Inspiring Women in Business Podcast - Episode 40 - How to get your motivation back if you’ve fallen out of love with your business?
Feeling sad and unmotivated about your business is a real thing. The many toxic positivities out there do not help business owners normalise the ups and downs of having a business. What we need to do is to accept these feelings, face them, and plan our next step.
In this episode, I share 5 practical steps to help you reflect and get your motivation back if you’ve fallen out of love with your business.
Listen and Enjoy!
Key takeaways from this episode:
5 Practical Steps to Do if You’re Feeling Unmotivated:
- Don’t make rash decisions based on temporary emotions but equally, don’t stay stuck. Make sure there's nothing else going on, like literally being tired! Overwhelming and burnout is s the real thing.
- Take a break or get a change of scenery and have a good night’s sleep. Take some time out and revisit the problem. This works for all issues, not just falling out of love with your business!
- Get curious. Dig deeper into why you might have fallen out of love with what you’re doing.
- Give yourself permission to change your mind or evolve your business. Know that it's ok to change what you're doing but do it on your terms and your time frame.
- Find the right person to talk things through. This isn't always a family member but someone who will understand you and what you’re doing.
Episode Timeline:
00:00 Podcast Intro
01:08 Episode Intro
01:50 Toxic positivity in the world of business
02:17 Not loving every single thing about your business
03:36 Temporary emotions
04:57 Flexing your time to make it work for you and your energy
04:57 Taking a break
05:35 Getting curious
06:06 Giving yourself permission to change your mind
06:53 Finding the right person to talk to
08:22 Episode recap
09:50 Outro
More about Ruth:
Hi, I’m Ruth, a business coach specializing in helping freelancers and business owners adjust their mindset and their marketing so they can get fully booked with clients they LOVE to work with. I’ve helped hundreds of self-employed women achieve the time and money freedom they craved.
I’ve started this podcast because when I first went all in and left the corporate world to be a freelancer, I was grateful for any work that came my way. After over 20 years of freelancing and working for other people, I started to realize I’d created a glass ceiling for myself.
In 2017, I finally started listening to that voice that had been telling me for a long time that I wasn’t doing what I loved and fulfilling my true potential. It took a critical illness to give me that wake-up call. I don’t want the same to happen to you.
You can expect practical advice, inspiring stories, and a lot of aha moments as we uncover and kick to the curb all the obstacles you have been putting in your way.
I’m on a mission to inspire women to start and play bigger in business.
Connect and know more about Ruth here:
Coaching: https://www.ruthgilbey.com/coaching
Free Masterclass: https://www.ruthgilbey.com/the-sold-out-solution-2022
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruthgilbeymarketingandcoaching/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruth_gilbey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthgilbey/
Transcription
Ruth Gilbey 00:04
Hello and welcome to the inspiring women in business podcast. My name is Ruth Gilbey and I'm a business and marketing coach. I'm on a mission to inspire women to start and play bigger in business. Now I started this podcast because when I first went all in and left the corporate world to be a freelancer, I was just grateful for any work that came my way. After over 20 years of freelancing and working for other people, I started to realize I'd created a glass ceiling for myself. It was in 2017 when I finally started listening to that voice that had been telling me for a long time, that I wasn't doing what I loved, and I wasn't fulfilling my true potential. It took a critical illness to give me that wake-up call. And I don't want the same thing to happen to you. You can expect practical advice, interviews, inspiring stories, and a lot of aha moments, as we uncover and kick to the curb. All the obstacles you've been putting in your way.
Ruth Gilbey 01:08
Hi, everyone, welcome back to the inspiring women in business podcast. Today's podcast is about how to get your motivation back. If you've fallen out of love with your business. I've decided to keep this episode short and sweet because I could really get deep into the psychology of this. But I do want to talk about how you manage your mindset around this. But I also want to give you some practical steps and some reflection questions and kinds of actions as well. So you have a little bit of a kind of tools to use if you're actually feeling unmotivated, and you can then carve out the right plan for you. If I'm asking you questions, I'm not just telling you what to do, you're creating a little plan and action plan for yourself.
Ruth Gilbey 01:50
So first of all, let's normalize that it's okay to not always feel motivated and positive about anything in life as well as your business. Feeling sad and unmotivated about your business is a real thing. Yeah, it can be perceived as a negative thing. There's a lot of toxic positivity out there. That doesn't help business owners normalize the ups and downs of having a business.
Ruth Gilbey 02:17
I love what I do, but I don't love it every day. And that's okay, it's taken me a while to find the thing I really love doing. It's taken a lot of twists, turns, reinventions, evolutions, and a lot of letting go of the shoulds. For me to end up having something that I am motivated about most days, not every day. And I think it's also important to know that you cannot love every single thing about your online business. You can't love every single task unless when it comes to running business. I actually don't think it's possible. Unless you're some type of magic unicorn. I mean, people talk about outsourcing the things that you don't love doing. And yes, but to keep profitable, we cannot outsource everything. And also, should we outsource the things that we don't love doing? Or should we outsource the things that are really going to leverage our business, there's only so much budget for outsourcing. That is another podcast episode.
Ruth Gilbey 03:17
So anyway, back to how to get your motivation back or the kinds of steps to take when you're feeling like this. As I said, I've put this handy guide together of what you can do if you're feeling unmotivated in your business, not to give you loads to do but to encourage you to take a step back and be compassionate with yourself.
Ruth Gilbey 03:36
First of all, remember your emotions. Most of the time, I would say they are temporary, sometimes they last a day, sometimes they last a week, sometimes they last longer, but don't make any rash decisions on a temporary emotion, but equally don't stay stuck in a rut. So that's the balance of making sure that there's not something else going on. Or if it's a temporary emotion. I mean, if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'd wake up very unmotivated and not loving my business because the last thing I want to do is sit at a desk or do calls and that's okay. And so sometimes, you know how a good night's sleep we've had can affect how we feel about our business. It can be something minor, or it can be something bigger that's going on.
Ruth Gilbey 04:24
The next thing is which kind of carries on from this as business owners we are it's kind of ingrained in us. A lot of us have come from corporate backgrounds or we've worked for other people. And you know, we've been taught to work Monday to Friday nine to five. I mean, I used to work nine to seven and get home at nine o'clock at night. And it's kind of ingrained in us that we have to work every single day whereas you get to decide if it's your own business, how you can kind of like flex your day or your week to make it work for you and your energy.
Ruth Gilbey 04:57
So the next one is a very simple one I take a break or get a change of scenery, go and work somewhere else, take some time out, and then revisit the problem. This works for all problems, not just falling out of love with your business. But often I know that I fall into this trap that if something is bothering me, I tend to keep myself even busier and avoid reflecting on something. And it's harder to hit a moving target, isn't it than if you stop and actually allow yourself to kind of like, take a break from it? Or reflect on what's actually going on?
Ruth Gilbey 05:35
So it's also important to get curious, I've talked about this before, dig deeper into why you might have fallen out of love with what you're doing. Is it what you're actually doing that you've fallen out with? Or again, is something else going on? Are you being paid enough? Is it a particular task in your business that you don't like doing? Is there a particular contract or an offer that you really don't want to offer any more or a service you want to think I just want to avoid doing that? Is there something else going on as affected your opinion of your business?
Ruth Gilbey 06:06
And then when you've done those things, also give yourself permission to change your mind. That doesn't mean you know, stopping your business, burning it on, and not doing it anymore. But also know that it's okay to change or evolve what you're doing. But do it on your terms. And in your timeframe. It can cause you even more stress and more stress and overwhelm if you make a rash decision. That's why I always think to say to my clients, you know, think 3, 6, 12 months ahead, I let you know, you don't have to go in really granular it's hard to get really granular when you're thinking 12 months ahead, but thinking 12 months, you still want to be doing something that you're doing or part of what you're doing. Do you want to evolve your business and make steps towards that?
Ruth Gilbey 06:53
The next one is to find the right person to talk this through with and this isn't always a family member who doesn't understand what you do for a living my family does not understand what I do. And so talking to them about my business, I don't always get the kind of best advice. It's I need to talk to other people who understand what I do. So a coach, a mentor, a friend, a business bestie, a community, a membership that has like-minded business owners, people who will give you space as well to talk things through. Often one of the first calls I do with my one-to-one clients, is them unpacking what's been going on in their life and business well, you know, mainly their business, but life impacts how you feel about your business as well. But I would say 70% of the call, I'm not actually really talking, I'm just asking questions and getting them to unpack and process everything, then towards the end, I will give them a few actions again, similar to what I've talked about today to get them to kind of move towards what they actually want rather than what they don't want. And also what happens is I mean, I can even be talking for as little as 10% of the call just asking questions. I've allowed them space to unpack and process things. And then it's in the kind of follow-up email, I'll have the suggestions and the strategy that they can decide on, it's always got to get their buy-in as well.
Ruth Gilbey 08:22
So let me just recap what I just went through today, which is don't make rash decisions based on a temporary emotion. But equally, don't stay stuck, take a break or get a change of scenery, and have a good night's sleep. See how you feel after a really good night's sleep as well as on a break. Get curious, and dig deeper into why you've fallen out of love with what you're doing. Give yourself permission to change your mind and evolve your business. We think we have to keep doing the same thing. And even the slight tweak or dropping something that or changing what you're actually offering can really refresh how you feel about your business. Find the right person to talk things through. And that isn't always a family member who doesn't understand what you do. And normalize again, go back to what I was saying at the beginning that feeling down, sad, and unmotivated in your business is a real thing. And it's sad, but it can be perceived as a negative thing. So it's really important to normalize it. It reminds me of the film Inside Out where sadness says crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems. How much better do we feel when we have had a good cry? Or we have had space to actually talk things through and kind of have a bit of a clearout and not feel alone? Do not feel stuck and actually normalize what's going on.
Ruth Gilbey 09:50
Thanks for listening to the inspiring women in business podcast. I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, I would love it if you would leave me a review Also, I would love to connect with you on Instagram. That's where I hang out most of the time. I'm @Ruth_Gilbey. I'll put a link in the show notes for you as well to come and connect with me. Tell me about your business and also tell me what you'd like to hear next on the podcast. And lastly, go and check out the business building hub on my website. There you can find more amazing free resources to help you take the next step in your business. And you can also find out other ways that you could work with me. I'll see you soon.