adminYou’ve started your home business? Great! It’s exciting and you pledge your complete allegiance to it – for a week! You have set yourself on the right path but all of a sudden, procrastination rears its not-so-pretty head and the progress you had hoped for and anticipated is like a slippery bar of wet soap. This scenario is not new and is encountered by quite a few new Home Business entrepreneurs. This article will give you a few tips to stop procrastination in its tracks.
Many entrepreneurs started their home businesses hoping that their path to success and the much wished for 6 figure salary; independence; holidays on a whim and loaded hours of fun with the children would be a bed of roses. Alas! Reality struck when they started finding the going getting tough and they settled into a relationship with Procrastination.
In order to fully embrace the tips to stop procrastination, we need to gain an understanding of what it is. After all, you can’t fight an enemy you don’t know! Let’s get our hands dirty and confront this enemy once and for all – what is Procrastination? The dictionary defines it as deferring or postponing action. Another definition is this: the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline or a habitual and intentional delay to start or finish something although you know that not doing it will have negative connotations. People who are afflicted by Procrastination know it themselves.
This article is to encourage us to use these tips to stop procrastination. You have to have a desire to succeed that supersedes any distractions from home business success. Successful people seldom procrastinate – resulting in them cruising towards their set goals and achievements. Even when they do procrastinate at times, they don’t allow procrastination to take hold and rule their lives.
Now, let’s get to the meat of this article – the top tips to stop procrastination in your home business.
1. Set Realistic Goals
Never undertake to do anything much more than what you can chew. Try tasks that you know you are able to achieve. Too simplistic for you? Not really, when you were a baby you didn’t just get out of the cradle and straight into driving a car, you went through a process and this is the same process you must go through as a new business start-up. Don’t rush to try strategies the big well established businesses are using, it could lead to pressure and overwhelm – leading to you task avoidance and ultimately fraternising with procrastination.
2. Prepare Lists
It is always advantageous to prepare a list of the things you want to do. This will help you to achieve your goals and also help you to prioritize the tasks. A list with a short term objective and another with a long term objective. Break them again into smaller steps. Having two lists will give you some form of victory over procrastination especially if the tasks on the list are broken down into smaller tasks in order to motivate you to get started. Nowadays, there are so many scheduling tools that can help you get started in managing your ‘things to do”. There is some form of excitement when you tick off items from the list and you get a visual of your progress.
3. Always have a Deadline
Having a deadline can play a crucial role in helping you achieve your set tasks. When you have a set realistic and attainable timeline, your tasks appear more achievable. On the contrary, if you set an unrealistic deadline, your life will be rife with frustration and a sense of failure. When you don’t attain your deadline, you can get a feeling of incompetence and a waning in your motivation levels to continue with your home business. As one of the tips to stop procrastination, it is important to pay attention to organising your life around your deadlines. Always keep in mind your primary goal for starting the business and be kind to yourself in setting deadlines.
4. Get Started
As soon as you have set yourself up and you have done your research in the business you want to engage in, get started. Nike’s motto sums up for us the get started encouragement included as one of the top tips to stop procrastination. When you overthink and overanalyse, you are in danger of talking yourself out of doing your tasks. Perfection is not necessary. For a home business owner, if you don’t get started on your tasks, no-one else will and your business will not give you the desired results.
5. Read Success and Inspiring Stories
Get into the habit of reading about the successful entrepreneurs and how they were able to reel success to their doorstep. Follow them on Instagram or Facebook, read the books they have written. Remember, at times, it’s not about reinventing the wheel, but about analysing the patterns and strategies that the successful men and women followed to be considered successful. Guaranteed as one of the tips to stop procrastination, emulating and getting inspired by successful people will get you going and will make you leave procrastination for good. In all this, remember that it’s a process to wean yourself from procrastination, but just do it!
6. Reward Yourself
As a reward for accomplishing a task or landing that account you worked so hard to get, take a moment to reflect on this success. When procrastination attempts to pull the wool over your eyes again, you can remember this moment of success and you will not fall for any tricks it brings to your door. Rewarding yourself is one of the great tips to stop procrastination because it will give you a sense of satisfaction, achievement, joy and fulfilment which will stir up your passion to do more for your business.
In conclusion, successful people don’t hesitate to take the first step forward and that is what matters most. Follow these tips and succeed in your home business.
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