Recently, on a plane ride to Las Vegas I was seated next to a fellow entrepreneur who runs a marketing company. Naturally, we started talking about our businesses. When he found out I was a business coach, he asked how much I deal with business stuff versus how much I deal with feelings and emotions.
I told him that I dealt quite a bit with the feelings and mindsets of business owners - far more than I ever expected to when I started as a coach to be honest. As we continued talking about mindset, I could sense that he had lost his real motivation for running his business and he didn't really know why. Which brought up some key questions I often ask business owners – What is it that you want to achieve? What are your goals? What motivates you?
Sometimes your goals and what motivates you are not the same thing.
In his case, he wanted to make millions of dollars in his business - that was the big goal. He thought he knew why - to be successful, to have created something really incredible, to go bigger and better and make the work he was doing feel really exciting... but he didn't sound really excited about it and he couldn't verbalize why that was really meaningful to him. From where he was standing he couldn't understand his lack of motivation... from where I was standing, what he was dangling in front of himself as a carrot didn't seem like the thing he actually wanted to get him moving on a day to day basis.
WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT?
He felt like making millions of dollars would mean he had really succeeded.
Okay, but why? Was he feeling motivated on a regular basis? Making millions of dollars was a big goal that was going to take awhile... what was going to feel like a win between now and then?
He didn't really know.
Was he happy? Not really. His business was his life but he wasn't really feeling excited about it at the moment. The joy and excitement of entrepreneurship had kind of fizzled out.
So what WOULD make him excited... while he was working on making his millions?
The more we chatted the more we found that thing that actually excited him.... travel. He knew he could work from anywhere and he was in a situation where he wasn't really tied down to any one city at the moment. So... why wasn't he travelling?
He didn't know.
The only thing holding him back was making the decision to actually do it. (mindset!)
For him, seeing this motivation as a reason to reach his goals started making more sense than just working to make millions of dollars. His million-dollar goal wasn't tangible enough to get him jazzed every single day – travelling is attainable and is something he can do now right now.
So, if you are in business and you tell people your goal is to make more money, but find that you’re not motivated (there is no wind in your sails) is it time for a reframe? What motivates you? What changes need to be made in order for you to reach your goals? How can you get excited about your business and what you do again?
Asking yourself what you really want is a conversation you need to constantly have with yourself. Checking in and asking yourself this on a regular basis will keep you on track and help you achieve your real goals.
Having business goals may seem like the way to stay motivated, but it isn't always (and that's not only OK, it's normal!!)
And if you want help figuring it out, book a call with me - or come check out my next planning day! I'd love to talk about whether I'm the right person to help you figure that out, as well as how to keep moving forward towards reaching all your business goals!