Empowering quotes and motivational tips for entrepreneurs

Here’s to the entrepreneurs.

The midnight oil burners, the plate spinners, the go-getters and the dream chasers.

Here’s to all the Host Hobbit customers who work five to nine not nine to five, building their own businesses.

The chefs, the artisans, the techies, the makers, the consultants, the mechanically minded, the sellers, the carers, and more.

Having helped hundreds of entrepreneurs get online over the years, we know that the highs can be Everest high when you work for yourself.

However, we also know that there can be troughs as well as peaks.

With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of motivational quotes. For the days when there’s a little less gas in the tank than usual and for the times when the hurdles look a little higher than they did the day before.

Then we’ve rounded up a few further tips and resources that should help you keep your motivation stores well-stocked going forward.

10 empowering quotes for entrepreneurs

1. “The most effective way to do it is to do it.”

Amelia Earhart

2. “Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”

Madam C.J. Walker

3. “Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It’s the mastery of fear. It’s about getting up one more time than we fall down.”

Arianna Huffington

4. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs

5. “You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.”

Jeff Bezos

6. “When everything seems to be going against you remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”

Henry Ford

7. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Winston Churchill

8. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Thomas Edison

9.“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Barack Obama

10. “There’s more to life than being a passenger.”

Amelia Earhart

5 more ways to boost your motivation

1. Get yourself a motivational desk calendar

If you enjoyed reading the above quotes, you might want to think about investing in a motivational desk calendar like the Great Quotes from Great Leaders box calendar or the 365 Smartest Things Ever Said calendar, both available on Amazon.

2. Take time out for a TED talk

The TED website is filled with 20-minute videos designed to motivate and inspire. Topics range from ‘Why humour is the key to creativity’ to ‘How to overcome your fears’. Why not create your own playlist and listen to one on your commute to work in the morning or, if you don’t commute, over your first coffee of the day?

3. Take a break from visualising success

This may sound counter-productive, but recent research suggests that picturing yourself achieving your next big goal can actually sap the energy you have available for achieving that goal.

Instead, some psychologists have started advising that you invest your energy into focusing on the steps required to achieve your goal, rather than the fulfilment of the goal itself.

4. Take the time to appreciate your efforts

Things don’t always go to plan in business. However, that doesn’t mean that you haven’t done your very best to try and get the outcome you wanted.

Sometimes things fall out of our control, no matter how hard we try.

So, the next time something doesn’t go the way you were expecting it to, don’t beat yourself up about the outcome. Instead, pat yourself on the back for the amount of effort you put in.

According to psychologists, this will reinforce your commitment to hard work and help you reap rewards further down the line.

5. Remember the six Cs

It’s said that entrepreneurs are motivated by six main things – change, challenge, creativity, curiosity, control and cash.

So, the next time you’re feeling a little lacklustre, look at what you’re doing and see if the six Cs are present. If any are missing, ask yourself what you can do to add that value or values back into your day-to-day. The last C might be a little trickier to add back in, so why not think about upping the amount of the other elements in your life? Doing so could attract the cash back, too.