5 Ways to Stay Motivated in the Messy Middle

Hey friend!

Today I am going over 5 steps to staying motivated in the messy middle of entrepreneurship! These 5 things will help you navigate the journey of building a business as a busy working mom. I pray these help you, encourage you, and give you tactical guidance on how to keep building even when it gets hard.

Enjoy.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey, girls! Today we are talking about how to stay motivated in the middle. I have five steps for you on keeping that motivation locked and loaded even when you feel like you’re hanging out in that awkward middle, right? You’re in the journey, you’re in the waiting, so I know you’re gonna love today’s episode.

So number one is to rewrite your one-year vision statement. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about vision statements. Gosh, that was like, I feel like the last time I brought this up was 2019. Guys, I still do this. I still actively draft out a vision of my life one year from today, every single year, and I have for the past nine years. And the craziest part is that they often come true. So vision, envisioning your life one year from now it does work.

And this doesn’t have to be anything new agey or creepy. It’s literally just where do I want my business to be binding partner with God in this? What would I like my life to look like, my finances to look like, my marriage? Where can I grow in my motherhood? Where can I grow in my friendships, and writing this out in the present tense as if one year from now and it’s just to kind of create this belief in your heart that it’s possible. So that’s really going to help you stay motivated when you’re stuck in that messy middle.

Okay, because the messy middle, it’s long, it’s hard. And it goes on for a hot minute, right. And let me tell you that even when you’re in the messy middle, right now, there’s a messy middle, when you scale too, there’s a messy middle of next level success, there’s a messy middle of growth. So we’re constantly going to find ourselves in growth phases. It’s part of the journey. Let’s just learn to love it. And so appreciating what’s to come is really super important.

Number two, I want you to begin to audit your weekly wins. So when you’re sitting in the messy middle, sometimes you’re sitting there going, Oh, nothing’s working. This isn’t happening. The needle is not moving. I’m not sure. Should I give up? Should I give in? I don’t know what to do. I’m not hearing from God in this season. Listen, we are just so distracted by all the things we can’t see that we’re blinded to the miracles and the whispers, right?

We have to silence the noise of the world in order to hear the whispers of God. So if you can begin to audit your weekly winds, grab your planner, and every Sunday or whenever your Sabbath day or your quiet day is think what happened this week? What were the miracles this week? What was better? What was fruitful? What great conversation happened with my husband? What beautiful moment with my children?

Did I have an extra sale this week, like what happened for you that was a miracle or a win or a beautiful moment, begin to write those down on a weekly basis. Because those weekly wins, they begin to compound and they go from Oh, man, I wish I wish I wish to Whoa, look at this win. And those wins continue to cultivate and compound and momentum builds on momentum. And before you know it, you’re out of the messy middle. But it helps you when you have something tactical and tangible to grab on to every single week.

Number three, I want you to focus on service over sales. So the easiest thing when you’re in the middle is to constantly look at the numbers. I’m not making enough money, I don’t have enough success. I feel like I’m stuck. If only I could be blank if only have enough followers If only I hit this number of downloads.

Look, those are all metrics and metrics only follow one thing, only one thing will ever affect your metrics. It’s how much you served other people. So if you want to make $100,000 in your business, set out to help 100,000 people, give it away serve them, help them solve their problems. Bless them with your knowledge, go above and beyond the money will follow. So instead of setting your sights on sales, shift your perspective and focus on service.

Number four, ask God for patience, perseverance and excited anticipation. So being in the middle sometimes feels lonely. But you have to remember that God is with you. And he positioned you where you are on purpose, right? Sometimes we’re not ready for the breakthrough. Sometimes we have some more work to do, oftentimes. Often, we’re still learning we’re still growing.

So transform your prayers from God helped me get this breakthrough to Lord help me be excited about the middle, helped me have excited anticipation of what you’re doing and how you’re preparing me, thank Him for the hard times, because those hard times are what is cultivating you and what is really planting the seeds for your harvest one day, watering the plants tilling the weeds, right tilling the soil and pulling the weeds, you are cultivating this beautiful garden.

And we have to just sit in that perseverance and that patience and trust that He has got our bloom, our garden, our harvest in store, so it shifts your prayer life, to trusting Him and to being vocal about that and to believing that this journey and this messy middle is actually preparation for something exceptional.

And last but not least, number five, three words, get off social. So sitting in the messy middle is one of the greatest distractors ever from success because you believe that if you stay on social media, it’s going to help you get out of the middle faster. But I’m here to tell you that you staying on social media is actually keeping you stuck in the middle longer, because social media is stealing from your intentionality, it’s stealing from your productivity. It is stealing time away from your family, from the things that matter to you.

Social media is a prison with invisible walls, and until you learn and until you take control of this addiction and until you lay it down at the feet of Jesus and you decide to have boundaries with social, it is going to continue to keep you in the middle because that’s exactly what the enemy wants. He wants you to be stuck, glued to your phone. He wants you to be thinking that’s the way to build a business.

He wants you to be so distracted that you can’t even have a focused conversation without going back and touching your phone. It’s exactly what he wants. So we have to take control of that, especially in the messy middle. And we have to get off social. Guys, this can be every weekend. This can be every day you delete the app and you stay on for only 30 minutes a day. This can be a full out detox, okay, this can be two weeks, 30 days, a year. I don’t care.

You don’t need it to build a business. Anybody telling you that social media is how you build and scale a business is lying to you. And it’s just not the truth. The way that we scale a business is we show up one to many with long form content, aka podcasting, okay, and that is what’s going to scale and grow your business. Social media is simply engaging with people who are already following you. We don’t need it, it drives comparison, it keeps us feeling self conscious, it brings down our confidence level.

And it’s not where we can serve anyone. We’re not actually serving people with a post that takes them 30 seconds to read. We are not actually serving people with a video that we point to random things like this is not long form content, it is not scalable, and it is not evergreen, it dies out after 24 hours. So while I don’t mean to go off on a tangent on social media here, it is imperative that if you want to stay motivated in the middle, you’ve got to remove yourself from the things that are stealing from your progress. And that’s one of them.

So I encourage you to think about why you’re there, how long you’re there, what it’s actually doing for you, your business, your mental health, your family, your motherhood and your marriage and reevaluate, and be okay with the answer that maybe you don’t need it. And that maybe it’s okay for you to dare to be different.

And maybe it’s okay for you to have to detox and go through a period of discomfort in order to break an addiction. All of those things are okay.  Being different and growing this business differently. It starts with discomfort, it starts with being honest about the things that we need to change.

So quick recap for you how to stay motivated in the middle number one, rewrite your vision statement one year from now, come share it in our Facebook community, bit.ly/successsupportgroup. Number two, audit your weekly wins, jot those down in a planner. Number three, focus on service over sales. You want to make $100,000 you focus on helping 100,000 people.

Number four, ask God for patience, perseverance and excited anticipation of what He is doing in your life in the middle, in the season of preparation in the season of planting seeds and preparing for your great harvest. And lastly, number five, get off social. In some capacity, there is no woman on here listening right now that can’t reduce social even further, even myself. I’m super here for this, guys. I’m here for this all day.

So if this episode blessed, you helped you change you challenged you in some way. Take a screenshot for me share it in your stories tag me @stefaniegass and if you guys are excited about building a business without using social media, please head to stefaniegass.com/courses

I have a three step process to scaling a hugely successful profitable online business without social media by getting clarity, starting a podcast and thirdly creating passive courses to monetize I don’t care who you are and what you do. This business model works for everyone and anyone stefaniegass.com/courses. Love you, guys. I hope that this bless you today and I’ll meet you back here on Thursday.