Habits to enhance your Motivation and Productivity

Habits to enhance your Motivation and Productivity

When you are an entrepreneur your mental health reflects the health of your business. As you are the one who is going to make every decision that will determine your business' future and it is your effort, vision, hard work and determination what will influence whether your business succeeds or not, it is important that you are sharp, that you stay motivated, and that you maximize your productivity.

Being an entrepreneur is lonely. Sometimes your hours of work don't generate any money. As you invest yourself in your business, you are dealing with the fact that your financial security is linked to your company's success and that is hard if you have nobody or nothing to fall back on. While it is hard to cope with all of these difficulties, it is a whole other challenge to being able to succeed.

As mental health is crucial for a business to succeed, here are some valuable habits you can develop as an entrepreneur that will not only improve your mental health but boost your motivation and productivity.

Sleep enough

While most entrepreneurs work late hours and wake up early to make the most of each day, not getting enough sleep may lower your productivity. According to a study by the Harvard Medical School, sleep deprivation can lead to an inability to focus and can hinder higher brain functions. Poor sleeping habits are also also tied to other health issues, including heart attacks, diabetes, and obesity. To maximize your productivity, you need to sleep six to eight hours each night.

This habit doesn't apply to everyone as there are also people who don't need that much sleep to perform well. In fact, many entrepreneurs have stated that they work while others sleep.

Eat well

When you are an entrepreneur, you are always busy and don't always have a chance to eat properly or cook a healthy meal for yourself. That is why many entrepreneurs turn to fast food with no nutritional value. The food that you put into your body is turned into glucose which fuels your brain. Therefore, you are what you eat as food has an impact the way you think and feel.

Fatty meals require more energy to break down properly, which leads you to feel tired and unable to perform at optimum levels.

Exercise regularly

Time is the one thing successful entrepreneurs lack. With all the responsibilities and tasks you must perform during the day, it is not easy to set time aside to exercise. However, working out has many benefits for you and has a positive impact on your business.

Exercise is beneficial for you for many reasons: it reduces levels of mental and physical stress; it releases chemicals into your system that cause happiness and fight depression; it improves your sense of self-worth and self-confidence; lastly, exercise gives you a chance to disconnect from your work, which boosts creativity and allows you to take a fresh perspective on problems later.

Therefore, if you find time to work out during your day, it will help your business in the long term as it will boost your productivity. You might dedicate an hour to exercise but this will maximize your effort at work throughout the day.

Meditate

While meditation is not directly linked to entrepreneurial success, it can boost your performance. Since mediation allows your brain to shut down for a while, giving your mind a chance to disconnect from reality and its pressure, it allows you to relax and let the stress of running a business fade away momentarily.

You don't need much time to meditate. 10 minutes a day can have a considerable impact on your mind. There are apps you can download which will keep you on track when it comes to meditation.

Read as much as you can

Reading is crucial to become a successful leader. For instance, Bill Gates is famous for his love of reading; Mark Zuckerberg started an enormous book club on Facebook; and Warren Buffett spends a great amount of his day reading.

That doesn't mean you have to read every self-help and business non-fiction book ever written. You should try and read some of them. However, what matters is to make a habit out of reading because studies show that reading has an impact on your emotional awareness.