Creative Wayfinding For Ambitious Optimists.

Maintaining Motivation

February, 29, 2020

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

If your goals are of sufficient depth and scale, measuring our progress towards them on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis can be difficult.

As a result, even if you are moving slowly, steadily, consistently forward, it can feel as though you’re stuck in place, motionless.

Starting a new business for the first time, doubling your existing business, or creating work that authentically moves people can feel like monumental tasks that don’t always have a clear roadmap.

Without a map, any forward motion you do have often feels like it might just be taking you in circles, not moving you any closer to your goal.

In these cases, it might be worth starting a “Success Journal”.

When you commit to writing down every success, every win, no matter how big or how small, the proof of your progress, slow though it may be, becomes apparent.

Momentum is essential to maintaining motivation, especially through The Dips that come with any project worth pursuing.

You might make note of each new best-yet daily page view total on your website, or downloads on your podcast.

You might note down every new email list subscriber, or keep a running tally of your social media following.

If you have a product or service you might note every sale or new customer.

Or, maybe you note every kind comment from someone who interacted with your work and appreciated it. Every connection your work facilitated, each new and fascinating person you would have never met if not for the work you did.

Over time, it might feel tedious to track each and every new subscriber, sale, or customer.

When that happens, recalibrate what it is you’re tracking and realize that this is as sure a sign as any that you’re on the right track, moving forward, building momentum.

Resistance and your brain’s negativity bias will do everything they can to keep you in place, feeling like the work is not worth doing, that it would be a waste of time to show up any bigger than you already are.

It’s up to you to stack the deck in your favour, to build up your armour, and to remind yourself that what you do has value, is connecting with people, and you have the proof.


Want to hear more about building an audience around work that matters? I think you might enjoy these reads!

https://medium.com/@jeremyenns/what-about-this-3ecce03fd88chttps://medium.com/@jeremyenns/what-about-this-3ecce03fd88c

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Hi, I'm Jeremy, I'm glad you're here.

No matter what you create, I'm guessing you spend a good amount of time feeling lost, hopeless, and unsure about how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

So do I. And so does everyone doing creative work.

This is the Creative Wilderness.

Every week, I publish a new article in my Creative Wayfinding newsletter about how we as creators and marketers can navigate it with more clarity and confidence.

If you're building something that matters, but aren't quite sure how to take the next step forward, I'd be honoured to have you join us.