Entrepreneurs, small business owners, Internet Marketers and writers, or any one working as a one man / woman operation can find it difficult to stay motivated. More so for those of us who work from a home office. Working from home has many advantages, but it also has a couple of disadvantages.
The two biggest disadvantages are:
- Too easy to get distracted.
- Lack of stimulation from daily face to face interaction with other people.
Social Media can aggravate both of these, it can be very distracting and time-consuming if we are not disciplined.
I have days when I do not feel quite as motivated as others, today was one of them. I have had to have extensive dental work, a long and somewhat painful process that has been going on since November last year with appointments almost every week. Today I had an appointment for more fillings, the second this week. I knew that with travelling it would take all afternoon. I also had some other work that took me away from the computer for an hour this morning.
When I was preparing my action plan for the day, I could see that it was going to be a frustrating day, I was focusing on the frustration of not being able to spend enough time on creating new advertising for some programmes I am promoting, instead of being grateful that I am alive to enjoy the day, whatever it brings.
For a few years I have been subscribing to My Daily Insights, a service that emails a daily inspirational quotation and a longer story each Friday. It is a great way of starting the day off in a positive frame of mind. You can get your own subscription here My Daily Insights. It’s free but the publishers will send you one other promotional email each week, that is a small price to pay for the inspiration you will get each day.
The Friday story is called, not surprisingly, My Friday Story. Some stories are better than others, but all are good, most are heart-warming and some are amazing. A reader would need a heart of stone not to be inspired by any of the stories.
Reading emails is usually something that I only spend time on much later in the day, but because I knew that I would be away for most of the day, I scanned my in box to see if there was anything that required urgent attention. For some reason I clicked on the My Friday Story email, I am so glad I did.
Today’s story was titled PICK UP YOUR OAR AND START ROWING By Michael T. Smith it is about a blind sport writer named Ed Lucas who was a devoted New York Giants fan.
I would be doing Michael Smith an injustice trying to summarise the story. Let me just comment that after reading his account of what Ed Lucas achieved despite being blind and other setbacks later in life, my irritation at having to contemplate a disrupted day and a couple of hours of minor discomfort in the dentist’s chair quickly evaporated.
It is really one of the most amazing stories I have read in a long time, I strongly urge you to click on the link above and read it yourself.
Just goes to show how small our problems seem in comparison to those that some people overcome, and how reading about their achievements can lift our own moods in no time.
Wishing you success in all your endeavours.
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Peter, how right you are about the distractions one may encounter working from a home office. Other family members in the home can be distracting as well. It’s very important to set boundaries with others living in the same household.
I, too, am a subscriber to My Daily Insights. Just as you mentioned, it provides a great does of inspiration and motivation to me. As you know, we live in a negative world so we must feed ourselves daily positive and motivating information. Otherwise, we would become part of those who see nothing but doom and gloom in the world.
Thanks for sharing this post. Make it an awesome day!
Thanks for the comment Darren. You are correct about feeding ourselves daily doses of inspiration. The amazing thing is, it only takes a minute or two to read something inspiring and we can change our whole day.