7 Tips to Stay Motivated As an Entrepreneur | SaaS District

As an entrepreneur, there's always a time in your journey or in your day where you wake up and you just don't feel like doing anything, right? It's hard to get motivated. It's hard to continue. It's hard to get up and grind and get, get to fight and battle another day on the entrepreneurial field. But that happens to everybody. Okay? That's normal. It's absolutely normal. It happens to me and we're all human beings. It's all part of the journey and just know that it's completely normal. So that's why I created this video today. I want to share with you guys 7 reasons when you're feeling down, when you don't have that motivation to continue and follow through on those tasks of what you committed to. I want to share with you guys 7 tips to help you guys stay motivated in continuing to build your product and business. Hey guys, welcome back to another video. My name is Akeel Jabbar, the investment director and GP at Horizon Capital, where we work specifically with SaaS companies to help take their business to the next level. And we work with a lot of entrepreneurs every single day. And one part of our struggle is always staying motivated. How do you stay motivated, right? To continue doing all the tasks you have to do. There's just so much to do every single day. It's easy to get overwhelmed. It's easy to get discouraged. But just for example, right? Like we were supposed to record this video this week. We record videos every single week. Uh, we're recording 3 a week right now and we're publishing it on our YouTube channel, SaaS District. But for example, today we didn't have the right setting. Uh, we just had so much on our plate and everybody was tied up with different things and I just lost motivation to do this video, right? I was like, man, I don't, I don't feel like doing this video today. I'm just tired. I need that motivation. So exactly why I created this video because I know I'm not the only one going through this. I thought this might help other people as well. So let's get into it. So number 1, remembering your why for what you're doing. You probably write this down. You might have a personal mission statement or a personal vision or your why. Understanding, remembering, just reminding yourself, why did you start this in the beginning? Why did I start this podcast channel? Why did I decide to build this YouTube channel? Why did I decide to build this SaaS company? Maybe because it was, There was always a reason for it, right? And write it down again, right? Go back there, write it down. Just do a simple exercise or read it in your head, memorize. Just remember of when, you know, that, that day when you got excited of when you first started and remember why you started it. And that's a simple reminder to yourself that, you know, there's a deeper reason for doing this. It's not just because, uh, you know, you want to do it, but there's actually a deeper reason for it. And in this case, it serves as your purpose. Why did you become an entrepreneur? So you're the only one that can answer that. For example, me, when I created this YouTube channel, I wanted to give back, right? And that's what reminds me is like, how can I help other entrepreneurs, other SaaS companies that I work with who need maybe some of the expertise or my help to help them guide them through difficult moments? And that's exactly why I created it. And that's what reminds me and keeps me going. Number 2, creating your morning routine. This is super important. I've been doing this for the last, I would say, 6 or 7 years where every day I try to set some kind of routine. Once I find I'm out of a routine, let's go, let's say I'm going to travel for a week or 2. I get out of my rhythm, I get out of my routine. I find that affects my productivity. I find that affects my motivation. It's so hard to get back on track. But once you're in a good rhythm and a good routine, you know, you're going to the gym, you're getting a good, you know, healthy breakfast in, you're meditating, you're journaling. Let's say you have all that in place. By the time you get to work, by the time you get to doing what you have to do, you have that rhythm of, you know, getting, being productive, feeling good about yourself. So you get to your task and you know, you're just moving on to the next thing and getting through it with very little motivation needed. It's just part of the system and part of your overall rhythm and then, and kind of the actions you take in your day. So that's a good way. If you already, if you don't already have a routine, I highly suggest you guys create one. It'll make your life a lot easier and get you through that day every single day. Number 3, Set time for yourself, right? It's so easy as an entrepreneur to overwork, to work those 12-hour days, 7 days a week, grinding 60, 70, 80 hours. And I get that it's all part of the journey. It's all part of the fun. But remember, you got to take care of yourself. You know, set time for yourself, even if it's, you know, once a week, maybe it's an hour a day. Set time for yourself where you're just focusing on yourself. Go for a walk, listen to a podcast, go walk in the park, go to the gym, and just think about how you need to improve yourself, right? You know, step away from the business, Maybe go meet with a friend, hydrate, eat some healthy foods, and just take that time to really take care of yourself. Take that time for you, go get a massage, whatever that is you need just to replenish yourself, recharge, reenergize, and then come back and you can go back and tackle. You might be just a little overworked, a little burnt out, or just a little bit tired from being grinded out. So maybe you just need that little recharge. Take that time for yourself and come back and try it all over again. All right. So that's number 3. Number 4, plan ahead, set reminders, and use a calendar. Okay. I have another video where I actually talk about this, you know, productivity routines that I love to share with entrepreneurs on how to set up your calendar in more detail and set up your days. Even when you have a plan, sometimes you have that plan in your head, it's hard to stick to your routine. So I actually like to set reminders. I like to set up my calendar and I like to schedule out my day so that I know exactly what I should be doing and flowing from one thing to another. And I'm not getting distracted, With so many things that happen on a daily basis. And I find some people actually need this. They need that reminder, right? Somebody just, whether it's an alarm, I've seen that people set on their phones, they set alarms every couple of minutes or something where they easily get distracted. For example, like they're on social media. It's like, you know, they need a little alarm saying, hey, get off social media and get back to work. Or, you know, they just have these notifications go off where they need to focus on a certain task that they've been delaying or procrastinating that they need to get back on track. So if you need that, you know, set up that system for yourself. Easily just get on your, on your phone, set up those reminders at different times, get on your calendar, book in those events that you need to do, and you do it as you follow your schedule. So that gets me into tip number 5, which is turn off your notifications. Okay? That's part of my, my actual, my, the video I talk about in more detail, but you have those little distractions, whether it's your Slack, your email, your messages, your social media. Every time you get notified, that's, that actually You know, you have to restart. And once you get into rhythm, it's really, really hard. Once you get into flow, it's really hard to get back into that state. So my recommendation, turn off all your notifications for the next couple of hours. Maybe you're feeling demotivated, just turn it off. Even if you want to turn off your phone and just focus on your work and see what happens. You know, you can't— let's say you set a, you know, maybe look at your watch. Um, you know, you've got the next hour, look at your phone, turn off my phone and just do what you have to do. And then come back at it and you can turn it off and check everything afterwards. Or the other thing you can do is just Schedule those times, right? Schedule those times where you can check notifications, where you can check emails. Maybe that's just once a day, twice a day, or 3 times a day, whatever that works for you. But I like to turn off all my notifications. I don't have them. I have to actually manually go through and check them just because I know how distractive they are, whether it's on my computer or my phone. Turn that off and you'll see how much more productive you'll be. Number 6, the 6th thing you can do is set rewards. And these don't need to be big rewards, but just little micro rewards. We're naturally wired to be incentivized by rewards, right? If there's nothing benefiting us at the end of this, we're doing all this work and we don't get anything out of it. We get easily discouraged, right? We need that incentive to continue moving forward, right? That's our food. That's our, that's our money. That's whatever it is. In this case, there's something you're discouraged about and you're like, but I need to do this. Set up a little reward, right? It's like, if I finish this, I'm going to go and treat myself with this, right? Something that you crave that'll make you feel better. Whether that's, you know, having a nice drink, going for dessert, going for a dinner, Go getting a massage, whatever that is that, you know, you can go splurge a little bit on yourself and then reward yourself after you complete it. Or maybe that's, you know, some people like to watch Netflix, right? They need to get on their TV or play a game, whatever it is that you, you know, you feel you deserve that time or that moment. But that only comes after you've accomplished what you've decided you're going to do. So if you check out my video on productivity, another thing I mentioned a lot is the Pomodoro technique, which I really, really love. It's a very powerful time management tool where you can set times of work where you're getting into flow and you're, You eliminate all distractions and then you set those small times of being, you know, going out and being able to do whatever you want. Now that's rewarding yourself, checking your phone, or allowing yourself to get off track from the work you have to do and just recover. Take those little micro recovery breaks and then you get back onto it. It's just a super effective way of managing your time and it's proven over and over again that it works. Finally, number 7, this is probably the most underrated one and probably the first one I should have brought up. Get more sleep. Okay, this is probably something you probably didn't notice, and you probably, you delay and let build up and get worse and worse over time, but prioritize your sleep, right? I've seen this many, many times where people put sleep at the end, they're exhausted, they wake up early, they're getting up at 4:00 AM, but they're sleeping at 2:00 AM, and they're barely getting any sleep. Get that 6, 7, 8 hours if you can every single night, and watch how much energy, how much more productive you are when you get to work. You know, there's really, it's very, very rare that it's, there's some task or some initiative that you need to complete that's worth putting your own health and your own sleep at risk. If there's something that's that urgent, you know, you should have probably prioritized it earlier in the day. But if something comes up, take the rest, go to sleep, wake up, and then tackle it first thing if that's what you need to do. But don't go to bed stressed, don't go to bed overworked, don't go to bed exhausted. Get yourself a good night's sleep. Wake up, feel refreshed, and then go out and tackle it again. But that's my seventh and final recommendation: get as much sleep as possible and see how much more productive you are. So there you have it, guys. Those are the seven tips I have for you entrepreneurs who are lacking to get motivated. I get it; it's normal. Like I said, we're all human. It happens to us. But I want to hear from you guys. What else do you guys do? Do you have any other tips that you guys do when you're feeling unmotivated? What's your number one tip that gets you going every single time? Let me know in the comment below. If you guys like this video, please like, subscribe, and we'll see you guys on the next video. Bye.