Incentives can be a vitally important aspect of succeeding in both your business and personal life, particularly if you’re working on your own as a translation expert. So it’s up to you to determine what kinds of incentives work best for you - then you can use these to your advantage. Have a look at the following ideas and see if any of these resonate with you –

Your Reward Once You’ve Achieved a Goal?

Some people love the reward that comes once they’ve achieved a goal. That reward could well be the feeling of achievement or happiness once they’ve completed a big project; or, it may be a physical reward like going to a movie or taking a certain percentage of the money earned from the project and purchasing something they’ve wanted for a long time.

Losing Something If You Fail to Reach a Goal?

This is a different way of looking at achieving success whereby you lose something of value if you don’t reach your goal. There are various ways of doing this, and only you would know what might work best for you; but an example might be (say) putting a certain amount of money into a bank account, or even into a drawer, and if you reach your goal the money is yours to spend as you wish. However, if you fail, the money is to be donated to your favorite charity.

Social Pressure?

When our family and friends know we’re involved in a big project, there’s nothing worse than, first of all, failing to meet the deadline, and then having the same people ask over and over again how your translation project is going and when will it be finished. If this is your personality, then the idea is that you tell as many people as possible what you’re working on and what your deadline is – that should be sufficient incentive to keep you moving forward.

So, as we mentioned previously, you need to determine what reward system or incentive might work best for you. Only you know your own personality: Are you competitive or materialistic, or is your main motivation to achieve goals you set for yourself? Do you like to follow rules, even if you set them up yourself? Perhaps you’re someone who loves checking things off a list? Maybe your incentive is to simply feel good about yourself by completing goals on target and thus reducing stress levels. Work out what you think would be your best motivation, then create a plan for yourself. You may need to tweak your plan from time to time, and that’s okay too.