Today Is The Day… To Do What You Always Do
You have been working, working, working; consistently for weeks on end. As you face this new day you realize you’ll be doing the same thing you’ve been doing all along. As that reality sinks in you start to lose motivation.
How many more new recruits can I uncover? How many more times will I need to explain the marketing plan to new recruits? As these thoughts ricochet around in your head, you start to feel overwhelmed. Soon that overwhelming feeling develops into a full fledged conviction that you can’t keep doing this. For your long term success, this is perilous territory. If you let it go unchecked, it may convince you to stop doing what you are doing.
Every business venture has these types of sandboxes, those periods of time where the entrepreneur feels like everything is a burden as though one is trying to walk uphill in deep sand that slows and seriously tires the entire body. When you remind yourself that the majority of business startups fail, you can see why. But wait, some business succeed. How do they do it?
Finding your way to navigate through these sandbox periods is one business “skill” that will serve you well if you can successfully develop the coping mechanism. When you encounter these trying times you may attempt many different methods of overcoming the stagnation. Talking to a friend. Meeting with a mentor. Reading inspirational blogs. Many of these can give you somewhat of a pickup, but the best solution is to resolve within your mind that today you will do what you have always done. Today is the day to do what you always do.
In the midst of those periods when the business tasks at hand seems to do more to demotivate you than they do to motivate you, when you make the decision that today is the day to do what you always do, you are stepping out of your emotions and engaging your mind and your will power. The process of making that decision is a mature reaction of resolve in the face of the uneasiness of the doldrums.
The choice is before you. Dive into the doldrums and wander around in them for some time or consciously decide to carry on with what you always do in business. The doldrums lead nowhere healthy or productive. Choose the path you’ve already traveled many times, the business activity and responsibilities you’ve been doing day in and day out for the last week, month, year, decade. If you do, you will soon snap out of it. You are likely to run into a customer who will tell you they really appreciate the product or service you provide. Hearing their positive benefits from what you provide is sure to charge you with motivation that will refresh your perspective.
Today’s Takeaway
Getting out of the sandbox sooner rather than later can reap tremendous business dividends.
Sandbox – Definition: Those periods in business when the thought hits you, like a fog of discouragement, that today you will be doing the same thing you’ve been doing for the last day, week, month and year.