Motivation During the Holiday Season

I don’t know about you, but beyond shipping holiday retail orders each day, I don’t have much energy to do anything for the rest of the day!  At the end of the day, I don’t even want to answer my phone because I know it is probably one more order from someone who doesn’t want to order via the website!

Of course, this is a bad attitude considering most of us sell the largest percentage of our products during the holiday season.  And having that money rolling into our account is sure nice!Alyson Stanfield

So what can we do to motivate ourselves?  Alyson Stanfield, author of the Art Biz Insider Blog has some excellent suggestions:

How to Motivate Yourself to Work During the Holidays

Remember the following six thoughts whenever you are tempted to neglect sending that email to your list or writing that blog post.

1. Someone somewhere is waiting to hear from you.

They probably don’t know it yet, but you have the right words or the perfect piece of art for someone right now.

There’s no better time to share your gifts.

2. Postponing action is postponing your success.

Every time you procrastinate or decide that a marketing action “probably won’t lead to anything,” remember that you are just putting off any positive results you could be benefiting from.

If you want to make sure you relish the holidays while still moving forward, block out holiday time and office time on your calendar.

3. It takes longer to restart a project than to continue chipping away at it.

You just have to do a little bit at a time to stay connected to your projects and commitments. If 30 minutes a day is all you can spare, then so be it. Set your timer and crank through a task.

Focus on taking single actions, not on what remains of the bigger projects.

4. Sometimes you just have to begin.

Our projects are usually bigger in our heads than they are to implement. Most people find that once they start something, it’s hard to walk away from it.

Just start. Be open to where your initiative leads.

5. Consider a change of scenery.

If your home reminds you of the presents you need to wrap, baking you need to do, or cards you should be sending, get out!

Go to a coffee shop to write your blog post or take a walk for inspiration.

6. Imagine how good you’ll feel.

Hard work yields a higher level of self-satisfaction than ignoring what must be done.

Think about how good you’ll feel in January when there isn’t a backlog of neglected tasks on your list.

NOTE:  Alyson Stanfield is an artist advocate and business mentor at ArtBizCoach.com. This article was originally published on her Art Biz Blog, which is consistently listed as a top 20 art blog. Read more articles like this at http://artbizblog.com.

 

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