What is the Role of Motivation in Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurs are renowned for their tenacity and commitment: with ambitious goals, long hours and success. They are individuals who are passionately devoted to a project and find success because they can persuade other people of the value of their ideas. A key factor in sustaining this type of energy, creativity and momentum is motivation. The role of motivation in entrepreneurship is essential to its ultimate success. There are other things you can do to motivate yourself to start a business.

For instance, search for a role model or mentor. Let their struggles and successes motivate you. Similarly, reading books or case studies that apply to your objectives can give you ideas on how to actually accomplish what you want. Support from friends and family can also keep you on the right track. Communicate with them about what you want, the challenges you face, and your plan to tackle them.

Motivation is the driving force within people that makes them act the way they do. Business motivations are necessary steps to get people to become entrepreneurs. Academics have conducted several research on business motivations and have discovered several factors that motivate people to become entrepreneurs. In any case, as an entrepreneur, it's easy to lose motivation. The key is not to give up and find ways you can get up on those longer and more exhausting days.

To help you out, I've highlighted 10 ways you can stay motivated as an entrepreneur. The Facebook group allows you to share your findings and learn from others, while allowing you to discuss everything related to entrepreneurship and business. I ask each entrepreneur to first look closely inside to find one or more of the following key intrinsic drivers, before starting. Out of curiosity, I often ask aspiring entrepreneurs who come to me for help about what drives them to take on the workload and risk of a new startup. I advise new entrepreneurs to wait for failure and wear it as a badge of honor, rather than trying to hide it. Entrepreneurs understand that they must be involved in activities or tasks in which they must share a high degree of individual responsibility for results.

Entrepreneurs need to comprehend, leverage and maintain their own motivation to start a business, but they must also be able to motivate others to accept their idea. Many aspiring entrepreneurs pay so much attention to their new business that they forget to focus on themselves. There are thousands, if not millions, of success stories about entrepreneurs of all kinds succeeding in the real world. Business motivations include flexibility, control and legacy, said Jacent Wamala, licensed therapist and owner of Wamala Wellness. These are some of the things that not only motivate entrepreneurs to do business for themselves, but that motivate them to continue even during the difficult parts of the process. Many entrepreneurs I know come to the conclusion that they can never be in control, due to the constant and unpredictable need to satisfy investors, sellers and customers.

Although a new entrepreneur wants to be his own boss, usually his startup needs to hire new employees to perform various tasks. And while there is an inherent anxiety in entrepreneurship, since much is unknown about the potential success of a startup, it can also be liberating to know that your job is safe in the sense that you can define your own parameters of success, salary, etc. Most entrepreneurs will tell you that once they discovered the true purpose of their efforts, they found a new sense of commitment and leadership that allowed them to inspire and empower others, as well as direct their own actions. Therefore, scholars now identify a set of various human motivations that influence the business process and have come to the conclusion that entrepreneurial spirits are not just the result of human action.