Finding The Inspiration to Keep Going When You Feel Like Quitting

Even the most enthusiastic and determined individual, who seems unassailable most of the time, will encounter instances when they doubt themselves. They may feel lost and demotivated. Unexpected events can overwhelm anyone. 

This is normal because we’re all human.

Achieving success for most worthwhile goals will require time, prolonged effort, lots of faith and some determination. Since the journey will be long, it can get tiring to keep up the effort and motivation required to continue on the journey.

When you feel like your strength is ebbing and you’re losing faith, it’s important that you dig deep within yourself and find the motivation to keep going.

Here are seven proven ways to find the inspiration to keep going when you feel like quitting:

1.  Gratitude journaling 

An attitude of gratitude can make you feel positive and give you hope. It’s impossible to be depressed, unhappy and angry when you’re feeling grateful. And no matter how challenging things get there is always something to feel grateful for. 

Keep a gratitude journal and write down all the things you’re grateful for. More importantly, write down how far you’ve come in your journey. As a species, humans tend to never be satisfied and we keep moving the goalpost.

For example, when you just started your business, earning just $1k a month may have been your goal. But once you reached it, $5k may have been your new goal.

Currently, you may be earning much more and living well, but you feel like a failure because others are making even more a month and you need to get there ASAP.

Listen… be grateful for how far you’ve come. It’s great to progress and want to keep winning, but one must stop to smell the roses every now and then to appreciate what you’ve earned.

Then, keep going forward. When you know you’ve won so much, you’ll know you can win more.

2. Vision board

Have a cork board or a white board in your house/office and stick pictures of whatever it is you want in your business and in life. Attach quotes, images, etc. that inspire and move you and represent achieving your goals.

Look at the board daily so that you’re reminded of what it is you’re working for. When the reward is clear, you’ll willingly pay the price no matter how long it takes.

3. Rewrite your goals

Writing your goals down is an excellent practice. However, once may not be enough. 

It’s easy to forget your goals when you’re in the trenches fighting for success. When bogged down by the daily tasks and the mundane list of things you need to get done, the weight of it all can take a toll on your enthusiasm.

At times like these, rewriting your goals will rekindle the fire within you to keep going. To succeed, you MUST encourage yourself. If you let the fire within you die out, you’ll quit.

4. Listen to or read motivational material

Read motivational books. Or watch movies such as, “The Pursuit of Happyness” or “The Legend of Bagger Vance” or whatever movies that other people recommend as inspiring.

Or you may decide to watch videos of Les Brown, Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins or other self-help gurus.

Check out our course on Overcoming Self-Doubt and Finding a Positive Outlook in Life. Do whatever helps you to get fired up.

As Zig Ziglar said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

5. Set small milestones

Sometimes you may need small wins to keep going. If all you’re focused on is a big goal, it’ll take you quite a while to get there. But if you break down that big goal into smaller milestones, you can reward yourself each time you hit a milestone.

This will give you the drive and desire to keep going because you know you’re on track and winning. For example, if your goal is to generate $10k a month in your online publishing business, you may wish to aim for $2k a month first.

Then $5k… $7.5k… and finally $10k. By breaking down the big goal into smaller bite-sized goals, you’ll be able to not only track your progress better, but you’ll see that you’re improving and be disinclined to throw in the towel because it’s taking too long to reach the big goal.

6. Take a short break

Sometimes, when things are really difficult, you may need a 3-7 day break just to de-stress and clear your head. After all, music is the space between the notes. Take the break and come back rejuvenated and ready to work.

7. Massive action

For some people, ramping up their efforts and doing more than they thought possible will help to inspire them more. It may seem strange, but monotony can set in when you’ve been doing the same thing for a while.

By challenging yourself, you’ll feel like you’re getting more done and capable of faster success. If you can handle it and you enjoy the challenge, go for it. 

One way to take massive action is to challenge your self to a 12 Week Sprint to achieve a substantial goal. If you struggle to achieve the goals you set yourself, or never get past the first month of any new project you embark on, this powerful planner is exactly what you need. 

At the end of the day, you need to remember that if you don’t inspire yourself, no one will do it for you… and if there’s a fire within you, no one will need to light one under you. You only lose when you quit.

So encourage yourself and keep going.

When you are creating your business from scratch it can sometimes seem overwhelming.  Here are three steps to focus on: 

1. Define your brand values and personality with thought leadership content

Thought leadership content is defined as a content that is led by your brand’s values and personality. When you create thought leadership content, you are telling the story of your brand and your values.

The key point in creating thought leadership content is to generate a narrative that connects with your audience. The story should be interesting, informative, and inspiring enough for people to read it from start to finish.

In order to create great thought leadership content, you need to know your target audience well.

You need to identify what will resonate with them and what will motivate them to take an action in order for your branding campaign succeed. The more clarity you have about your audience the more you will understand the problems and challenges they have which you can solve for them with your products and services.

Your brand values, personality and story will help your target audience to know, like and trust you, so they will be more inclined to buy your products and services.

2. Develop the right website as your business foundation

Websites are like the face of your business. It’s the first thing that a potential customer sees when they search for your product or service. A professionally designed website gives you credibility and makes it easier for people to trust you.

In this section, we will discuss why it is important to create a website and the two ways you can go about developing one.

Creating a website is an important part of marketing your business. For people to find you online, you need a web presence that includes your own domain name, email address, and social media profiles. Your website is the first thing people see when they search for you on Google or another search engine. If they don’t find what they’re looking for after a few clicks, they’ll likely leave and never come back.

Web designers have always been the professionals you go to when you want to have a website that is different from the average ones. Websites made by professional designers are attractive and up-to-date while still being professional. Hiring a designer can be expensive, but it can also be worth it in the long run.

The process of hiring a designer includes picking their skillset and what they specialize in, what your budget is, and whether or not you want them to manage your project or if you want them to just design for you.

On the other hand you might decide to build a WordPress website for yourself.

WordPress is a free and open-source blogging tool that is powering 31% of the internet. It’s also easy to use, fully customizable, and perfect for any type of blog, website or e-commerce store.

Many business owners have started out by building their own website with WordPress.

If you are stuck, frustrated, and tired of not making any money online, this 5 day workshop will show you a complete system that you can use to make money however you WANT in a niche YOU love!  

Start Here: Get An Online Business Workshop https://kmginfo.link/starthere

3. Launch social media channels for your business

You should create social media channels to connect with your target audience and grow your business.

Here are three tips to help you get started:

– Make sure that the profile is professional, yet fun.

– Keep your content fresh.

– Target specific groups of people, like millennials or mothers who are part of your target audience.

Discover how to tap the power of Social Media Marketing in our quick course:

https://kmginfo.link/socialmediaqc

The Social Media Marketing Course is all about turning your social media strategy into real, measurable results for your business. 

BSOs

Bright Shiny Objects (or BSOs) are the little things that glitter in your path as you move along in life or in building your business. 

Things might be going relatively well, but a BSO will distract you from what’s working, and pull you off the path to something that looks enticing but is really just a distraction.

Focus is your capacity to ignore these distractions and in many ways it is your key to success. Although there are other traits that are also essential to your success, I truly believe that focus is the driving force of them all.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always obvious how truly essential focus is to your success. 

When You Lack Focus 

What becomes obvious is what happens when you lack focus. 

• You’re distracted from essential tasks. 
• You become unproductive. 
• You don’t get things done that need to be done. 
• You start feeling frustrated. 
• You begin to believe that you can’t reach your goals. 
• Or you stop setting goals altogether, or at best you set simple goals that are easy to reach and not the “stretch goals” that can truly change your life.

Worst of all, the BSOs that contribute to your lack of focus cause you to feel unworthy of success altogether because you think that you aren’t capable of performing up to your capability.

It isn’t that you aren’t capable, and it isn’t that you’re trying to do too many things; it’s that you’re trying to do too many things at the wrong time.

You see, you are indeed capable of doing multiple things, but usually not at the same time unless they’re trivial tasks. If you try to do multiple important tasks at the same time, none of them will get done well.

Chase two rabbits… both will escape.

Follow One Course

But that happens all the time when you are building a business online. You start to do one thing and someone suggests something else you should do.  You end up adding it to an ever-growing list of things to do and you never get a chance to get good at any of them. 

It’s much more important to follow one course of action until you have time to get good at it, so you can evaluate it’s worth properly before you try something else.  Some people say that FOCUS actually stands for Follow One Course Until Successful. 

Why Are You Procrastinating?

One reason that chasing BSOs is detrimental to your success is that it’s a common symptom of procrastination. You might actually be trying to sabotage yourself by procrastinating on a task because you secretly have a fear of success.

Hardly anyone ever admits to a fear of success, but it’s very, very common.

You might fear success because you don’t want to leave your comfort zone. You’ve lived your entire life doing things a certain way, with a certain income, a certain set of friends, your family has adapted to the lifestyle you’ve allowed them to become accustomed to, etc.

Getting out of that comfort zone exposes you to unknown results, so rather than focus on doing what it takes to change, you let yourself be distracted, delaying the task that you should be working on.

So you don’t change, and you’re comfortable… but you’ve sabotaged your personal progress.

Fear of success is much more powerful that a fear of failure because most people aren’t even aware that they have this fear, and will resist being accused of it. You can’t begin to change a habit that you’re unaware that you have.

Awareness is indeed half (or more) of the battle.

There was an old Pogo comic strip, which is quite likely well before your time, which included a famous and appropriate quote: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” 

Learn to be aware of who the enemy is, and root him out of your mindset.

What To Do Or Learn?

Here’s another exercise that will hopefully convince you of the power of focus…

What is there that you’ve been wanting to do, or wanting to learn, for years?

Let’s say that you wanted to learn how to use WordPress so you could manage your own website for yourself. 

But right now you’re scared to death of anything that involves ‘technical stuff’, and you resist doing things that require it, even though it would be great for your business.

So you keep going along your merry way doing other things besides learning WordPress, and your website either doesn’t exist or is embarrassingly out of date.

How long do you actually think it would take to become proficient and comfortable with WordPress? – if you really sat down and focused on it, ignoring everything else for as long as necessary?

I figure it would take one or two days, maybe three at the very most.

You just have to do it.  

Make the time in your diary when you focus on just that and nothing else, and it may even take less time.  Turn off your phone, avoid all the socials and just focus. 

Check out our Crash Course on WordPress For Every Day People if that’s what you have been meaning to focus on but haven’t gotten around to yet. https://kmginfo.link/wordpress 

What have you always wanted to get good at? A programming language or HMTL or CSS? Running webinars or Google hangouts? Podcasting? Pay per click advertising? It really doesn’t matter. The point is to pick one and focus on it. 

It isn’t that you can’t do those things, it’s just that you haven’t focused on learning how to do them yet. Just like building a business you love, you can do it. Get started, focus and then you will get better. 

Focus and you’ll be able to achieve much more than you ever thought possible in ridiculously short amounts of time. You can do anything you want to if you focus on it.

What Are Your BSOs?

Did you ever try to keep track of how much time you actually spend each day doing tasks that contribute to your progress, your success, your income?

I’ll bet if you did, you’d be amazed at how much time you’re actually consuming that does nothing to move you forward. You check emails, you chat on Skype, you check your Facebook feed, and you watch all the funny videos. Then you contact someone to share those funny videos with them. 

And on and on it goes all day, until you reach the end, and you’re exhausted, and you haven’t accomplished much of anything at all. Your BSOs have eaten up all your time.

That Has To Stop

That has to stop. You have to focus on the task at hand. You need to be accountable to yourself at least, and to an accountability partner such as a coach if you want the ultimate boost. Telling someone you’re going to get something specific accomplished in a given time is a good way to force yourself to actually focus on that task.

As you build that business you love remember the importance of focus each time a BSO tries to distract you from your planned activity.  Eventually this will help you to form the habits that will make the art of focusing second nature for you.

But until then, make it a conscious effort to be more focused on single specific tasks during your working day, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the successful results you achieve.  

It is so easy to tell yourself that you are going to accomplish something new, but what happens when this task takes longer than you had allowed for? Your motivation starts to disappear and quite often you give up on the idea altogether. 

Why is it hard to stay focused and motivated?

It definitely can be hard to stay focused on certain things. Weight loss is a fine example of this. If you have ever tried to lose weight you know your enthusiasm is so high for the first week or two. As you make lifestyle changes the pounds drop off quickly and you are feeling great about your efforts. 

A few weeks into your diet you plateau and don’t lose any weight. You start to eat a little more or stop exercising as much and then before you know it you have abandoned your goal and have gone back to your old habits. 

There are several reasons for this. First you may not have recognised that plateauing is a perfectly normal occurrence when it comes to losing weight. Secondly did you use not losing any weight as an excuse to have that extra treat or to miss a workout? Your mind can do wonderful things and is capable of coming up with hundreds of reasons to not do something. 

Building your business can follow exactly the same path.  You start out with enthusiasm and even see some quick results. But then you can easily become overwhelmed with everything you want or need to do. Learning new technology, or even choosing the technology to build your business on, can be daunting. You see others doing things that you think you also need to do (despite them being in a very different place to you and following a different plan). It can be very easy to become distracted and demotivated. 

So what can I do to stay focused and motivated?

To stay motivated and focus you can do a number of things including:

• Make sure you have a clear plan and stick to it
• Set smaller goals
• Keep a habit tracker, calendar, food tracker or exercise planner
• Share your goals with someone else, perhaps a business coach
• Join a group of people with the same goals

By creating smaller goals you won’t feel as overwhelmed when your results start to dwindle or slow down. If you break your goals down further into weekly targets you can easily stay focused longer. It isn’t as hard to do something new from a Monday to Friday as it is to think about doing it for months at a time. 

Next you really need to be honest with yourself. If you have lost 15 pounds before you hit that plateau then congratulate yourself on that achievement. Focus on what you have done and not where you have to go! This is why it is often a good reason to keep photos of your weight loss journey. When you are feeling down take a look at them and remember what you did look like. 

By keeping track of the things you have succeeded in doing you can feel good about them, rather than becoming overwhelmed by the things that are still on your task list. 

By changing your mindset to be more positive you can stay focused on your goals, retain your motivation and achieve more with your business, or any goal you have set for yourself. 

Next Steps

Check out our Dominate Your Year Quick Course to discover the step by step guide to finally crush your goals and reach new goals.

https://kmginfo.link/dominateyouryear  

Have you and your friends had this friendly debate regarding whether it’s better to multitask or focus on one thing at a time?

Everyone seems to have a different take on the subject, along with their own opinion regarding which is better.

Some people will swear it’s more efficient to multitask, while others will say it makes more sense to give one activity all of your focus. Each approach has its advantages, depending upon the activity at hand and your personal preferences.

When it comes down to it, there actually is one school of thought that tends to prevail with the experts. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons…

Benefits of Multitasking

The mind is an amazing thing. Its capabilities are vast, and many are still not understood by modern researchers. Obviously your brain is able to do more than one thing at a time. There are activities we perform simultaneously every day like talking on the phone while doing the dishes, walking while chewing gum and watching television while cleaning the living room. These are just a few examples.

What’s important to keep in mind with regard to multitasking are the types of activities you choose to combine, along with your unique brain’s capacity to manage them.

Not all of us can handle the same types of tasks well. Some more complex tasks require our single-minded focus. You need to balance the cognitive resources each task requires and find ones that work well in tandem.

Benefits of Not Multitasking

Researchers have shown that multitasking might not be as efficient as we’re led to believe, even with simple tasks.

When multitasking, you’re switching from one thing to another. Your attention is divided, and you don’t have the opportunity to really get “in the zone” of productivity. Focusing on just one task at a time allows you to fully immerse yourself in that thing, while giving all of your mental and physical resources to it.

Working to complete one task or solve just one problem at once allows you to get into a particular mindset, rather than continuously shifting cognitive gears. This lets you check that task off your list more quickly than it might have taken otherwise. In addition, you’ll usually make fewer mistakes when you focus and skip the multitasking.

Which Is Better?

Generally, experts believe it’s more productive and better to avoid multitasking and to focus on just one activity at a time.

Choose one task to give your full attention and to brainstorm the types of actions that will fix it. Then use your energy to implement your solution.

However, when it comes to problem solving, it is possible to juggle a couple issues at once. Just be aware of the types of mental power each requires and try to choose tasks that work well in conjunction.

For example, you can take steps to solve a money issue by picking up a side job as a dog walker and also get the fresh air and exercise that could help to improve your health, an issue that’s also been weighing on your mind heavily. Sometimes solving two problems at once works well.

But if it’s a challenging or complex task, even if it’s something you have done before, many people find focussing on one thing at a time is more productive than trying to multitask. 

These are a few of the pros and cons related to whether to multitask or not. Ultimately, the decision is yours. I hope these tips will help you to choose a path that works for you.

For more productivity tips and ideas check out My Productivity Blueprints at https://kmginfo.link/mpb  

As an entrepreneur, you’ll find yourself dealing with many hardships. Getting your own business off the ground is no small task, and it comes with challenges and other hurdles that will make you doubt yourself and the possibility of achieving your own end goals. 

If you start to face these challenges with a negative attitude, then you’re going to increase your chances of failure. However, by adopting a more positive outlook on what you’re doing, you will increase your chances of success.

Even if you think you can still work efficiently with a negative attitude, you’re not going to be doing as well as you think you are. It has been shown time and time again that those who are more positive in their outlooks and demeanour are more likely to be successful in their endeavours. 

This is due in part to something known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that your work won’t pan out the way you want it to, then you probably won’t put in as much effort, which inevitably leads to things not panning out. 

You fail – not because you were right in your assumptions, but rather because you believed those assumptions, which caused you to change the way you work. Having a negative attitude about your own job will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Your mind matters

If you have a startup company that you’re running, but you have serious doubts about it being successful and you don’t anticipate it lasting, then you’re certainly not going to give it your all. 

Why would you give your all in something that you don’t believe in? 

By failing to give 100% of your effort, your startup ends up failing and you have proven yourself right. Instead, a positive outlook will motivate you through the toughest times, but you have to really believe in the positive outlook. 

If you’re just phoning it in, when times get tough, you’re going to find yourself unable to move past the tougher obstacles that you’re faced with. When you truly believe that the project you’re working on or the business you’re starting will work out, then you won’t hesitate to put more effort into it. You will also be more open to subconscious opportunities and solutions to the challenges you are facing/ 

You trust that it won’t be for nothing. Being positive will not only influence you to be better, but it may also influence others around you if you have people working for or with you, leading to an overall more productive situation. 

Years ago, Zig Ziglar said it way better than me: “It is your attitude, more than your aptitude, that will determine your altitude.” 

When you adopt a positive outlook on your efforts you are way more likely to achieve your ultimate goals.

If you are struggling to adopt a positive outlook as you start building your business read The Entrepreneur’s Mindset.  It includes how to get started in your dream business, the importance of passion when it comes to being a successful entrepreneur, how to grow your business and much more.

https://kmginfo.link/em 

You really should be taking breaks throughout your workday.

This allows you to approach each task with enough energy and motivation to make it through to the end of the day.

You should also be turning work off at the end of each day. You need time to work and time to play.

But, it goes beyond that. You need to give yourself some down time in the form of vacations and days off. You need time to really re-energize and to not think about work at all. When you give yourself this time, you can return to work with so much more motivation that your productivity skyrockets.

Whether it’s taking one day off or one month off, you need to know that it’s okay to leave the laptop at home sometimes. It’s okay if you don’t work seven days a week. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. 

Some people have no trouble taking a vacation or taking some days off.

Other people feel bad if they’re not working all the time. If the latter describes you, it’s time to change things. Take a day off here and there and you’ll notice that you return to work with so much enthusiasm and so much energy that you’ll wonder why you didn’t pay attention to this advice before. 

Your happiness as well as your motivation and productivity will all improve.  For more details about simple ways to enjoy your life and be happy, whatever your circumstance, check out Ten Keys to Happiness

Have you noticed that sometimes you enter into a state of flow while you work? 

The hours seem to pass by in minutes. You look at the clock at the end of a work session and you’re astonished at how little time has gone by and how much you’ve gotten done.

During this time of flow, your work seemed easy. You felt good about what you were doing. You wish you could work like that all the time. 

The chances are good that you were in the flow zone. We’ve all experienced this, though it’s often fleeting. 

Getting in the Flow

Some people know how to enter into the flow zone at will.  This is something that is well worth cultivating.

Think again about those times you entered the flow zone. What was different about those times? Close your eyes and visualise that time and what was going on. 

What was your work environment like? What were you working on? What was your purpose? Examine all the elements that went into you entering the flow zone.

It might have been the case that you initially were resistant to the project. Then, you started working. Little by little, you slipped into the flow zone and you didn’t even notice the passage of time. 

You probably didn’t have any distractions once you were in the flow zone. You felt good and confident when you were in the flow zone. You felt unstoppable when you were in the flow zone.

It’s important to figure out which elements helped you enter into a state of flow. Now, work to apply those elements at will to your everyday work life. 

For example, make sure you eliminate distractions so you can more easily enter a state of flow. 

Make sure that what you’re working on is in line with your goals. Make sure that you feel energetic, powerful, optimized, and ready to work. 

That will make it much more likely that you’re able to enter into a state of flow. 

Getting into a state of flow can be a powerful motivator.  If you want to know more about how to boost motivation check out Motivation Made Simple.