking damages for and you better be doing a girl continue that get the law on them.
16:31
And like, spite is was a good motivating factor, motivating factor for them. But then after those 18 months, we had a chat, like, a month or two later, just a regular catch up chat of like, Hey, we've achieved what we wanted to achieve. The goal here is a month later we, because we,
16:48
I was in the area, we had a chat, and they essentially said that they had spent them time doing the same thing of re evaluating their life and themselves and internally, finding their new motivating factors, because spike worked for them for those 18 months. It's not going to work for them now. So what can that do for them? Because, again, these motivating factors that I'm talking about right now may have resonated with you then, but maybe they've gone tired and you need something else to spark your interest in joy or spark your continuity with your business or your personal brand. And the other ones that are very useful, and I may, may or may have stories for these, is being in control, again, having that essence of control, not necessarily of like throttling employees or staff or your clients, but maybe having a sense of control and power in your business, in the situation at hand, proving others wrong again, a little bit of the spite thing, but could be a very useful motivating factor, especially when it comes to areas of misogyny,
17:56
patriarchy, doing patriarchy things, pretty much When it comes to essence of people being shitty and proving them wrong is a very nice feeling. I must say that from context long term creating change is also a very good motivating factor for long term change that my clients will see. Creating Change for them is definitely a motivating factor for me, feeling like you belong is definitely another one, especially when you're working into a group or a club or what have you, and then developing in your career, I'd say is much lower
18:31
in regards to the motivating factors for you. And that was just a quick list that I found online. I quickly Googled like motivating factors and then had a list there for you. But the reason that I've done this impromptu podcast episode now is I wanted to just outline for you that thinking and actually spending time either meditating, you know, thinking, maybe even running some through some podcasts or meta meditations, talking about The different options about your motivating factors again, not motivation. Motivating factors for yourself when it comes to running your business and the work that you do in your business, not
19:12
again. I apologize. I think I keep getting those too confused, because when I think in my business, as in I'm working in my business, on my business, as opposed to in my business for my clients, do you get what I mean? I apologize if I have confused you at any point in this podcast episode, confusing that. So the idea is that you work on your business, as in, you are working on the background and the logistics processes, branding and marketing and all these things that require you, as the person who owns and operates the business, to do the work. Then there is working in your business, to
19:51
work with your clients, with your leads, with you know, suppliers, what have you you are working in the business, doing the day to day, the projects, the process.
20:00
Whatever that is, and I apologize. I think I have confused you at all during this podcast episode. Again, this will prompt you a podcast episode, because in my head, I keep thinking that working in my business is
20:13
like working in the business like working doing what I can to perfect processes and get everything ready
20:19
what I can do to make the process as easy as possible for my clients. Eventual result, when working with my clients is how the terminology that I use, because there is a very big difference. Because I think working on your business is a very clear, easy to section. Again, it's one word on in. There's a very clear, just delineation there, and on paper, it makes sense. But when it comes to the way that I speak and the way that I present, it's just not clicking as well as it should. So if you are someone who believes in that, in on philosophy regarding your business, I totally understand, do not worry. I apologize if I've confused you
20:57
today. But when it comes to those motivating factors, thinking out even researching what options are available out there, and seeing which ones resonate with you. As I've discussed throughout this podcast episode, that the options that we've gone through is that they actually have felt like,
21:16
what's the word? They actually have felt very
21:21
all working with each other, but there were very much some which didn't resonate with me at all, and some which very heavily resonated with me. I will be writing those down very much. So I'll be writing those down and reviewing them on a weekly basis. For those who are in their business, I highly recommend taking 20 minutes of you know your your week, and yes, you may be stressed, I understand, but taking 20 minutes of your week just to review what you've done, what you've accomplished, and where you want to go just 20 minutes, maybe even half an hour, if you feel like you need to block out specific chunks of time. And those 30 minutes a week, I call it my weekly review. I have a checklist that I go through, and if you want to, feel free to check out the website for that. And if you need, I can always do a podcast episode on it for you,
22:11
or a video if that's probably a little bit more reasonable to
22:15
do the weekly review is something that I do on a weekly basis that helps me just it review. I review my calendar, everyone that I've connected with, everyone that I've worked with that week. And it allows me just to get a lay of the land of, Hey, have I forgotten anything? Put that in to do lists. Have I thought about something a bit more okay? Put that in a list. Like, get it out of my head. Put it in the list to be dealt with.
22:41
And then for, like, say, half of that time looking in the past, and then the other half of that session looking into the future. What am I doing over the next two weeks? What do I need to accomplish over those next two weeks? What are my goals? Okay, do I need to schedule some times to complete those things? Okay, let's actually put those in the calendar. Let's actually get them out of our head into something, be it a system that we've already created, or just writing it down so we do not forget again, you're taking that time to review, and you're not just flying by the seat of your pants and letting the business that you Yes, you are the figurehead for you are the personal brand For but do not let your business be the one controlling you. You should be the one control of your business, and sometimes it can be really hard to take control of those reins and get that business back on board. But if you don't,
23:33
maybe it may succeed, but there's a very high chance that it won't, because you are not in control.
23:40
So thank you so much for on that wild ride of an impromptu podcast. I did not have any notes, so I apologize if it didn't make that much sense.
23:50
Make sure you find your motivating factor, and I will look forward to seeing you on the next podcast here on the video, confidence coach cast.
The above episode description and transcript were generated with ai.
Who is your host?
Zoë Wood, your Video Confidence Coach connects the dots between personal branding and video marketing. Helping women and non-binary folk in small business, find their way in the world of marketing their passion without the energy drain.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
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