AP 0009: How Do You Stay Motivated When You’re Not Seeing Success and You Don’t Have Family Support?

AskPat 9 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What is up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 9 of AskPat where I answer your online business, entrepreneurship, and blogging questions every single day. Well, for now it's five days a week, but it might bump up to seven depending on how well you like the show and I'd love for you to leave me a review on iTunes or SoundCloud if you have a chance.

But I also want to give a mention to a link that will redirect to a page on my website and that link is EbookstheSmartWay.com. That's where you can grab your own free copy of my book, Ebooks The Smart Way, a book that will help you understand how to publish, market, and automate your own ebook. Over 80,000 people have downloaded this ebook for free. It's helped a ton of people get started with ebooks. Actually, an ebook is what helped me get started online and I know a number of people who have used this guide to help them craft a book that actually helped them get discovered by a publisher. So again, check it out: EbookstheSmartWay.com. Head on over there. Send in your name and email and I'll send it to you right away.

Now onto today's question. Today's question is from Christine. And she asks about motivation. And specifically motivation when you've just tried as much as you could and you're just not seeing results. So this is a really, really, really important question and I hope you enjoy my answer as well. So here's Christine.

Christine: Hi, Pat. My name's Christine and I just wanted to ask you, once you think you've done everything that you can do, like blogging or writing an ebook, and you're not seeing very much success, what do you do to motivate yourself? I know you have a family and so that's a big motivation for you, but what if you're just a single person and you are wanting to be successful online? How would you suggest to stay motivated?

Thank you so much for your time! Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Christine. Thank you so much for your question. And I want to improve your question just a little bit by adding one single word there. You said, “Once you've done everything you think you could do, but you're not seeing success.” I want to add one more word onto the end of that, and that word is: yet. You're not seeing success yet.

And this goes with my first tip as far as motivating yourself. And that's knowing that success doesn't happen overnight. And as much as we get inspired by hearing all of these people out there who are creating these amazing businesses and the media just latching onto these success stories from people who seem to create these businesses overnight and they come out of nowhere. I mean, that does deflate us. It deflates me sometimes. I know it deflates other people because so many people work so hard. You might be working so hard and trying all these different things and all of the sudden, here's this one person that does one thing and they hit it out of the park on their first try. It almost doesn't seem fair. And the thing you have to know is different people find success at different times, but it is those that just keep going who will ultimately find the success.

I truly believe that. If you just keep going and you keep doing what Gary Vaynerchuk says, you keep hustling, and you keep trying new things, and knowing that failure is part of the process, you will find success. You just might not have found it yet. You haven't found your calling. You haven't found your rhythm yet. And who knows? You might just be thinking this right before the inflection point. You might be in the middle of that dip, like Seth Godin calls it, right before you start to launch back up and things start to happen. Sometimes you just need a little bit more time.

And if you ask any entrepreneur out there: How many failures did you go through? What mistakes did you make along the way? They will always, if they are honest with you, they will tell you a huge list of things that they did wrong. But they will also say that all those things were very important to help them get to where they're at today. So wherever you're at in your business, if you're not seeing success, you're not seeing success yet. Just keep going. That's the first thing, is just understanding that success does not happen overnight and you have to give yourself time. Don't quit.

Now, that being said, you should be paying attention to what's happening and you should be making pivots. You should be adjusting. You should be adapting to what's working and what's not. Take what is working and do more of that. And what seems not to be working, try something else.

And that's the second tip, is just keep trying new things. Take risks and take bold actions. That's something I learned from Jeremy and Jason from Internet Business Mastery, the very first podcast I listened to. And something that inspired me so much was when they always said, “You’ve got to take bold actions.” If you want bold things and big things to happen in your life, you have to take bold actions. You have to take these risks because without risks, there are no rewards.

So, keep trying new things. Keep experimenting. If you haven't found success yet, keep trying new things. You might discover and stumble upon that one thing or that one or two things that will launch your business or whatever it is you're doing to that next level where you can see it starting to pay off. Again, it'll just take time like I said before.

The third tip I want to give you is: listen to success stories and read the success stories from others, from other successful people who are doing the things that you want to do. Maybe not the exact same things, but who are at that level where you want to be. Get inspired by them and take that and use that as fuel for you and what you're doing. Maybe these are people who already have a successful platform and they are helping other people. You can use that as inspiration.

You can reach out to them and just make connections with them. That will help you too. Listening to podcasts and other people who interview other successful entrepreneurs, such as people who are guests on Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas—another great podcast that you should be subscribed to. Internet Business Mastery, that was the first podcast I ever listened to, like I said. And I listened to several different podcasts from people who sort of aligned with the same type of business that I wanted to do and I found them and I used them as models and inspiration to create my first business which you can see at GreenExamAcademy.com, because I heard a podcast from a guy named Cornelius Fichtner on Internet Business Mastery.

A guy who—his name is Cornelius—was teaching people how to pass the project management exam. And that's where I got the light bulb moment, my “Aha moment,” to then take some knowledge I had in an exam in the architecture industry and turn that into a business. And that is sort of what I needed and it came from listening and being active about seeing and following and getting inspired by these other success stories out there. And I know, yes like I said earlier, it can be deflating. But use that as motivation, because you're going to hear, if they're honest with you and if they're a good interviewer and they have people who are very honest on their show, they're going to show you that it's not a straight shot to the A-list. It wasn't success overnight. Most people do not have overnight successes. That's the truth.

Now the fourth thing is getting accountability from others. I'm actually in three different mastermind groups. These are groups that meet every single week. Each of these groups have between three and six people. And each week, one person is in the hot seat and that person uses that time, about forty minutes in that hour long call . . . and again this is all virtual. We don't do this in person. It's all done via Skype, or GoToMeeting, or Google Hangouts, and we all hold each other accountable. But, again, that person who's in the hot seat, they have that time to ask everybody else for brutally honest opinions and advice and direction for where to take that business next. And then at the end, we all talk about the goals we want to achieve by the next week.

And that is such huge motivation for me. And I need that. I absolutely need that because I don't have anybody else that I can really talk to on a regular basis here near me to hold me accountable or who can understand what I'm going through. If you can make connections with other people who are in business, not necessarily in the same business as you but just other people who have the same values and are looking to build successful businesses online no matter what niche they're in, they're going to be helpful to you because they know you're going to be helpful to them. And that's why mastermind groups are so important. And I've written a number of different blog posts and I've done a number of podcast episodes on The Smart Passive Income podcast and have talked about the power of mastermind groups. Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich. I don't remember what chapter it is, but he writes a whole segment on the power of mastermind groups. So definitely connect and hook up with other people and create these groups.

If you can't find one that already exists that you can go into, create one of your own and find two or three other colleagues to get together and create a formal mastermind group where every week you can get together and help each other out and hold each other accountable. It's going to help out tremendously.

And the last fifth and final thing I want to mention as far as staying motivated is I always celebrate the small wins. We have these huge goals. We want to create these blogs and create these products and it take forever and it's way down the line. But you have to break those big goals down into little achievable goals and motivate yourself every time you reach those goals. Without those small chunks, it's going to seem like it's going to take forever, but when you chunk it up and you create those little small steps along the way and you meet those goals, you attain that next level all the way to the top, it's just going to help you motivate you to get to that next level which is going to motivate you to get to that next level and then that next level. Those small wins are so important.

Reward yourself. It doesn't have to be like you treat yourself to a dinner at Ruth's Chris for every small win that you have, but just be proud of yourself for getting to that next level. So if you are blogging, be proud of yourself when you're just starting out for getting your first comment. Be proud of your very first subscriber and then your first hundred subscribers. When you're writing that ebook, be proud that you finished that outline and you can start writing. Be proud that you finished that first chapter that you started working on. And then work your way toward completing that project. Then be proud of finishing your sales letter. Be extremely proud of that very first sale, because that's going to lead you to your second sale, to your third sale, to your tenth sale, to your hundredth sale. Again, taking it in small chunks, but being proud of the small wins. Celebrate the small wins.

So just to recap those five things: One, know that success does not happen overnight. You have to give yourself time. Don't quite because a lot of people quit right before that inflection point. Number two, keep trying new things. Take those bold actions and big risks. That's how you discover the things that work for you. Thirdly, listen to the success stories from others. Be inspired. Use that as motivation to help you and help push you forward. Number four, get accountability from others. Join mastermind groups. And number five, celebrate the small wins.

Christine, I hope that helps you. And for those of you listening, I hope that helps you as well. Christine, I'm going to be sending you an AskPat t-shirt. Thank you so much for your question. And if those of you listening out there, if you have a question that you'd like answered here on AskPat, head on over to AskPat.com. If your question gets featured, you're going to get a t-shirt as well. And I just love you guys. Thank you so much for listening to the show. I'll see you in the next episode.

Thanks again for listening to AskPat. This was episode 9 and I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, head on over to iTunes where you can leave an honest review and help the show get even more exposure. You can actually go to AskPat.com to get a direct link to iTunes. You can also subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or SoundCloud or whatever you prefer. You can head on over to AskPat.com and get all those easy links there.

And of course I want to remind you about that link I shared with you earlier at the top of the show to download your free ebook, Ebooks the Smart Way, which you can get at EbookstheSmartWay.com. Very easy.

So of course, I want to leave you with a quote and that quote today is from Thomas Edison. And he says, “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” So the idea there is just, failure is part of the process. Expect it, but learn from it and keep moving forward. Thanks, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode.