70. How do you stay motivated?

CK 70 Final A

Hi, welcome to episode 70. Now I am about to get to episode 100. The question becomes, how do you stay motivated? Committed and driven to continue forward, whether you see movement or not, whether you see success or not. How do you keep that motivation forward? So let's get into it.

Hi, my name is Kathryn Mahoney, and I'm passionate about intuition business and living your best life and helping you navigate the ups and downs of the wild ride. We call life. I'm an entrepreneur intuitive advisor, dedicated to guiding others to success, winning national awards in business and leadership and featured in MSNBC USA today and the business journal.

Just to name a few speaking to audiences, just like yourself I teach successful business leaders in honing their intuition, creating certainty, and taking aligned action. I'll give you a straight talk with humor. Business, intuition and mindset are just a few of the topics we discuss here. Be ready for a fun.

Insightful journey with me, reveal hidden secrets, be challenged and inspired. This is the clearly Kathryn podcast.

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All right. So. I've worked from home independently as an entrepreneur, as a leader, majority of my career. I've been very independent my entire life. So there's nothing strange about that. I've always liked to be alone i, enjoy my independence, and privacy. For me, staying self-motivated. Has Never been terribly difficult. But I know it is for other people.

For me continuing something forward and staying independent, keeping myself self-motivated. Has Never been terribly difficult. But I know it is for other people.

So, how do you keep yourself motivated? How do you keep yourself moving forward? Especially if you don't feel like you're getting any traction. Especially, if you feel like what you're putting a lot of energy in. Isn't going anywhere. Like what if you're doing a podcast and no one is listening.

Am I making a podcast where no one is listening. Nah. But it could be true. I know that it's not because I hear from so many of you, the comments that you have and the feedback you gave me really drive me forward. And I get questions about different things or asked to do topics. So I do know that you are listening out there.

I have heard podcasters people that make videos or write things or create all these amazing websites that say, I don't know that anyone's out there is anyone seeing what I'm doing. I'm not getting likes or comments or feedback. do I keep going forward? Am I doing something wrong? Is what I'm doing not really working?

I think there's a lot of questions to that. A lot of different ways to answer that. Let's look at the truth. Of what you're really spending your time on. I mean, it's a legitimate question. I'm spending all this time and energy, is anything coming from it?

I'm putting all this work into it. I don't see anything happening.

Is no one seeing it because you're not marketing it well, and you're not putting it out there. For people to see. It's like if you're just recording a podcast. But you're not publishing it. You're just holding the recordings at home on your computer. Then no, one's going to hear it right. So then you publish it.

But then you don't let anyone know that it exists. Okay. That could be a problem as well. You only tell a few friends to listen. You don't post about it anywhere. You don't mention it anywhere. You've got to get the word out. How we going about doing that?

It's the same thing. If you create. Some amazing website. How were you getting out there? You just relying on SEO and spiders who are always changing, how they find things. So. You're always having to pay someone thousands of dollars to help you get your word out. How are you letting the world know that you exist?

Now you're just at your home all day singing in the shower. Will anyone ever discover you as the next amazing singer?

If your driving amazing everywhere you go. Does anyone know that you could be an amazing race car driver? If you're only writing papers and in a journal. Does anyone know that you're a writer? No. So. First question I have what continues to motivate you to write in that journal, record yourself, talking, sing in the shower.

Sometimes I get the answer of. Well, if I put it out there, someone may judge me. Well, yeah, people are going to judge you. I don't know what else to tell you about it. It's going to happen. And you're either going to decide that a few people who don't like it. Are going to determine your self worth.

Or you're going to continue to do what it is that you're doing, because you know, that it's what you're supposed to be doing. And your audience will find you. And you will find your audience. And keep going. You have to really make this internal decision yourself. And you have to really be able to filter out.

What is the truth? And what isn't. What is someone else's truth.

If you think about it, we all like different music. We all like different types of books. We all like different types of movies. We like different artists. We like our houses to be painted different colors inside. We liked different cars. We liked different food. We all have our own taste. We all have our own opinion that come from different things. And then we all have an attitude.

No, we either have an attitude of wanting to always support others and help them. And. Give them kudos to see where their work can go. Or we have an attitude, like it's just fun to put everybody down.

You know, there are some people that's what, their way, they like that. They liked just putting people down just because they can. And that's just how it is. I, I don't know what to tell you. That's just how it works. So are you going to allow people who go, oh, what you're doing is awful. I don't really like it.

It's you know, you don't sound good. Your audio is terrible. Nothing about it to value your writing's awful.

Are you going to allow that to stop you?

Because, you know what they say, that they walk away and they just go to the next person, say it, they could care less. What happens to you on the other side? Are you going to take the people that say, oh, I love what you're saying. I think it's amazing. Although your message is getting lost because I think you need better audio.

So get some better audio because you have something amazing to say. That's a criticism, right? Your audio sucks. But they say it in a way that is you have something amazing to say. This I think will help. There's something different in there. Isn't there. So are you ready to get your message out there? Are you ready to go out in the world? Can you stay motivated? Are you relying on other people's feedback to keep you motivated? This is an important question. You need to ask yourself.

You know, for me, I have to get over the fact that I'm dyslexic, but I love to write. But I'm probably the worst speller on the planet and I'm a terrible typist as I'm sure you have all come across sometime reading anything I posted or written. Spelling and typing the letters backwards is always a huge problem for me. The grammar. It. Goes from my brain into the typing and I can't see it. I literally can't see. When words are spelled incorrectly. I, my brain doesn't show it to me.

So I will tell you. I get you spelled this wrong all the time. I even had a Senator once introduced me as Kathryn, the bad speller. You know what. I don't care. You come to me for advice. So you must not think I'm stupid. You just want to see if I have thick enough skin to not care that you call me a bad speller.

You know, I appreciate when my friends are nice and they will private message me and go, oh, I think that would help you spelled this wrong. Thank you. I appreciate that. But if you want to call it out in public, you know, I'm like really, you're not really. Trying to be nice. You're just trying to mess up what I'm saying, but if you private message me and go.

Hey. I know you're a bad speller. I'm just trying to help you out here and be your friend, because I like what you wrote. You might want to correct these words. I appreciate that. Because even though I use every tool that's out there to correct my spelling. That's how bad I am and I openly admit it. You know what? And sometimes I don't change it because you know what that's who I am. I am not perfect. I totally own it. I own that I'm a bad speller and I'm not perfect. Okay. There we go.

But imagine. If. I just couldn't take it. No, sometimes I'll admit when people are just nasty about it. I'm like, oh, forget it. And I'll just delete whatever it is. Cause I'm like, oh, I just forget it. I don't want to deal with it. I get that too. But it doesn't stop me from ever posting or ever writing ever again. It just doesn't.

You have to get to that point. And what continues to drive you forward? What continues to motivate you? What motivates you in moving your business forward? What motivates you every day? To continue to work on something. That feels extremely challenging. Maybe feels lonely. Maybe you can't find the help you need. Maybe the technology is driving you nuts.

Let me ask you a couple of questions. One. are you asking for help? Are you. Are you asking for help? I openly admit, I ask a lot of the super kindly patient. People around me. Sometimes I find out later super obvious, stupid questions about software I'm using. And they're so nice and so kind, and I always thank them. Like, thank you so much for allowing me to ask these ridiculously stupid questions and being patient with me. I love your software. I'm fairly techie, but enough to get myself in trouble sometimes, or I've got too many new techie things going on. I get confused between all of them. I will admit.

So are you willing to. Ask the obvious, silly question. Some people are too embarrassed. Well, you're going to have to start asking people for help. You have to start asking the question.

I think I've talked about this exercise before, but I'm going to talk about it again. This is an exercise I used to. Teach all the time. Often at the end of many of my speeches and. Lessons.

And here it is. So we have Susie and we have Bob. So I tell Bob. Close your hand, Bob and, and close it. Not so like rigidly tight, but close your hand into a fist. Now, Susie, I want you to open Bob's hand. And you're going to have. One minute to do this. All right.

Usually I have a group of people to do this and it split A to B and I watched the whole room. It's fascinating. Because some people will go in and forcibly try to open the hand and some people will try to argue about opening the hand. You need to open your hand for me, open your hand. And it's fascinating to watch this whole thing unfold. And then I will say, all right, time's up. Minute's up.

So who got the other person to open their hand. Susie. Bob, did you get your partner to open the hand? Nope. Okay. And then there'll be maybe one or two people. How'd you get their hand open? Oh, I forced it open I paid them.

Did anyone think of saying. Bob. Will you please open your hand for me? And they all look shocked. I never thought I could ask them to open their hand.

Granted, it was not part of my instructions. You could ask them to open their hand. But. When did we lose? This ability to ask people. When did we lose politeness that the thought of asking. Is that far away from our mind?

I just want you to remember ask people. For help. Ask. Questions. And you will get amazing. Results.

The other thing I want to talk about is keeping yourself motivated. Moving forward. Is every day. You're not going to be super motivated and moving forward some days you're gonna be like, I don't want to do this anymore. I just can't do it.

Now we started this episode with me saying is episode 70. How do you keep yourself motivated? How am I going to keep myself motivated to episode 100. I have been doing. Majority on a consistent basis, a few little hiccups here and there due to changing software and different things. But in general, it has been consistent on Monday and Thursdays, a new episode.

How do I do it? How do I keep myself motivated? I will tell you sometimes I prerecord a few. Sometimes I make it the day before. I never know. I'm just not a real scheduled person. I think we talked about this before in other episodes. I'm not one of those people. Like every Monday I did this every Tuesday to that.

I mean, granted. With the episodes I do need to record Sundays were to come out Monday. If I'm running a bit behind and. And Wednesdays if I'm going to put out Thursday, but in general, I never quite know what my day is going to bring. So, how do I stay motivated? And how do you stay motivated on keeping things moving forward?

How do I decide to keep making more episodes? Well, I made the commitment to all of you and I made the commitment to myself. That. This is something I know I'm supposed to do. And I make this for you as much as I make it for myself. I answer people's questions. And sometimes I realize they're questions for myself. Sometimes it's things that I'm going through as well as the client I've talked to you or the person that wrote me a message.

And so this podcast and me being consistent and motivated to do it is a lot of different things. And yeah, sometimes I'm like, oh, I've got to make an episode. But most of the time, I'm like, okay, I need to make an episode. And I'm so glad I did. I enjoy making these episodes. I love talking to you. I love sharing things.

It's fun. It's exciting. I. I feel like I'm connecting with you and I hope you feel like you're connecting with me. And that keeps me motivated. Now, there are some things that don't keep me motivated. Social media is one of them. You probably all have noticed that.

I do try. I'll go in spurts. I just have a hard time with it. I can't tell you if I know if it's the type of consistency that's required. Or just the medium in general or the platforms. And it's time for me to just leave some of these platforms. But I know there are areas where I don't stay really motivated and moving forward.

We all have areas that don't motivate us. And so you need to recognize that and it goes back again to what do you love doing? What energizes you? What gets you excited? What keeps you going? Yes, I openly admit to all of you right now. It's like, okay, got to make an episode today. I gotta make an episode today, but when I get set up and I turn on my microphone.

I'm really excited to make this episode for you. I really enjoy doing this for you. I feel. Good about it. I feel excited about it. It energizes me, excites me. So it's easy to keep this podcasting going and I'm constantly thinking of other types of podcasts I could create for you.

But there are honestly other things where I'm like, uh, I don't feel like doing that. You know, and we all have that. But when you are working on your own business, You always have stuff you have to do, whether you have people helping you or not. You have to give them the information to do their job.

You have to lead them. You have to have a basic idea of what you're asking them to do, and they need information from you to do it correctly. And to do it well. And so you have to have some sort of motivation to get that done.

But where do you dive deep and get that motivation? Do you dive deep and get that motivation because you look at the consequences of not getting it done. Or do you dive deep because you look at the benefits of getting it done.

True. There are times when we can only see the consequences. If I don't build this website. Eventually. People are going to start asking about it. So I better just build the darn thing. And then eventually you can look at the benefits, but sometimes in the beginning it's like, ah, I don't want to build this. That some people that's their favorite thing and that's all they want to do.

You really need to start figuring out what do you need to get done? Why are you doing it?

If you have to lean into the. The consequences of not doing it. And that motivates you. Fine. Do what works for you? If you can lean into the benefits. Even better, get you going a little bit more. The thing is you need to not overwhelm yourself, you know, staying motivated, staying consistent. Staying excited and continue to move yourself forward.

Is about not feeling like you have 10 million things to do 10,000 things to do. Sometimes you don't even want 10 things to do. It's about really refining it into the simplest things you possibly can. And sometimes that means you start and you don't have it all. Perfect. And I tell you, this podcast is far from perfect.

There are so many more things I need to do. There's so many elements out there that I know I need to do better. But right now. I am concentrating and committed to making the podcast itself. And the other pieces will come and hopefully you all will appreciate it at that point. And know that I've made this commitment so far, I've been consistent and the other pieces will come. And I have to be okay with that and trust that. That your okay. With that? And that you appreciate the time and energy that I put into creating this for you.

Now can we all do that with everything? Like if you don't have any feedback and you don't know what's happening, can you continue to move forward? Do you give yourself too many assignments that have to be done in order to receive any benefit? Do you put. Certain stipulations. Like I'd have to have so many followers. I have to get so many likes or so many people have to show up. Whatever it is before you decide that it's successful.

When does it become. Realistic. When does it become. I'm doing it because I love it. And I know that I'm serving, this is helping other people. This is what I'm supposed to do. I enjoy doing it because I enjoy doing it.

When do we change our minds to, oh, it has to be making this much money and it has to be defined by the outside world? when did that become the most important and the first place ? Yes, we have to make an income. Yes, we need to survive. True. But I will tell you so many people. I know that only go after the money. Only go after the money. And even though they are saying they're serving people.

They're still driven by going after the money . When you can live your purpose you come into alignment. Knowing And trust the direction that you're going and how you're motivated. Things happen. In a very synchronistic way.

That connects you back to following your intuition. So I want to connect our intuition to this topic quickly before we run out of time, because I try not to go forever for all of you. Is when we connect our intuition to deciding what to focus on, where to spend our time. The commitments me make what motivates us a clarity and a certainty comes with that.

So it comes back to what do you like doing? What do you enjoy doing? What you don't like doing? What feels like the next right action. What's the difference between. I don't want to do that because it seems too hard. Or that just seems like the simplest thing to do. Versus what feels like the next right action to your intuitive self.

If you ask yourself. You're relaxed. Breath and say, what is the next step? That I need to take, to get me to where I need to be. To move this forward. What. Is the next step. And then maybe quietly step away. Maybe ask that question when you're on a walk, maybe ask that question when you're doing something else. Not when you have every list in front of you.

Let's see what comes back. Does that. Motivate you. Does that feel like? Yep. I think if I do that, That will get me going. sometimes that just pushes you forward. Sometimes, if you can get into that mode moving forward. You'll just keep going.

You know, there are days when I'm like, ah, I just don't want to be in my office today. I just need a break. I think I got all of these things I have got to get done. And if I put them off one more day, it means tomorrow becomes an 18 hour day for me.

And so I think. All right. What do I need to really get down? Like, what is something simple I can do told I'll that. Or I'll put a 15 minute timer on. Or what I really like to do for fun. So I'll put on one of my favorite movies. Of course it would be star wars. And think. Okay. That's sort of a timer right. About two hours. And I'll say, I just need to. Organize or file or answer emails or whatever, by the time this movie is over, we'll see where I'm at and then I'll be so motivated. I'll just keep going. Or I'll be like, okay, I got a lot of that stuff done. I focused on it. I got it done.

Sometimes we just need something to just give us permission. To do. The jobs we don't really want to do. Yeah. That's why we suggest, put on some super fun songs to do your social media too. I have super fun songs, but I'm going to be honest. I forget to put that on. I need to make it some sort of. Maybe if I put it to a star war songs, I'd feel better.

But that's the other thing. Obviously. The songs I picked on my iTunes don't motivate me quite enough to want to do the social media. So I better find something else or someone else. And that's the thing. Experiment. Try different moods, go for different times different. Actions different activities. Required different ways to motivate yourself. Sometimes it's really easy to just motivate yourself to get stuff done. And sometimes. It's difficult. I get it. I will say majority of the time I'm extremely motivated and I probably work too much.

But I like what I'm doing. I like talking with all of you. I like helping all of you. I enjoy it is my purpose. I love seeing you succeed. I love. Pointing out the different elements that will make your message better, that will make your brand better. That will clear your mind. From the cobwebs. So you can see clearly I love giving you the flashlight to find the path in front of you. It is my purpose. And that motivates me.

Find what motivates you either. At your core. For a specific project. In the moment that day. Whatever it is. Have different tactics that you use to get yourself going? Like I mentioned, Different songs. I put a timer on. I used a different movie. I'll step away and come back.

Sometimes I need a little ice cream to get myself going. Try different things, different lighting. Sometimes I'll just change the lighting in my office. Sometimes I'll turn off almost all the lights and just have some mood lamps on just to kind of chill the energy. Sometimes I'll move a few things around to change the energy.

Be open, try different things. I will rearrange my desk or something. It changes the energy. Sometimes that's super motivates me because I'm like, oh, this feels like a totally different energy shift. I really liked this. Be open to what can help motivate you. And when you're working from home and you're on your own, even though you have a team, I have a team of people that help me.

You still are the leader. You're the leader that motivates others. And if you're not able to motivate yourself, how are you able to motivate others? Give yourself a break. Give yourself time off. Step away, close the door. Change the energy. Because when you make a commitment you're to yourself and you make a commitment to others and you want to move the energy forward. It's the greatest feeling when you keep it up.

It's not about saying I'm going to do a podcast. I'm going to do it twice a week and that's it. And every single person says they hate it. And if every single person. Says nasty things and not one single person ever, ever listened to it. After I do it for a year.

Maybe I'm on the wrong topic. Maybe I'm not meant to be doing podcasts then re-evaluate obviously don't do that type of commitment, like, well, as I was going to do it, no matter what. I said I was going to drive this car straight ahead. Just because the grand canyon is in front of me. Doesn't mean I should turn, I committed to driving straight ahead. And you drive off the grand canyon.

That's not what commitment is about. It's about saying I'm going to keep myself motivated in moving forwards towards something. Positive. And if you have to turn, do a u-turn, go in a different direction? That's okay. Adjust as you need to, to keep yourself moving forward, adjust as you need to. I changed different podcast distributors. I've changed different website builders.

All, different types of things. That's okay. Allow yourself, the ability to move and maneuver. To keep your motivation going. We need change to do that. We need to find out what allows us to stay excited. Because when you do that, Magical things happen, connect to your intuition. Find out what's working. What's not working and adjust and continue to motivate yourself forward. Because when you keep it simple. And you have ease with yourself. Intuition wi ll light the path.

Thanks for listening to the Clearly Kathryn podcast. If you love the show, share it with a friend, the more the merrier, and we'll see you next time.