It’s common to struggle with staying motivated as you work to start and grow a health or life coaching business. I’ll often say to clients that starting a business is one of the biggest personal development journeys you’ll ever take, and sometimes that means that we’ll face blocks and struggles that make keeping motivated to take action hard.

In addition to this, working for yourself and having to be your sole source of accountability can be another challenge that impacts how motivated you feel – unlike in a more traditional employed role, you have no boss to report back to, no systems or frameworks other than the ones you create for yourself, all of which can make keeping motivated quite hard!

In this post we’re going to explore ways you can counteract these challenges and keep yourself motivated in your coaching business.

Listen to this episode on The Wholehearted Business Show Podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts / Listen on Spotify

Be clear on your big ‘why’

First up, one of the most motivating things you can do is get very clear on your big why. Why did you decide to start a coaching business? Why is this work so important to you? What does it mean to you to have a successful business? What would the impact be if your business didn’t work out?

What excites you about running a coaching business?

Explore these questions and make a note of what comes up somewhere you can come back to. Just reflecting on this regularly can help you stay motivated.

Reset your expectations

Sometimes we end up struggling with motivation when we’re disappointed with the results we’re getting in our businesses. It can be normal to feel disheartened when we aren’t attracting clients or making money – but I do believe it’s important to have realistic expectations when it comes to what results we do get in our businesses. This can be a bit of a vicious cycle because when we show up, but don’t get the result we think we should have we become disheartened and demotivated, so we end up not showing up and then of course our results don’t improve.

The truth is, building a coaching business takes time and effort, and your results will vary. It’s never an overnight success story and even the most outwardly successful coaches will have launches that flop and difficulties to navigate.

So resetting your expectations and finding joy in the process, rather than just the result, can be helpful to keep you motivated.

Have a plan

When you don’t have a clear plan for how you are going to make your business work, it can be very easy to struggle with motivation.

When we have a plan in place that we can see logically makes sense, in terms of ‘if I do this then it makes sense that this will be the positive result’ then we will be way more motivated to show up and take action.

Without a plan it can feel like we’re directionless, and if we are doing things to try and grow our business that lack that underlying strategy then we may not get the results we want which can put us back into that vicious cycle as we discuss above!

Having some kind of plan, even just a simple one can make a huge difference when it comes to feeling motivated to show up in your business.

Rewards

Knowing that you are going to be rewarded for your effort is very motivating and you can use this in your business too.

It’s ok to treat yourself as a reward! However, focus on rewarding yourself for your effort, as well as the result.

This could look like scheduling a massage each time you book a new client. It could look like buying yourself a gift or scheduling a day off after a launch, no matter how well the launch goes. Rewarding effort and results creates a positive feedback loop in your brain that is wonderful for keeping you motivated and feeling good in your business.

Find a support network

Motivation can be easier when you have support and accountability from others who get it. The coaching industry is its own little niche in the world, and the truth for most of us is that in our everyday lives we may not have people around us who ‘get it’. Perhaps we’re encouraged to give up and get a job if we talk about having a bad day in our businesses.

This is why having some kind of support system around you of people who get it is so key to staying motivated. This support system can also provide some accountability which can be another factor, which for some people, is absolutely key to staying motivated and taking action.

Overcome negativity bias

We all have an inbuilt ‘negativity bias’ – this is because our brains are wired to keep us safe, and often that has meant we are more aware of things that could impact us negatively rather than positively. When it comes to motivation, that wiring can actually cause us to self sabotage and block ourselves from taking action.

In order to overcome negativity bias, we need to create a positivity practice. This isn’t about being positive in a toxic way where we overlook the negative in our lives and businesses, rather it acts as a counterbalance to that in built bias. This could be a formal gratitude practice or even just writing down a list of all the useful actions you’ve taken that day or week to grow your business, no matter how small.

Figuring out your individual motivation medicine

What keeps us motivated as individuals will be unique to us, so explore these ideas and see if you can come up with your own ‘motivation medicine’ – practices and routines that will help you stay motivated in your coaching business.

↓Pin for later ↓