Motivation: Success Tips for Multi-Passionate Entrepreneurs

Have you struggled to stay motivated and on track with your goals recently?

When you’re juggling multiple projects, it becomes very easy to slip into overwhelm. Certain projects or tasks get neglected, and it feels like you’re in a constant state of catch up.

When you’re feeling swamped, it’s hard to keep that level of enthusiasm towards your work. Motivation can be very finicky – and a huge influence on this is your mood, as well as your feelings or beliefs towards your ability to “pull it off”.

I’m sharing some handy tips on how to manage your energy, plan effectively, and improve your confidence. Plus what you can do to limit the risk of feeling overwhelmed in the first place.

What’s key is – don’t rely on motivation to see you through to the end…!

*Affiliate Disclosure: Some links in this post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something via the link, I may receive a small commission. This doesn't affect the price you pay.

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What is motivation?

Very briefly – motivation is defined as “The desire to act in service of a goal” Psychology Today

Very Well Mind describe motivation as the drive behind why you do what you do, and the action that you take. It’s “the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours”.

It’s closely connected with your emotions and feelings, both leading to a behaviour or taking action. It’s the “I feel like doing ABC” that happens before you take that action.

The action is usually goal oriented. For example, getting fit, losing weight, building a business, studying for a degree etc.

The problem with motivation though, is that if you solely rely on this – it’s highly likely you won’t see it to the finish line.

Why? Because as soon as you’re about to sit and work on something that you need to do but you don’t want to do – you’ll lose motivation for it.

Mel Robbins speaks a lot about this, and to quote her: “Motivation. Is. Garbage.”

I love Mel and I fully agree with her attitude towards motivation as a concept. Especially if this is the only thing that you rely on to achieve your goal. Motivation plays a part, but there’s more to it if you want to make sustained change.

Keep Your Reason Why Close By

You need to really want this thing if you’re going to stay committed and motivated to keep going. Life throws stuff at us all the time. Unexpected things happen, your focus may need to change, along with your priorities.

There will be parts of your work that you hate doing – it may be boring, or challenging or too big to allow your brain to even make a start.

But, these are often the bits that need to get done if you want to succeed. Mustering the energy to get out of your warm and cosy bed to start working on something that makes you outwardly groan is going to take motivation, desire, determination and a sprinkle of willpower…

This is why you need your reason why to be your go-to when you just can’t face doing the work.

When you think about your reason why you’re doing it, you’ll have an emotional connection to it, and that’s what will help you get out of bed, say no to the fun stuff first, and intentionally take that next step.

Energy Levels & Motivation

Motivation is something that can lessen over time, and even more so if you’re constantly exhausted. If you manage chronic illness or low energy, managing your energy levels each day will be key in keeping that motivation and enthusiasm high.

There are a few ways you can do this:

• Listen to your body – become aware of your higher and lower energy times.
• Plan effectively – If your energy is high in the mornings – plan around this.
• Mix things up – Mix in some lower energy tasks with more challenging ones to balance things out.

I explored this in more depth in another post where I talk about balancing your energy.

Prioritising

When you’re working on multiple projects, becoming efficient at prioritising will mean you can continue to make steady progress without becoming overwhelmed, or dropping the ball. 

Practical Tips:

1. Prioritise Task Urgency: One approach is to focus on the most important tasks first. The Eisenhower Matrix can help you prioritise task urgency.
2. Structure Your Day: Use time and task blocking to map out your week. These are great ways to ensure that you’re organised in your approach as well as working more efficiently each day.
3. Project Management Tools: There are lots of project management tools that you can use. Notion, Click Up and Trello are three that I’ve used. They can help you keep track of different projects and develop your plans.
4. Productivity Tools: I love Sunsama. You can plan your weekly objectives, daily tasks and use tools like The Pomodoro Technique. You can connect your calendar and other apps as well for increased efficiency. Other options include Evernote, Google Keep and Co-Schedule.
5. Set Realistic Goals: Before you begin working, break down your bigger goals into smaller, and more manageable tasks. This removes overwhelm by letting you focus on the next step rather than the entire project.
6. Time for Self-Care: Planning in time for self care (rest breaks, switching off time, walks, connecting with others etc.), is essential. If you don’t give yourself time to recharge your batteries, exhaustion can creep in, which plays havoc with your motivation.

Self Confidence and Motivation

When you have low self confidence and doubt yourself and your abilities, it’s much harder to remain focused and motivated to keep going. Think about it – if you don’t believe that you can – why would you bother? (speaking from personal experience here…)

Low self confidence can lead to procrastination, because of that feeling of “why bother to even try?” It may also prevent you from giving things a go, or tackling those more challenging tasks.

Feeling like this will cost you a lot more energy and determination to keep going, and probably just make you feel miserable.

How to Improve Your Self-Belief

1. Allow Yourself to be a Beginner: Giving yourself permission to simply be a beginner means that you can show yourself grace and compassion. Everybody starts somewhere. As with confidence, your abilities grow over time. Allow yourself to learn and develop your skills. When you face challenges, or make mistakes, approach with an attitude of “what can I learn from this?”. It removes the pressure, and encourages you to be your own cheerleader.
   
2. Be Patient: This can be one of the trickiest things to do! When you really want something, it’s hard to stay focused on what needs to be done today, and not just want to be there already! The overnight success mentality is very unhelpful, and very unrealistic. These ‘overnight successes’ are usually a result of a lot of hard work behind the scenes over a period of time.
   
3. Celebrate Small Wins: A win is a win – no matter how small it may feel – you get to celebrate it! Humans LOVE being rewarded and receiving praise. It’s a huge confidence boost, which in turn increases your motivation.
   
4. Challenge Negative Thoughts: Identify and challenge negative self-talk. Replace self-limiting beliefs with affirmations that empower and motivate you. Surround yourself with positivity to cultivate a resilient mindset.
   

Though Shifting Worksheets

Free download to help you tackle those unhelpful and unwanted negative thoughts.

Productive Environment

Your workspace can have a huge impact on both your ability to focus, and your mindset.

If your office or workspace is chaotic and unorganised, it becomes harder to feel calm and focused on your work.

If you’re a procrastinator, or easily distractible, it doesn’t usually take much for your brain to wander away from the tasks in hand.

This has been a long theme in my life, going right back to when I studied for my psychology degree back in 2000.

Writing essays, and preparing for exams took a lot of effort for me to stay focused on what needed to be done because of my ND brain. It became a standing joke amongst friends that would pop round to visit and see my house sparkling clean, or rooms suddenly redecorated again. The first question was always “When’s the essay due?!”

By creating a calm, and clutter-free workspace, you limit the potential distractions, and will help your mind get focused. Spend some time before you sit down to work and get yourself organised.

Practical Tips:

1. Declutter Your Desk: Pack things away, tidy your desk and only have out what you need for your focus session.
2. Prepare Your Space: As with decluttering your desk, prepare your workspace – whether it’s an office or a space in a room, make sure it’s not untidy. Remove things that aren’t needed, pack things away that have been left out. 
3. Declutter Your Computer: Close the tabs you’re not using at the moment. Organise your files so that they’re easier to find. My friend Lindsay has a great post about organising digital files.
4. Use Do Not Disturb Functions: I swear by my DND function. I love that it works across my Apple products. Constant disruptions from email notifications, or non essential calls can lead to having to frequently start and stop tasks, which costs time and energy. There are also focus apps you can use, so your computer displays blank screens. Coworking spaces can also be useful. I like Studyverse, but there are plenty more available.

Plan Daily Self-Care

Self-care is crucial for maintaining motivation and overall well-being. Taking a break won’t slow down your progress – it will increase your focus and your productivity as you’ll feel recharged and ready to go.

Self care doesn’t need to take hours. Here are some quick and easy ideas for you:

1. Plan your breaks: Pay attention to your natural energy cycles and plan your work and breaks around this. Treat your breaks as you would meetings with others! If you need to have several shorter breaks during the day – block them out in your calendar!
2. Movement: Start your day with some gentle movement. Yoga, stretches or if you’re able to, a walk. This doesn’t need to be a full workout – 5-10 minutes can be beneficial.
3. Journaling: Start a daily journaling habit. Not only is this good for your mental health, it’s a great way to boost your productivity because you’re giving yourself the time to reflect and review on your goals and progress as well.
4. Music: Listen to music or an audiobook during your breaks to help your brain switch off and relax.
5. Connection: Connect with friends and loved ones. Sharing your thoughts, experiences, and having a good belly laugh can be so therapeutic!
6. Nature: If possible, make time to get outdoors and go for walks. There’s something so calming and rejuvenating about walking in nature!

Tracking Progress

Goal Setting:

Clear goals will help you feel calm because you know what you need to do without overthinking it. Decision fatigue can lead to you becoming stuck quite quickly. When you have a clear direction, it removes this risk, and helps you progress more smoothly.

If you have multiple projects, have your plans for each thing. This is because it’s much easier to break down the individual goals, and will be much less confusing.

It’s also a good idea to rate them in terms of urgency, so that you can focus your attention to where it’s most needed if time is short or there’s a deadline looming.

Tracking:

Tracking your progress is another way to keep your energy and motivation flowing. When you regularly review what you’ve done, how things have worked out, you can easily make changes in the moment.

Tracking also helps you identify progress and wins – which can sometimes be hard to see when you’re right in the thick of it.

Practical Tips:

• Break down bigger goals into smaller, more manageable ones.
• Carry out monthly in-depth reviews. This will enable you to recognise patterns, identify things that are going well, or that need to change.
• Spend an hour per week reviewing and planning for the week ahead. This helps you to build on the previous week, creating a more consistent way of working.
• Identify milestones that you want to celebrate – and share when you reach them!
• If something doesn’t feel right, or you’re not feeling as connected with your work, do an interim review. Use a brain dump and journal to get to the bottom of why you’re feeling like this. The sooner you become aware of it, the sooner you can adapt and maintain your progress.

Tools Resources & Support

My favourite tools that supports my motivation and daily productivity are:

Sunsama – A brilliant task management that is perfect for busy and neurodiverse minds who easily find themselves overwhelmed and distracted. grab a free 2 week trial and free month!

Time Audit – Gain a clear understanding of exactly where your time and your energy is spent. Highly recommend doing this if you're planning to focus on increased productivity. *Free download!

Tailwind – Fantastic scheduling tool. Great for Pinterest and repurposing across different social media platforms.

Canva Pro – Upgrade your content design with Canva Pro. Explore the enhanced features available in Pro. Grab your free trial here!

Etsy – Are you ready to create your own online store? Etsy is a brilliant shopping platform that's used by millions. Setting up your store is simple, and when you sign up with this link we both get 40 free listings!

Goal Worksheet – *Free download. Plan your big goal & break it down into smaller steps with this handy PDF.

Trello – Great visual project management tool. Not affiliated, but I love it!

Final Thoughts

Motivation can be something that many of us get hung up on. After listening to Mel Robbins, my attitude to motivation changed. I appreciate that relying solely on motivation will not get me to where I want to be.

Motivation can play a huge part in your journey to success, but you need more than that to see you through the tougher times, when you really need to dig deep to push through.

If this has been something you struggle with, I'd love to hear from you. I have something coming up soon that could help you see your goals through to the very end!

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Meet Lynsey

Hey there! I'm Lynsey, a coach, counsellor, and mentor for low energy, introverted or low confident female coaches & small business owners. With over 5 years’ experience of running businesses, and over a decade as a tutor and trainer, I've learned the value of effective time management that energises you through working with your energy.

I've lived with chronic illness – ME/CFS since 2011 and since then I re-trained as a counsellor, and achieved a distinction for my MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice; all while running 4 businesses! I want that for you as well & it is possible with the right support and pathway to success.

Improving your mindset, finding acceptance and developing a solution-focused approach to achieving your goals is my passion. Blending mental health support where needed, as well as a supportive space and methods to manage your work more effectively.

If you'd like to know more about working with me, you can email [email protected] or find me on socials (links in the menu)

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