Being an entrepreneur is a very different experience from working a regular job. You don’t have any protection. There isn’t an HR department looking after your holidays or a compliance department taking care of the regulator. The whole edifice of the business is on your shoulders. It’s exhausting.
The most onerous requirement, though, is finding motivation inside yourself to do the work that needs to be done. Most people spend their entire lives taking orders from teachers, parents and bosses that they never work out how to plot a course for themselves. Many entrepreneurs feel utterly lost.
In a situation like this, accountability tools help. Ensuring that you get closer to your goals and actually meet them is perhaps the most critical thing that an entrepreneur can do. You always want to ensure that you’re on the right track
Are you struggling with accountability at the moment? Here are some of the things you can do to improve your situation:
Find Something You Love About Your Work
If you treat your enterprise as a chore – something that you have to do to get money – you’re setting yourself up for failure. No great businessperson ever viewed running a company in that way. Instead, they used corporate structures as an expression of their creativity and will. Cash was secondary.
But why did they take this approach? Almost always, it was because they loved the idea of their enterprise. It did something that they saw as important to share with the rest of the world. It was a passion, so to speak.
Create Small Goals Along The Way
Ask any business coach and they’ll tell you that grandiose goals are a bad idea. It’s not because there’s something wrong with shooting for the stars – there isn’t. It’s just that when you introduce enormous objectives to your life, you can struggle to know how to manage them. The project of starting a business appears so big that you never actually take the first step.
That’s why it is important to break things down into smaller chunks and deal with tasks one at a time. Psychologically, you shouldn’t even be focusing on the big picture. All that matters are the decisions that you make in the here and now.
Take Stock Of Your Performance
Entrepreneurs need to be honest with themselves about their performance. Many times in business, months can pass and nothing happens. It’s at that stage that business leaders need to look at themselves and ask if they’re doing everything correctly.
Being held accountable isn’t always something that business leaders want. Slack can make its way into their working practices. And eventually, they can start taking liberties. When sales are slow and business is down, a lot of entrepreneurs will blame the market. They won’t look at themselves and ask if they’re taking full advantage of the situations.
Be honest and take stock every now and then. You’ll know if your performance isn’t up to scratch. Think carefully about what went wrong and what you can do to improve.
Look For Feedback From Your Team
Hardly any entrepreneurs are willing to seek feedback from their teams. Nobody likes to receive criticism. However, it is one of the best ways to allow people to vent their frustrations and look for ways that you can improve.
Most experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that business is easy – it’s people that are the challenge. Getting feedback is an insight into how you should be conducting yourself and treating your people. The more you can get them on your side, the better off you’ll be.
When seeking feedback, ensure that it is entirely anonymous. You want to get to the truth and find out what people are really thinking. Only then do you have the power to make positive changes.
Reward Yourself When You Accomplish Something
If you’re somebody who has extrinsic motivation, you might want to try rewarding yourself when you accomplish things in your business. Solving problems is great, but you’re ultimately only doing it to increase the fun and enjoyment in your life.
If you get to a key milestone, take some time off and enjoy a vacation. Be kind to yourself and allow your body to recharge its batteries. Don’t underestimate the extent to which a break can supercharge your productivity and make you even more valuable to your enterprise when you return.
Finding motivation when you’re the boss can often be a challenge. But we all have the desire to act within us. It’s just a question of bringing it out.
