5 ways to get your motivation back on track (even when you don’t feel like it)

Sometimes, restoring our motivation levels might seem a daunting task. As a startup founder, these are strategies I used in the past few months to keep going. Even when it seems hard!

As the co-founder of Lingfy.com I didn’t expect things to be glorious and shiny. I didn’t expect clients to come running our way and to be an instant success.

The numbers for the startups’ failure rates are resounding. So I knew what to expect! Well, that‘s both right and wrong.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting the journey to be so hard. So I admit I wasn’t aware of the difficulties of starting my company entails. On the other side, I also learned a lot from this experience.

No matter what the outcome of this startup is. It will always be a success because of what I’ve learned.

Here are my 5 main takeaways on the journey to build a startup from scratch:

1 - Assume your errors (and learn with them)

We make mistakes when we try something new. If you try many things, you’ll end up failing a lot. That’s good. That’s excellent!

I’m enjoying the process of failure. It might discourage at first but it also gives us precious insights and knowledge.

If you’re making mistakes and choosing the wrong things, I’ve got news for you: that’s amazing! That means we’re improving ourselves and that’s the goal we all share.

I don’t want to sugarcoat the truth. Lingfy is a small scale startup which like many others, is struggling to make more sales. Our clients have access to skilled freelance translators in an intuitive online platform.

And we come to work every morning to make their life easier.

2 — Enjoy the process and focus on what made you start

When I feel down and unmotivated, I relive the journey we made so far. Since we started this company, we made a huge progress and we are thankful for that.

I always try to appreciate and be thankful for my life! If we only focus on what we want to achieve, we miss the great things we can enjoy in the present.

When we are grateful for all the people and experiences we had in our life, we enjoy life at its full potential.

Founding Lingfy was one of the best ideas I had in my life and I now realise that! It’s not about what others think success is. It’s about being truthful to yourself and your values and put all the effort to achieve what you aim for.

There is no definition of success. Success is what you make of it!

3 - Take your time

I felt stressed in my daily life. I thought I didn’t have enough time. So I started to manage my time and dedicating my attention to the goals I thought were important.

But in the process, I ended up feeling stressed and overwhelmed. I had so many things and time never seemed to be enough. Days were never long enough!

So, I knew what I had to do! With very few exceptions, we all know what we’re meant to do. At the same time, it was hard to avoid social media and checking emails 50 times in a day when I couldn’t decide what to do.

But when I started doing things, everything gets into place! Whenever I am paralysed by choice, I take action. When I’m planning the day and start to realise that I’m not going to be able to do everything I want, I do it anyway.

You can’t decide on what’s most important?

Taking action on the less important goals is much better than taking no action at all.

When we act, we learn how to focus on the right things! When we act we build up our confidence and that’s a very powerful thing to do.

4 - Don’t overthink it

Planning is important. But in my view, acting on those plans is more important! Following my last point, I spend 20% of my time planning and deciding things but I spend the rest of the time acting.

There’s no wasted time when you act. If you do something that you believe it was a waste of time, try to think about it as a learning experience. And take your time! Everyone tells us we need to take decisions in a quick and efficient manner. But that only puts an enormous amount of pressure on us.

Pressure can be a good thing, it leads us to action. But we all know, too much pressure isn’t healthy and can be counterproductive. We all have different speeds and interests.

It doesn’t matter if it took you 20 minutes or 20 months to reach a decision.

It’s your own time, make whatever you want with it. And enjoy it!

5 — Don’t be so hard on yourself

Finally, we all have negative biases. If we keep comparing to others, there will always be something we are short on. There’s always someone else who is prettier, thinner, richer, etc. You get the point.

There’s a clear difference between healthy competition and harmful rivalry. A rivalry is about ways to get ahead, to surpass and even destroy our competitors and foes. It’s a zero-sum game. When we compete with others, we try to be our best selves and try to emulate others’ successes.

We try to be an example to others, to our family and friends. And that’s an excellent path to live a life of contentment and fulfilment.

Work underway

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel in a position where I can tell others what they should do and what’s best for them. I write these lines as conclusions that I’ve been reaching in the past few months/years.

I also enjoy writing about these issues as a way to share my experiences and would love to hear from you too.

It also makes me feel a lot better when I write about my goals, ambitions, frustrations and life in general. If you do that on a regular basis, I would love to read some of your texts and learn more about you.

If you don’t, I encourage you to take that first step. It might feel weird in the beginning, it still somewhat feels to me. Yet, believe me when I say the sense of accomplishment can take your life to a whole new level.

So, I build my day with very few expectations and not caring too much about what I can’t control. Each day is like a sculpture we can carve during the hours we have available. If we have the focus and resilience, we end up carving many beautiful art pieces. And why not a masterpiece?

I try to live in the present moment and I am thankful for my life, my family and friends.

If you don’t have the patience, keep going! If you have come so far in this text, you’re on the right way. Not because I wrote valuable information, but because you have the will to improve. And that’s all that you’ll ever need!

Curious how quality translations could help your organization reach new international customers? Get an instant quote at Lingfy.com or drop us a line at hi@lingfy.com