Keeping Your Motivation During a Difficult Time

Before we talk about motivation, let’s address the obvious. This is a strange time. A stressful time. And things just don’t feel so great right now.

However, this is also a time with great opportunities to grow your business, grow your brand and do some serious personal development. And it’s up to you to keep yourself motivated and keep your mindset in check. It’s up to you and you alone. We can’t count on others to keep us motivated and positive. Honestly, it’s unfair to put that burden on someone else (unless you’re paying them as a coach or just an all-around personal butt kicker).

Unless you own a brick and mortar business, it’s also unfair to expect people to knock on your door to ask about your products and services without an invitation first. To build brand awareness, you must share your products and services with prospects and clients. Ideal clients to be exact. That doesn’t happen accidentally.

Sharing about your products and services and staying ahead of the competition means you’ve got to be your best. You’ve got to be working your hardest. You’ve got to stay ahead of negativity and fear.

So, let me ask you a few questions…

What are you feeding into your body? What are you feeding into your brain? What are you feeding into your heart?

What are you feeding your motivation?

Believe it or not, the food you eat can have a major impact on your mood and energy level – two of the most important factors for motivation. I love Bojangles. I absolutely love it… until about thirty minutes after I eat it and the brain fog sets in and I become mildly to medium grumpy. Shortly after that, I just want to take a nap. And that’s why I rarely eat at Bojangles. I know plenty of health professionals who will agree that if you want to regulate your mood, you’ve got to take control of the food you eat.

And if you want to be motivated to sell your products and services, you’ve got to take control of your mood. After all, it doesn’t matter how good your products or services are, if you’re not motivated to sell them, people will not be very motivated to purchase them.

Motivation is an inside job, so you’ve got to be an integral part of the process. It doesn’t just happen by accident. Be careful about what you’re reading. Be careful about the music and podcasts you’re listening to. Be careful about the people you’re letting speak into your life right now. There’s so much negativity in this world at the moment. You don’t have to work hard to find it. It is very accessible. I can walk outside my front door right now and find several people who will tell me everything that’s wrong with the world. It’s that easy.

Turn on the TV and go to a 24-hour news channel. Negativity. Go to online news outlets. Negativity. Fear mongering is quickly becoming an American pastime. Move over baseball.

Relentless Sales Requires Motivation Beyond Measure

I’ll say it again. Be careful about the people you’re allowing to speak into your lives today. Keeping a positive mindset and keeping yourself fully charged and motivated is what’s going to help you to outsell your competition. Don’t wait for things to open up. Don’t wait until you get the “all clear” the economy is good again. DON’T WAIT!!!

If you put in the work now, regardless of when that time comes, many of your competitors will be complaining that their sales funnel is empty, and they have no money in their pocket. Because you were working hard through current conditions, you’ll have a full pipeline, and you’ll be going into a new season moving smoothly into it, like nothing ever happened.

I would love to take the summer off, and I know several people who are going to, whether they consciously realize it or not. But I have a kid that’s about to start college, and I’m going to make sure that I’ve got money coming in. You can guarantee that I’m going to be working this entire summer. I know my wife likes to hear that, too. She understands we can take time off later. We’ve both got businesses to grow, and we don’t have time to sit around waiting for the phone to ring. We’re motivated, and we’re making it happen.

So go make it happen!