Motivation busters can sap the energy out of you as soon as you foot crosses your business threshold.  Being successul in business means finding ways to stay motivated to reach goals with or without outside support. You might have to work alone in this effort as you pursue professional opportunities.

Become more aware of ways you might be losing your motivation by understanding these top motivation busters that all business professionals need to avoid. 

1. Waiting for others to motivate you. If you need others to motivate you in order to reach your goals you will soon find that you won’t be getting much support. People are busy and few people take time to consistently provide others with the motivational words they need. Reach into your leadership background and find ways to set short and long-term goals that keep you going to reach goals all by yourself.  

2. Keep doing what you don’t like. Few things are more de-motivating the continuing to do activities that you really don’t like to do. When you have a lot of skills and talents, don’t waste precious time in life pursuing activities you don’t like. Wrap up your obligations if necessary and move on to activities and adventures that keep you excited and happy instead of struggling with activities you are not excited about doing.

3. Take criticism from others to heart. It is common for others to share more negative words than positive. If you let yourself be discouraged when others criticize you or what you do, you will find yourself down and out most of the time. Put everything you hear in perspective. You are not what others say; you are what you say to yourself. Learn positive self talk and speak truth to your mind on a consistent basis to drown out the negative criticism that might come your way.  

4. Procrastinate and increase your stress. When you fail to complete tasks you increase your stress. Procrastinating until the last minute or to the point when things really get out of hand is a way to only cause more problems in your life. Set a schedule and face difficult tasks one step at a time. Get things done ahead of schedule and give yourself relief and time to do your task correctly.  

5. Fail to have confidence in your decisions. If you consistently worry about decisions you make learn to look at all of the available alternatives and review the pros and cons of each prior to making a decision. If you have time, don’t make a hasty decision but give yourself time to really think about what you’ll decide. If you have to decide quickly go with the decision that will cause the least harm. Then take a course on decision making so you can feel better about the necessary decisions you will inevitably have to make.

6. Give up easily. One of the best ways to lose motivation is to be in the habit of giving up when things get tough. Instead of being a quitter learn the self-discipline necessary to stick things out to completion. No doubt about it, you will face some very tedious tasks as a leader. But you can’t lead if you can’t finish. Decide to reach the goal and analyze the steps you have to take to complete a difficult task. Be ready to reach the goal line or don’t take on the leadership task.  

7. Maintain bad habits.  A habit is an action you do without thinking. In order to change a habit you have to be conscious of your activities and then deliberately do something that changes that behavior. If you have a habit of telling yourself negative things you have to consciously know how to change that self talk into something positive. If you have a habit of quitting you have to change that to create a habit of completing activities. It is possible to change habits but like anything else worthwhile it can also be hard to do; but as a leader you are up to the task.

Learning to stay motivated is an important skill in business. Sometimes you can be doing things that you are not aware of that take your motivation away.  By recognizing these motivation busters you can learn to be conscious of when they strike, avoid them and  increase your self-motivation. In this way, you take control of becoming a more successful professional.