Motivation is often the hardest part of being an entrepreneur. Daily distractions, tasks, or overall stress can be mentally draining and rob you of the energy you need to stay focused.

Being a business owner can sometimes feel isolating and that everything rests on your shoulders. But there are ways to overcome things that hurt your motivation and can keep you in a better state of mind, focused on not only running— but growing your business.

Here are the top 6 things that can improve your daily motivation:

1. Setting Goals

Everyone has heard ‘you need to set goals for yourself,’ and that’s obvious to most business owners. But more important, is setting goals that are realistic and achievable. If you spend each day creating a to-do list with items or tasks you can’t complete, or you’re spending your time still trying to complete tasks you assigned yourself the day before, you will end up accomplishing nothing.

Make a list each morning then divide that list into two columns; things you can accomplish that day, and things you’d like to accomplish by the end of the week. Being able to cross things off your list each day while still keeping larger or more time-consuming tasks top-of-mind will help you get more done by the end of each week.

Remember it’s perfectly acceptable if your weekly goals rollover. Larger tasks with heavy time commitments may need to be accomplished in stages and it might not be able to assign hard deadlines. The objective is to keep these on your weekly radar, while gaining a sense of accomplishment from crossing smaller tasks off of your list.

2: Research for motivation

Taking the time to look at what others are doing in your category can lead to inspiration. How is your competition marketing their products or brand? Are they promoting new products or services you could also consider offering? What marketing channels are they using the most to reach customers and are you competing in the same places?

Every business owners knows how important it is to stay current on competitive research for developing market insights and metrics. However, checking in on your competition can also provide valuable motivation and possibly even inspire new ideas or opportunities.

3: Create a support system

Being a business owner or entrepreneur can feel isolating at times, and it can seem like no one can relate to your challenges or that your frustrations are unique.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, because the reality is most business challenges are fairly universal. Whether it’s sales, financial challenges, operations, or even growth, many businesses face the same difficulties. And while these may vary slightly by business type or industry, the core issue can be found in many businesses and owner experiences.

Whether it’s joining the local chamber of commerce or finding networking opportunities, having the ability to bounce your ideas and talk about your challenges with others who are likely in the same boat, can provide much needed support.

4. Don’t let bad clients ruin your day

With all of the challenges and frustrations that come up during the day, it’s very hard to maintain a positive mood. These negative feelings can be compounded if you have an unhappy customer or client.

Every business owner has at one time or another had to face the challenges of customer complaints, or confront anger and bad attitudes. Many entrepreneurs experienced in these situations will tell you this is a standard part of business and you can’t please everyone all the time. The key to overcoming these challenges is not only in how you respond, but also being able to accept this as a necessary reality and not allowing a single client interaction to affect the rest of your day. As hard as it seems sometimes, the best thing to do is let it go and try to focus on other things.

However, sometimes the situation can be more serious and require a different kind of intervention. I’ve covered this in another post titled ‘Is it okay to fire your client?’ No one wants to be facing a situation of cutting ties with a client or customer, but as a business owner, time is your most valuable asset and sometimes staying in a toxic client relationship is a waste of your time.

5: Keep yourself accountable

Make daily lists of tasks and sticking to them is only part of personal accountability. But it’s easy to get distracted each day and let the hours slip away only to feel like you haven’t accomplished anything. Taking this a step further could mean finding help and guidance from a business mentor. Maybe this is someone currently in your industry and further along in their career—perhaps even retired. Or maybe simply a successful business leader who has already faced some of the same hurdles and challenges you might be experiencing.

The point is, accountability to oneself is very different than accountability to someone else who can be there to help guide you and keep you on-task and focused.

6. Go ‘home’ at the end of the day

Entrepreneurs sometimes have an inability to ‘turn off’ their business brain and find themselves working around the clock. For freelancers or owners of professional service businesses who work from home, this can be a particular challenge because it’s tempting to keep checking in on emails or responding after business hours.

The risk of this is not creating a necessary work life balance, as I’ve written about here. Prioritizing business tasks and not ‘going home on time’ entrepreneurs can run the risk of developing business burnout and fatigue. If this happens, nothing can move forward and the lack of progress or achieving goals can create massive issues with motivation.

One day at a time

Staying focused, accepting that daily challenges can—and will happen, setting realistic priorities and keeping yourself accountable will always be the recipe for long-term success. Recognizing and staying ahead of all the triggers that can rob you of your motivation takes time, but once mastered, you’ll find fewer and fewer hurdles that can slow you down.