Tag motivation

what every start-up business needs…

caroline hughes Leave a comment

When you’re trying to start your own business (or in our case, trying to start four businesses pretty much simultaneously, on a shoestring and without physically coming to blows), it is very important that you surround yourselves with things that will increase your chance of success.

We’ve had the post-its for a long time now.  I now class those as essentials.  We’ve had a few recent issues with some dropping off the walls due to our desperate open balcony door – floor fan – open bedroom window breeze inducing triangulation.  But we’re taking it all in our stride.

I keep getting The Mack to put new bulbs in all of the ceiling spots.  As if, somehow, the extra wattage will illuminate my ideas and stop them being so bloody dim.  It mainly just shows up all the dust.  And gives The Mack eye strain.

I’ve bought some plants.  For that all-important 4pm oxygen hit.  And for the seed-nurture-growth symbolism.  And finally, for sustenance – if all the projects should fail, we will be able to live off two different types of basil.  The mint plant has contracted some sort of blight.  It’s essentially dead from the roots up.  I’m choosing not to see that as symbolic.

But now that the launch of Be Neighbourly is imminent, I felt we needed something more.  Something that would make us feel importantly business-like, but that wouldn’t break the bank.  Something that we could, quite literally, pin our dreams on.

So I invested twenty-five quid and bought us a whiteboard.  It was delivered yesterday.  And it is magnificent.

Already, I can see how it’s helping.  Just looking at it makes me think of all the graphs I could be plotting, the targets we can set (Q3 and Q4), the inspirational Steve Jobs or Katie Price quotes I can write every morning.

The pens were missing from the delivery, but that’s just a minor setback.

I feel certain that the whiteboard, in all its splendid 1200mm x 900mm oversized impracticality, will give us that competitive edge.  The reverse side is magnetic.  So we can multi-task – conceptual mind-maps on front, securely fastened important documents on the back.

The magnets were missing from the delivery, too, but, again, no biggie.

It is the size of our dining table.  We don’t really have anywhere to put it (maybe we could get rid of the dining table?), and it is so cheaply constructed that the whiteboard surface has a definite ripple effect when viewed from the side.  But I don’t care.  It has a flip out tray for the missing marker pens.  It has an eraser.  And it makes me feel so goddamn businesslike, I want to air punch every time I look at it.

behold its splendour

behold its splendour

Fear or Desire: what motivates you??

caroline hughes 1 Comment

The Mack and I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and talking about food.

The Mack’s one of those guys who’s always thinking at least one meal ahead.  We’ll be mid-way through a big cooked breakfast and he’ll start wondering aloud what we ought to do about lunch, smacking his lips and emitting deep belly groans at the thought of more food.  Worryingly Homer Simpson.

With me, it’s more the typical no-carb obsessiveness of someone who worked on the fringes of fashion and who has an entire wardrobe of size 8 clothes.  Dullsville.  But absolutely necessary.

primitive motivation

The Mack says that it’s simply his genetic coding.  He’s hardwired to be a hunter-gatherer, so it’s only right that he’s always planning where his next meal is coming from.  It’s usually coming from Sainsbury’s, but I guess it’s good to plan…

We’re all ultimately driven by two things: fear and desire.  The proportions vary from person to person and often from situation to situation, but whatever gloss you add to justify your particular actions, if you strip it back you’ll find plain old fear or desire (or a combination of both).

Marketeers have had this sussed for yonks.  They play us constantly on both sides.  The aspirational longing – if only I had that watch/car/phone, I would be instantly cooler.  The insecurity and inadequacy – I must buy all the anti-aging creams I can afford because no-one wants to be with a wrinkly old hag.

New-fangled marketing is no different.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, FourSnore, all are built on these two pillars of what it means to be human.  It is the desire to belong, to be connected, to share.  And the fear that if we don’t participate in these collective obsessions, then we are marginalised, we’re not really living.  You’ve probably noticed it amongst some of your friends too – they upload so much of their day-to-day existence: it’s as though they believe that if it’s not captured and published, then it doesn’t count.

Strange, but maybe that’s what those cave paintings were all about…?

fanning the flames

I’m largely immune to the normal desire sales triggers.  Show me all the magnum adverts in the world and I’m still not buying.  Even those ones with triple caramel and almonds all swirling around hypnotically.  Spare me.  I grew up in the 80s with soft-focus Flake adverts and the Caramel bunny.  Do you really think I’d fall for that lame old seduction routine??

So desire doesn’t really do it for me.  I know this because I contrast my approach to starting up a business with The Mack’s.  He’s a go-getting, nothing-stands-in-his-way, smash-some-walls-down, bish-bash-bosh (his words, not mine), laser-beam-focused, machine.  He has energy, purpose and clarity of thought.  He makes decisions quickly, moves on and gets shit done.  And then he howls at the moon and beats his chest.  (That last bit is, unfortunately, not made up – he hired a lion mask last weekend for my sister’s fancy dress party and seems in no hurry to take it back to the shop).

This is because he is driven by desire.  He wants to succeed and he enjoys the process of making things happen.  It’s quite impressive in action.

Whereas my approach is more stagnant puddle than flowing torrent of ambition.  Sure, I get the occasional burst of enthusiasm for my projects, where I’ll splash around happily in the puddle for a day or so.  But ultimately all that happens is that I churn up the mud at the bottom.  And no-one’s investing in mud.  So I stop.

scaredy scaredy…

But fear, now that I can relate to.  According to The Mack, the 3 little words that I say to him most often are, “Babe, I’m worried…”  And I have a really good scared face.

I think, on the whole, women do anxiety better than men.  Maybe it’s because we’re so adept at multi-tasking.  It means that we can worry about 821 things simultaneously.  What a gift.

The downside of using fear as your primary motivator is that it has a tendency to paralyse you, rather than spur you on to greatness.  You don’t often hear really successful people interviewed saying that what made them was sheer blind terror.  It’s always burning ambition, passion, desire for self-improvement.  Fear and self-loathing don’t seem to feature much in rags to riches stories.  Well, unless Oliver Twist is your mentor.

On the one hand, my lack of need to prove anything or to feel productive just for the sake of it, is hugely liberating.  On the other hand, it might be the thing that hampers me making a go of this new lifestyle.  I’ve chosen a path that requires me to be enthusiastic, proactive and self-starting.  And then I’ve basically covered myself in quick-setting tar and feathers and wondered why I’m struggling to move off the sofa.

I’m essentially living the life of a still-sprightly octogenarian.  Those little chores that used to sit on the periphery of my life (the supermarket run, online banking, hoovering) are now right up top of my to-do list.  I haven’t got to the point where I need an afternoon nap yet, but it can’t be far off.

But I’m not worried (well, maybe a teensy bit).  Because I know that the longer my state of apathy and paralysis lasts, the more anxious I will become about it.  And one day soon, the fear of losing this lifestyle will force me into action.  I just don’t think it’s a job for today… I’ve got some washing up to do.

putting off procrasti-nation: part II

caroline hughes Leave a comment

Part I in this series focused on the positives of procrastination as a way of allowing ideas to germinate in the headspace you create when doing very little.

Which is great, until I remember that just sitting around having ideas without acting on any of them is basically loafing. And it’s not helping my cash-flow.

But what to do? I am preternaturally disposed toward hibernation. Yes: in October. How then to motivate myself to get my arse in gear and start a business, when winter is practically upon us and I should probably concentrate on keeping warm..??

3 task challenge

Well, over dinner the other night, I casually mentioned to my gentleman friend* (as my great-aunt Lizza calls him) that there were a few things I wanted to get done this week for my business stuff. He shared a few of his own.  We decided it’d be a good idea for each of us to email the other with our top 3 tasks each Monday, with a deadline of Thursday to complete them or chase their progress.

If that sounds a little too 90s New Age self-help:

Bleurgghh.  Don’t worry.

This is gamification, baby.  You versus me.  Boy against girl.  Pure, raw, primal competition. Type A against Type A+ (me, natch). Grrrrrrrrrr. Bring it.

See. It works. You’re already feeling pumped up and ready to take on the world. Or at least to send that email you’ve been putting off for weeks.

Let me tell you, I got more done on that Monday than in the two weeks prior. And a Monday following a boozy, lost weekend, no less … unheard of.  And the gentleman friend*?  Well, last time I checked, he was consoling himself with his first loser podium place.  Better luck next time, punk.

So post your 3 tasks for this week on this blog. Then pick yourself a mutual motivator – it needs to be someone who will be merciless in their mockery if you bail – and set that weekly email.

You need to send your list of 3 tasks by 11am on a Monday and follow up with your buddy on Thursday.

Let the games begin!

* Ps.  I asked him what he’d like to be called for the purposes of this blog and he said “The Mack Daddy”.  Class.  Who am I to deny a man such a simple pleasure…?  So from now on, “The Mack” it shall be.

I refused to add a photo of Mark Morrison.

For those of you unaware what “Mack Daddy” means, here’s a helpful definition:

© Merriam–Webster

olympic fever

caroline hughes 6 Comments

I went Olympics and Paralympics-tastic this summer.  It was no coincidence that I gave up work just before London 2012 started!  My daytime freedom meant that I was everyone’s chosen +1 to events.

my sis and I flying the flag for Team GB

I went to the beach-volleyball, football, weight-lifting, athletics, road cycling, triathlon, wheelchair basketball and hand-cycling and I watched the TV coverage all day every day and all of the round-up programmes at night.

I whooped and held my breath and cried several times a day.  And I was inspired.  Massively inspired by the athletes, their sacrifices and their commitment, all for a shot at glory four years in the making.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think they’re all bonkers, but there is something in that unrelenting pursuit of goals that struck me as a universal truth.

keep clear goals, track progress

Keeping your goals clear and tracking your progress is, according to all the gurus on success (be it measured in weight loss, wealth, sporting prowess, political influence, pairs of Alaïa shoes), the surest way to achieve those goals.

Some people shy away from setting goals, especially if their dreams are financially motivated.  If your goal is to make loads of money, then go for it. There’s no crime in making money. Unless you’re making the money from crime. In which case this leads to an awkward moral dilemma and makes me question if I even want you reading my blog.

my goals

My goals right now are below.  In my own to-do list, I use these goals as a header and list out the steps I need to take to achieve each one (see first example below), with a deadline.  I find this helps my focus, which otherwise tends to wander.

Note that one of my goals is a “pleasure” goal.  To me, the whole point of this lifestyle change is to enjoy experiences.  I don’t use these pleasure goals as a reward for doing the business stuff.  Instead I just try to build them into my life, so I get the balance right between focused activity and focused inactivity.

1.   Set up the first simple online business that’s still at ideas stage now, before India trip in November.

  • interview web developers – by 30 September 2012
  • compile brief for site functionality and look and feel – by 14 October 2012
  • test projected site traction and SEO – by 21 October 2012

2.   Relax on the beaches of Goa and the backwaters of Kerala.

  • bit of yoga
  • pakora o’clock, followed by fresh tandoori red snapper and the best Bombay potato known to man

3.   Earn enough from the first business in the 6 months from launch to finance next business idea.

accountability

I’ve chosen to blog about my progress, as a way to keep me on course. Other people prefer to use personal finance markers or task completion milestones that they’ve set for themselves. Personally, I need the accountability that comes with making a very public commitment.

If an idea dies in a forest but there’s no-one around to see it, etc., etc.

You get my drift. Tell a handful of people who you respect what your goals are. And be as specific as you can. Trust me, it’ll make it much easier to keep them, when they’re not just your dirty little secret.

Alternatively, you can post them here in the comments section, if you want to, and I’ll do a little cheerleading for you.  Just please don’t post anything that you need to keep secret.  Or that is moronic.  I have a reputation to maintain, after all.

Team GB, Team GB, Team GB, Team GB!!!!!!