Productivity is the name of the game these days. Entrepreneurs are always “hustlin’”; corporations are always looking to maximize growth; influencers are working hard to scale their followings. But what happens when you become unmotivated? Or let yourself develop a negative mindset? Productivity falls, drive decreases, and you’re left sitting on goals with no plans for action in sight.
Here are three ways to increase your productivity when you get stuck in the “unmotivated” trap:
1. Get real talk from a trusted advisor or accountability partner. “For more than two months, I came home from work every day with the excuse of ‘I’m too tired’ to work on the side business my husband and I started three years ago and have been working on slowly scaling,” says April Lovett, COO of The Lovett Co. and podcast host for Success in Black and White- The Podcast. “I had such a negative, unmotivated mindset.” One day, April’s husband, Darryl, decided to have a hard conversation with her. “He told me that the business had been stagnant. Even though he was working hard in the time we allotted everyday for it, my negligence really affected how much output was happening. We were a team, so if I didn’t want this, we could put it on a shelf for now,” she remembers. “That conversation jolted me out of my negative funk and lit a fire in me. That was all it took to alter my mindset and since then, my productivity has been in overdrive.”
2. Practice discipline on a daily basis. “Discipline is a driver of habit,” says April. “It’s doing the things that you don’t want to do or that maybe aren’t very fun because you know they are necessary for your success. I don’t always want to come home and spend the time between putting the kids to bed and my own bedtime creating marketing content or doing research for the business, but those things are non-negotiables to reach our goals. So I create the habit of finishing dishes, showering, then spending 2-3 hours prior to bed working on our goals for that week.”
3. Boost your confidence. Lack of confidence can be one of the biggest productivity-busters there is. “When I’m lacking confidence in my work or my ability to execute a task or project, my drive falls and I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV,” says Darryl Lovett, CEO of The Lovett Co. and podcast host for Success in Black and White- The Podcast. “To combat this, I honestly evaluate how my lack of certain skills are contributing to my lack of drive, and I make a plan to gain those skill sets. It might mean I’m going through YouTube channels finding out how to build out our web platform. It might mean I’m teaching myself how to engineer sound for our podcast. It might mean I’m actually outsourcing certain tasks to people who already have the skills,” says Darryl. “No matter what, once I figure out what’s causing my lack of confidence, I take immediate action so that no additional work time is wasted.”
Want more of this conversation? Tune in to the episode of the podcast below to hear Darryl & April’s full conversation on reprogramming your mindset.
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