Stay Motivated and Lead in Difficult Situations

When you build up a company or run a company or when you lead a team there will, of course, be some lows like personal lows or business-related lows, and the personal ones affect the other ones and vice versa. So the question is how to stay motivated in such periods? Well, I think the first and most important step is to recognize that you’re feeling unmotivated. And then this is also very important to accept that it’s like this right now, that you’re feeling unmotivated right now. I often see people who deny being unmotivated and instead [of] trying to do more of the same, like working their butts off. And in the end, changing nothing, which leads to nothing again, because it leaves them feeling unmotivated, as well and even feeling frustrated. So accepting that you feel unmotivated helps you to find the real solution for the problem in the next step, and the next step is to take a closer look at your situation and your current low and seek inside yourself. So you might ask yourself questions like when did I start to feel unmotivated? What happened in the business life? What happened in private life? Maybe there was a conflict. Maybe you are in a certain period of your menstrual cycle. There are a lot of reasons why you might feel unmotivated right now. So have a closer look at that and then ask yourself, what can I do about the situation right now? What do I need to feel better? What are my needs in general and who or what can help me to get these needs met and to get them satisfied? So, again, search inside yourself and then as a leader, open up to your employees about your feelings. Being vulnerable helps you to connect with your co-workers, with your employees, and it helps them to understand your situation, to relate to you and to find a solution for your problem right now. And in the end, it helps you to get motivated again. And to sum it up, you always can be sure even if this sounds trivial, there’s always a solution to your problem, and a low is always followed by a high.

If you find yourself as a leader in a difficult situation, I think the most important thing is to not try to do everything on your own and to solve the problem on your own. Because as a leader, you know who of your team members will have good tips, will have good ideas, will have the right people to call to fix the problem and to find a solution for this difficult situation. So make sure that you know the qualities of your team members and of your co-workers and to ask them directly for their advice and for their help so that you can manage to fix the situation way better and way faster than you would when you do it all by yourself.