Unlock your motivation, get enjoyment from your effort and reward yourself right
Business owners are terrible at rewarding themselves for their efforts. There, I’ve said it.
Running your own business has its perks, but it also involves tasks that aren’t exactly thrilling or motivating.
You know the ones I mean: the boring, difficult, or mentally taxing activities that you can't necessarily delegate, like planning, admin, writing social media posts, or making time for strategic thinking.
In your personal life, it could be putting things away, decluttering, looking after your health, or getting to bed at a reasonable time (without your mobile phone!).
You know these tasks are important, and part of you really wants to do them, but you don’t. Then you feel guilty, and it clutters up your mind.
But there's a way to motivate yourself: specific rewards for specific efforts. This is a drum I frequently bang, so let’s make it more appealing.
So, if you're a demotivated small business owner, get your dopamine hits here...
Decide what you really want to focus on improving.
Set yourself an achievable and measurable goal.
Plan very specific actions.
Decide your reward for each action.
Reward yourself when you’ve done it. No reward if you don’t.
If I had a pound for every time I got a blank look when I asked a business owner about how they might reward themselves for their efforts! And by the way, the achievement itself won’t cut it as a reward! Our society has become impulsive, buying things almost instantly with very little sense of anticipation or deservingness. Whether this is you or not, consider a shift in mindset around self-reward.
So, if your mind goes blank at the thought of how you might reward yourself, create a Dopamine Menu.
The rules of the Dopamine Menu:
Include both activities and material things.
Refer to this menu every day. When you identify an effortful activity, allocate a motivating reward to it.
No reward until you put in the effort.
Don’t let effort go unrewarded!
Exclude food, alcohol, or drugs from this list!
Add activities that might already distract you during the day. Examples from my clients' menus include social media scrolling, texting, phone calls to family and friends, an episode of a favorite TV series, web research, cleaning, washing, walking, and enjoying posh coffee or tea at a café.
Add hobbies and things you’d like to do but don’t currently make time for, like painting watercolors, baking, photography, knitting, crochet, running, tennis, and writing.
Include material things you’d like to buy on a sliding scale—think broader and better than an Amazon wishlist! Rewards don’t need to break the bank. I have a wishlist of second-hand books, so my reward can be as affordable as a cup of tea or coffee.
One of the joys of this exercise is seeing how unique everyone’s Dopamine Menu is. Some clients forest bathe, buy Lego, sell items on eBay, or purchase new outfits on Vinted, etc etc, etc
Curating this list can be fun—discuss it with family and friends, and keep updating it as you think of new things. What’s not to love?
You have no excuse to be a demotivated small business owner now as you CAN get your dopamine hits here as frequently as you want!
Wishing you many motivated moments and happy dopamine hits! And you know where I am if you want to be even more motivated!