Like most people, some mornings I wake up and feel less than enthusiastic about working. Sometimes, this feeling doesn’t stem from laziness or apathy, it’s a stronger power, a sense of futility and helplessness.
I know a lot of people look to my story of success as a source of inspiration and that is one of the greatest benefits I enjoy as a blogger, but - and I’m not afraid to admit it - I don’t always feel energized to pursue business and sometimes in my darkest moments, I even consider throwing in the towel.
This feeling is not so common for me now as I have lifestyle flexibility, a more stable income and a better mindset about work, but earlier on, it definitely was a problem. I want to explain how I overcome these moments (and still do the same thing now on occasion) to stay on track and how you can even have a productive day when you are not really feeling the mojo on the inside.
I expect you have felt similar feelings of despair or a lack of motivation at different stages of your business development, especially if you are yet to establish an income stream online that is sufficient for you to live off, or if you are right at the beginning and you have not seen one cent of return for the work you have put in.
Inspired or Dejected
Depending on your world view and personality style, when you hear of the success of others you may either feel inspired or dejected, and while it’s obviously more fruitful to look at other people achieving what you desire as motivation, as a fallible human, jealousy, depression and anger may be your initial responses.
Your mind is your greatest asset for success in business, but it can be just as strong a force of hindrance, sabotaging your efforts, destroying your work ethic and leaving you with no option but to return to the soul destroying job you promised yourself that you would never go back to.
How To Work When You Don’t Feel Like It
One of the characteristics I believe is at the heart of my success and the success of most entrepreneurs, is an ability to keep working in the face of failure and an ability to force yourself to be productive when you don’t feel like it.
I remember many a time promoting my proofreading business BetterEdit, walking around university campuses placing posters on boards, experiencing a feeling of impatience, a lack of confidence and a constant inner-questioning of whether what I was doing was a waste of time or not.
It’s very hard to be confident of success when you have yet to seriously experience it. In many ways, at this stage of your business career, faith and fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence in your idea has to carry you through the self doubt, the set-backs and the slow growth.
Nothing goes right all the time. Sometimes clients will ask for refunds, or they won’t be happy with what you provide or the universe creates a circumstance you had no way of predicting, which you just have to deal with.
For you beginners out there, one of the greatest challenges you face is your battle with self doubt. Others around you will scoff at your attempt to buck the trend to start a business, your own results will come slowly and for a long time you will have to work every day for little reward. Patience and willpower are necessary at this stage.
BetterEdit offered a great lesson for me. Placing posters on university campuses proved an effective marketing method, but the return on investment was delayed. I put up a poster and it would not elicit a response for months - sometimes even years - so my “pay off” for hard work was far in the future. This meant that I had to believe that clients would come if I just kept at it for long enough.
In hindsight faith in an outcome is easy because the experience is had, before this, you’re playing with chance and believing in the possibility of success without tasting it. If you don’t have tolerance for ambiguity, you better avoid the entrepreneur’s journey.
What Can You Create Today?
One of the things I did and still do whenever I feel less than enthusiastic is to focus on output, rather than the external elements that bring me down. I might feel utterly crushed, but I know if I create something or take any productive action, I continue towards my goals.
The great thing about output is the power it has over your mood. Negative emotion breeds negative actions - lying in your bed or watching TV for example - or a lack of any action at all. If you focus on creating something and just take one little forward step, the physical effort you exert effects your inner emotional state. Your ability to soldier on in the face of emotional dissonance can carry you through the darkness and return you to a state of congruent activity and thought.
Why Do Bloggers Keep Blogging?
To all my wonderful blogging students, those working to create authority blogs and build an income stream from the words you publish online - you know what I mean when I talk about keeping the faith and fighting through self doubt.
Blogging for money is not a quick results endeavor and like you are possibly feeling from time to time currently, you question whether the work you put in will ever bring the desired outcomes.
I remember publishing content to my blog, content I thought was pretty good, but no one left a comment and my traffic wasn’t exactly skyrocketing. After posting my masterpiece I’d head out to other blogs and diligently make my presence felt by leaving quality comments.
I came across blog articles covering similar topics to my own that, in my opinion, were not as good as my articles, yet this blogger had a following of hundreds of readers and lots of comments made to every post. I wondered whether I was doing something wrong or was there something this other blogger was doing right that I wasn’t.
I can’t equivocally answer that question, but I suspect, especially now in hindsight, it was simply a case of patience and dedication to the process I was executing. I needed time to get to where I wanted to go and I needed to believe that my actions day-in and day-out would take me there.
I quickly learned with blogging that I had to enjoy every small success and focus on the commitment towards a goal, with at times blind faith. That motivation and commitment, even when I felt less than excited about my progress and very uncertain about whether my blog would ever take off, carried me onwards. The end result is three years of publishing content to this blog every single week, no matter what mood I’m in.
This is not something every person can replicate. Regardless of life situation, access to free time, resources or any external variable, simply put - most people don’t have the willpower to finish the race.
It’s Not Blind Faith
Bear in mind I’m not promoting BLIND faith, merely consistent effort based on a solid belief in an outcome.
There is a point where you need to take stock of progress and make changes or even quit altogether. Unfortunately most people take the exit door all too early and this lack of action merely reinforces the already prevalent lack of results.
It’s not rocket science, but as moody and imperfect human beings, there is a challenge to overcome oneself. This is, and always will be, your greatest challenge in life.
If you truly want to realize an outcome and taste success, then you must complete the necessary steps to get there. Not some of them and not just during your best days. This needs to be congruent and forceful effort regardless of external circumstances or internal turmoil.
Why not go take some action right now?
Yaro Starak
Willpowered
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Thanks for your post. It has somehow helped reinforcing my motivation for the current project I’m dealing with. I told myself earlier today that I would quit, no matter what other members of the group would say. But now I have enough motivation to carry on thanks to your advice.
It’s true that the longer the road to your goal, the harder it gets to take even just one little step. And the only thing that can keep one going is faith, until it is tested.
Thanks Yaro for sharing the times you found difficult, it does help to know that someone who has ‘made it’ struggled to stay motivated at times.
I totally agree with the tip about taking action, any action. Seeing a result is encouragement to take another step, and so on, until the feeling of despondency passes.
Yaro, thanks for this post. Sometimes we all suffer from lack of enthusiasm and it is definitely compounded by the fact that we don’t get instant results. I struggled with this in the first few months with my blog.
I was writing but no one was reading but eventually I reached the tipping point. My blog traffic is still very low but crossing the 100 subscriber mark certainly helped motivate me to persist.
Thank You for providing such great resources for the community.
Great post Yaro.
I love what I do and enjoy earning money online. I love it so much that I have a hard time staying in bed, so I get up every day at about 5am and never have to use an alarm.
But some times I don’t wake up as positive as other days and today was one of those days.
Yesterday set the stage for how I felt when I woke this morning.
It started when I installed a Wordpress plugin that would let me create RSS feed from a few of my favorite blogs and I made the mistake of thinking it would show in my sidebar, but I was wrong and woke today to many posts that were not mine.
The plugin put the feed in my blog as posts, full posts without giving credit to the owner of the post. Instant depression and to make it worse I had emails wondering why I would do that.
Most embarrassing. Next time I think I will actually test a plugin using my own blogs in the test instead of other people’s blogs.
So I just spent the last 3 1/2 hours stressed trying fixing my mess.
My blood pressure is returning to normal and I love what I do, again.
Yaro,
Thank you for sharing the “other side” of blogging. The side that requires patience, persistence, fortitude, and a determination not to quit no matter what. It’s nice to hear that even someone with a successful blog occasionally has periods where it requires sheer grit and determination to keep on goin’ on. Great tips. Great blog.
I have arrived into my office today 4 hours late, because i had completely lost all motivation and wanted to quit. I have my own online business and it definitley it is a long hard road. Thanks for this post. It has helped me already!
hey yaro.. i really love reading your blog.. you really have quality content. keep it up.. i’m actually a new blogger.. my blog is only a few mths time and i really feel like giving up at times..
but i keep telling myself, i shouldnt just give up like that.. i must continue my journey and beat 90% of the people out there.. thanks for the inspiration!
Hi Yaro,
Thank you for sharing your feelings and these tips on dealing with hard times in business.
Very useful blog post.
Susan.
Hi!
I am also thankful for these tips and think it´s good the read about hard times to.
After all noone is walking on the bright side all the time and I think we learn about ourselves when others can talk about difficulties. I´m no blogger (I wish I was) but I really enjoy to read about experiences and tips in this blog. So Yes I think it´s very useful too.
Elinor
You can not imagine how timely it is. I believe strongly that we get answers when we need them badly. I know that I need the solution for the mood I am in, I was not looking for the answer, I was not browsing, I was watching TV till 3 in the morning. Today…I just glanced at the right side of my google homepage where your site is subscribed, and the answer is waiting form me.
Thank you very much.
Excellent point about ‘focus on output’ and all.
This is a great kick in the pants, Yaro.
My blogging journey has been full of many ups and downs and they always surprise. As you point out, it’s only action that gets us closer to our goals, and every time I take a lot of action, I see results.
Yaro,
This is a fine post. A lot of time I felt the impatience as well as frustration waiting for my business to develop and start producing. Regarding your statement - “negative emotion breeds negative action” - that what happen next on my business - failing
I prove in my entrepreneurial journey that positive attitude MUST be fought for.
It’s not all about “where can I get more money to grow my biz?” “How can I improve my biz?” “How can I achieve X revenue by the end of this quarter?” etc,etc… but it’s all about attitude: “How can I stay positive in the face of adversities?”
Cheers!
How to be a successful entrepreneur | noobpreneur.com
[…] might be going through, but the truth is, many have been in your shoes. Yaro’s post on “How To Remain Productive When You Feel Like Giving Up” really opened my eyes to this fact. Thank you Yaro, as I shall keep moving forward with the […]
You couldn’t have picked a better post for today. The picture at the top of the post, that was me this morning. However, after reading your thoughts and experiences, productivity levels have increased. Thank you for your in site Yaro.
Yaro, I appreciate the posts like this one that take a break from the technical details of internet marketing. There’s definitely an element of persistence that’s required to make it past the initial stages, and it’s nice to know that at times even you struggled with issues of faith. Keeping that in mind should give us all a boost when we need it.
[…] How To Remain Productive When You Feel Like Giving Up […]
Seems to me that “Inspire” is stronger than “Require” to get us going. We are inspired to produce something that will change the world. We are inspired to reach a desired outcome. It provides the catalyst to keep us moving forward.
Having said that, there comes the time where we need simply to “Require” ourselves to do the next thing on the list.
In light of being inspired (reminding ourselves of the noble cause we are engaged in) we press forward through the obstacles of all that would drag us down, hold us back and in general create barriers to progress. We press forward by ‘requiring’ ourselves to complete the next item on the to-do list, write the next column, make the next call or whatever it is.
Even inspired needs discipline. With our eye on the good outcome …
Yaro I agree with everything you have written in this post but I would add a couple of things to it. When I feel down, or feel like my time is being wasted, I find it really helpful to take some time out and really reflect.
First of all I take a look at what I’ve been doing and I try to explore my feelings around the subject. What feels right, and what doesn’t? If something doesn’t feel right on a consistent basis I drop it. As entrepreneurs I think its important to try and feel good about our work.
This is something I intend to blog about soon as this reflection time for me has lead to some strategy changes.
The other thing to add is to try keeping a log of productive stuff done. Sometimes a week can go by and you think to yourself, what on earth did I achieve? It feels as though the week just flew by. By writing down little daily achievements, you can feel much better about yourself by the end of the week and that can generate the enthusiasm to keep going.
Hey Yaro,
Thanks for this great post. I’m full of doubts everyday, but I’m almost 100% sure that these doubts come from me not knowing much yet, I have not learned enough to make this work on my own so I read blogs like yours to get me pumped again. I also do have patience and I believe it is possible since my main motivation is to QUIT! my job and have more freedom, I’ve been doing it for a long time so I want out bad.
Thanks
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
A much needed article!
I’m glad this struck a cord with everyone. It’s clearly a shared experience for us all and I’m very happy to hear so many of you benefited on a deeper level from reading this.
I was reading Caroline’s additions to my argument and it made me think of an article I wrote last year -
6 Tips To Reduce Stress
Which then led me to this article -
It’s Time To Reduce Your Stress - this has some great points about how your perception of time creates stress.
These two are good additions to read after this blog post.
Oops, I forgot to add, when I did feel like this I realised I had to look back upon my real reason(s) for blogging (which was and still is to benefit others - truly!)
When you have a strong purpose behind your goal(s), it is much easier to hit the target, regardless of the status quo. One action can deliver numerous consequences/results!
I read this article when I’m about feel demotivated, it open my eyes and indeed very true. It seems like I have missing something all the while, the will to success. Thanks Yaro
Thank you for posting this ‘aha moment’. Your empowerment and focus are a topic we all need every now and again. As Coaches, Mentors and Leaders we are responsible for our teams.
You add the value they deserve…CSea
i just about feel that way all the time. Thank you for the head lift. I do at times, just walk away from what I am doing, especially if i feel like I am completely going no where and feeling unfocused. I find writing to-do lists help a lot and talking out loud what needs to be done.
Thanks Yaro… You gave me some motivation for keeping strugle with earn money from blog. even i’m new blogger, but i always keep trying.
Thanks Yaro, enjoyed this post! Entrepreneurship is certainly an emotional roller-coaster at times.
Amazing article!
And even more amazing is the timimg.
I was feeling exactly how you described when I received your newsletter in my email box.
I have unsubscribed from other newsletters but there is no way I will unsubscribe from yours.
You have such awesome information.
Time after time you come out with golden nuggets.
I was starting to doubt myself and then I came here and read this.
I have to keep going ad not look back.
Thanks Yaro,
Eren
I feel quite often that I should give up even at this very early stage. I won’t say what stage that is precisely because I want to stay on track in my mind and not get discouraged. I know I’m going to succeed!
Now the “when” of all that keeps me up at night. I truly want it to happen soon. I too am out for *freedom*, and I will accept only that and better!
You’re so right. This is not about feeling. It’s about doing. Sadly, feelings are hard to overcome and most of us generally give in to them, especially when we haven’t experienced the slightest hint of success. I think about throwing in the towel way too much. You motivated me to keep pushing. Thanks.
Just wondering, how long before you started getting a good number of blog followers and decent amount of traffic to the blog you are talking about?
Thank you for this article Yaro, what you described is exactly how I fell right now. I have 4 blogs since last nov. , and I worked very hard on at least one of them. I`m resting a bit now, but I will not give up!
I agree with Caroline. It is important to stop and reflect.
Also it helps if I have a way to measure my progress - to know that I am getting better at something. At the moment I use my move up the Technorati rankings - am yet to install google analytics. (There don’t seem to be many measures that mean a whole lot in the blogosphere so I just use the ones that exist). It is good to have something outside me to fall back on.
Encouragement from other bloggers further along the path (such as Yaro) or from those who know about business (Don at Making Sales Making Money gave me some useful and encouraging feedback the other day) is also very helpful.
Thank you Yaro. Your post came in time to get me out of the rut of a huge mental block that i could not proceed in writing anything. i see your points raise and it get. thank you so much. Appreciate.
Hi Yaro,
my mentor pointed me to your blog ad i have been following you from time to time.
He pointed out this blog you just did and now i know why he did.He wants to see me continue doing what i am doing and not stop or give up.
I know the feeling of working hard and seeing no rewards. I guess this time around i have finally got ahold of my own head and decided this is it,I am not going anywhere else so i better settle in for the long haul.
Now reading your blog, you have just confirmed in me that is exactly what i am oing to do.
The link i posted here is my first attempt at putting together a Newsletter and the satisfaction i get is self rewarding and a lot of fun even though it is not so professional, I know it will be in time.
Thank you Yoro for your inspiration and helping me stay focused and on track
Richard
Yaro,
Great post.Like everyone else I to felt like quiting…more often than not.
But,everyday I keep going because I get some little glint of insperation,some little idea to look into that keeps me going,where from I don’t know.I just know I can’t give up trying.
You never know what’s around the next bend.
Great post Yaro! I appreciate you sharing from a personal place. Being a solopreneur, I know sometimes it has been hard to keep motivated and focused. I like your idea to focus on output….and just keep going. I see many entrepreneurs who expect instant results, then give up too soon.
This is definitely a post that will be added to the “motivation” folder in my favorites…I fall into this trap of being underproductive often and this article was a tremendous help!
Thanks Yaro!
man yaro, you hit it right on the head…today I was feeling exactly like that…I was wondering is this worth it?… Thanks man… I appreciate you!!!
Ryan
I mean I know that it is, because of people like yourself…and in my sales experience, I know that most people quit right before the project they were working on is about to take off… plus the old saying “if it was easy then everyone would be doing it” which would probably not make it worth it anyway.
Hi Yaro,
Great post and reminder of the need to be consistent and that even small things done well over a period of time can eventually lead to great results.
Thomas Edison said,
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
And so we have to be consistent and persistent with our efforts because you just never know when the tide is about to turn.
What? Now you are also a psychic? I am in the same boat as some of the others commenting on your post: perfect timing for my imperfect feelings about the newish old projects we are working on.
You have some great suggestions for fighting the blahs and some great additional ones from the people making the comments.
My thanks to Yaro for creating this post and to the others of you who took the time to comment. I already have a smile on my face where there was once a frown this morning.
Thank you for your article. You reminded me of what I was taught in church on Sunday about faith: Faith without action is no faith at all. In your continuing to keep keeping on even when you didn’t feel like it is a true testament of faith, blind or otherwise. What you said about feelings is so true, but if we can just stick it out - feelings can be so fleeting and change constantly. I’m new to world of blogging and this article is definitely a keeper. Thank you so much!!