{"id":6220,"date":"2014-04-11T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=6220"},"modified":"2020-03-30T19:07:44","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T23:07:44","slug":"key-staying-motivated-entrepreneur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/key-staying-motivated-entrepreneur","title":{"rendered":"The key to staying motivated as an entrepreneur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many productive people fall into a funny mental trap: They often overlook their own productivity. Sometimes the more productive you are, the more likely you are to beat yourself up at the end of the day, thinking, \u201cI wasn\u2019t very productive today.\u201d The more full of activity your day is, the harder it can be to pinpoint the tasks you\u2019ve accomplished.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs and startup teams are no exception, especially with the anxiety and pressure of high standards and visions of amazing growth. Ambitious people measure themselves by their progress toward achieving audacious goals, so they often can\u2019t appreciate a single day\u2019s worth of tiny, incremental advancements that they\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n

How to Avoid the Mental Trap<\/b><\/h3>\n

Between starting Netscape, Opsware, Ning, and Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Andreessen has already done monumental work in his career. Yet he was still at risk<\/a> of falling into this familiar trap:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know those days when you\u2019re running around all day and doing stuff and talking to people and making calls and responding to emails and filling out paperwork and you get home and you\u2019re completely exhausted and you say to yourself, \u2018What the hell did I actually get done today?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To arm himself against the daunting quest of making meaningful progress toward his big objectives, Marc came up with a system: the done list. He calls this his \u201canti-to-do list,\u201d a tongue-in-cheek contrast to the much more popular to-do list.<\/p>\n

Every time he did something useful during the day, he would write it down on his done list, which he kept on index cards. He explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cEach time you do something, you get to write it down, and you get that little rush of endorphins that the mouse gets every time he presses the button in his cage and gets a food pellet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then at the end of the day\u2026 take a look at today\u2019s card and its anti-to-do list, and marvel at all the things you actually got done that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping a separate list of accomplishments meant that when Marc took stock of what he achieved, he got an unadulterated rush, free from the nagging and the guilt about what was still left on his to-do list.<\/p>\n

Find Your Small Wins<\/b><\/h3>\n

There\u2019s value in the act of slowing down to record accomplishments that is inaccessible without acknowledgment. Capturing what you get done ensures that you don\u2019t lose that value.<\/p>\n

As Marc notes, \u201cBeing able to put more notches on my accomplishment belt…throughout the day makes me feel marvelously productive and efficient \u2014 far more so than if I just did those things and didn\u2019t write them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Savage, CEO of the video marketing startup Wistia<\/a>, writes about how magnifying your perspective on progress to count what happens each day is key to generating the momentum and joy to accomplish big things. He explains this lesson concisely in two graphs<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"Graph1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Graph2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hard road to travel to accomplish big-time achievements and reach heady dreams, whether it\u2019s making your first million, mastering the piano, running a marathon, or building a successful company. If you\u2019re too exhausted every day to take stock of your successes, you\u2019ll lose heart.<\/p>\n

Rather than waiting for major milestones to celebrate achievements, recognize the tiny, wonderful triumphs that happen every single day.<\/a> Turn this into a daily process of rejuvenation and inspiration after a hard day\u2019s work. Your done list will energize you and serve as a crucial method of maintaining the positive emotional balance necessary to accomplish great things.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the e-book \u201cThe Busy Person’s Guide to the Done List<\/i>.<\/i><\/a>\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many productive people fall into a funny mental trap: They often overlook their own productivity. Sometimes the more productive you are, the more likely you are to beat yourself up at the end of the day, thinking, \u201cI wasn\u2019t very productive today.\u201d The more full of activity your day is, the harder it can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1007,"featured_media":6224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe key to staying motivated as an entrepreneur<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many productive people fall into a funny mental trap: They often overlook their own productivity. 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