Motivators, Mentors and Mindset: How to Fuel Your Business and Spark your Self-Development

No matter the career, three of the most important assets you can have are: motivators that push you forward, mentors who pull you up, and mindsets that keep you up! These three assets together will help fuel your business and spark your self-development!

Motivators

A motivator can be anything (or anyone) that helps provide you with an internal or external incentive to push you into action. These are very helpful tools (or influencers) on a short-term basis, but are not sustainable for your long-term commitment to the task.

Both internal and external incentives can give you a “wave to ride on” that is helpful to temporarily increase your ambition in a particular task. Although motivators can spark your ambition and drive you forward, as you’ll read in the below examples, they will prove unreliable if you try to fuel your business from them in the long-term.

It is a good challenge to find a new motivator every month that will give you a high wave in your business. But it is also important to recognize that although these can be helpful assets to meet goals, they can only be used on a short-term basis.

Internal Incentives

An example of an Internal Incentive could be a desire to “prove yourself” to others or to yourself. This particular internal desire works until it doesn’t. It will last until you get burned out or until you remain unaffirmed in your diligence by others. Working to “prove yourself” to yourself can be more beneficial than trying to impress others since it can help push you to achieve what you may not think possible for yourself.

Keep in mind that when you focus more on what others think of you, then you in turn deprive yourself of the focus that could be used to enhance your personal growth. When you enhance yourself, you enhance the business. But when you work to impress others, you don’t enhance yourself or the business.

Another internal motivator is an “I can do this!” attitude that could be sparked by a level of your self-confidence or competitive attitude. If you have recently achieved a personal goal or hit a company record, you may feel like you can take on the world! This is definitely a helpful motivator for as long as it lasts, but it takes just one bad day or mistake for this internal motivator to fade away. Self-confidence can be helpful, but cannot be the foundation of your motivation since feelings are unreliable.

The strongest internal incentive is ownership of a business or project. If you can implement ownership of something into your work, this will foster a desire to see life brought into an idea. Bringing your idea to life is one of the biggest incentives there is to push you to get results!

External Incentives

External Incentives can prove themselves slightly more long-lasting than internal motivators, but are still only valuable for short-term results in your business. These can include a sales competition at work, “If you increase your sales volume by 10% this month, you’ll receive a $500 bonus.” These only work until the reward has been achieved, and then the motivation disappears.

An external motivator could also be a person who affirms you, or a family that you are working to provide for. These are great motivators until someone disappoints you or stress buckles you – then even the strongest external motivator won’t be able to sustain you through a burn out.

That’s why Motivators are only 1 piece to the puzzle! Its important to pair these short-lasting Motivators with long-lasting Mentors and Mindsets!

Mentorships fuel your rocket ships!

An excellent long-term asset is a Mentorship that – when intentionally maintained – can sustain you when short-term motivators cannot. A mentor is a partnership created for the purpose of furthering growth, sharing wisdom, and maintaining accountability to long-term goals. A mentor is a coach, champion & leader. Choosing this relationship and maintaining it takes lots of time and intentionality! But this can be the a major long-term asset to your business and even personal development.

Mentors can also utilize short-term motivators to help you attain your goals, but the mentor’s long-term accountability doesn’t disappear when the goal has been achieved. A great coach or mentor is like fuel to a rocket ship! Without them, your rocket ship can’t go very far. With them, your business can be propelled to the next level.

Do you have a coach in your line of business?

If you don’t currently have a mentor or coach, then start the search! There are several great coaching companies available for businesses and administrative staff. You need to find someone who can challenge you at a high level and help open your eyes to strategies and systems that you may not be able to think of on your own. I believe that everyone needs a coach in their field of business. I encourage you to look for a coach/mentor with the experience and wisdom needed to succeed in your line of business, and who shares the same moral beliefs as you do.

This relationship may change overtime as the needs and goals of the business change. This does require a great commitment of time & effort from the mentor and often a financial commitment from the mentored, to advance the professional and personal development of the mentored for a specific time period.

Mentors Help Your Mindset

Athletes and apprentices seem to understand the importance of mentorships better than the experienced businessman. All the great athletes have an even greater coach behind them who holds them accountable, provides them with consistent training, and who teaches them efficiency and discipline.

Creating a mentor relationship is vital for long-term growth since this relationship checks your mindset. On the low days and the high days, the mentorship will hold you accountable and help reorient your mindset to stay positive and disciplined. What you focus on expands – so when you focus on negativity, negativity abounds. When you focus on positivity, positivity abounds! So when you change your mindset, you will also change your expectations and outcomes, and those outcomes will change your business. You can go from negativity to positivity, to productivity!

Mentors can help provide the right motivators & mindset to help increase your discipline, positivity, and productivity. They will help discipline you to focus your time and energy on what matters for your business, clients, and community.

Anyone be successful at a high level in with the right motivators, mentors & mindsets. Add a little self-education, work ethic, and discipline and you’ll be unstoppable!

Keep good mindset, motivators, and mentors and coaching in place to continuously improve your game & launch your administrative expertise to the next level & you’ll be a game-changer!

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