Finding Motivation To Finish Your Course

By: Justin Ferriman • October 27, 2015
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team-workWhen I was young someone once told me that the hardest part about any project is just starting it.

To some extent I think this is true. Even if it’s a project that we want to do, it can sometimes be difficult to get the ball rolling so to speak.

However, at a certain point I think the excitement of a fun project is enough for us to get things going. In the context of elearning this often is in the form of creating your first course to sell.

Now whether you happen to be using LearnDash to create and sell your course or not, you will at some point encounter the difficult task of staying motivated.

This is because creating an online course that is worth buying takes a tremendous amount of time. Course authors often tell me that their course (from start to finish) takes at least a few months.

If you already have your content ready to go then the timeline is certainly shorter, but this isn’t the comment scenario for most people.

Tips For Staying Motivated

You may be in the middle of creating your online course and have hit a mental block.

This is normal. It’s similar to the way writers have trouble when writing a book. Sometimes you just get stuck.

It’s important to recognize that this is part of the process. It is just as important that you don’t stop work altogether on the project.

If you are low on motivation then one thing you can do is to shift your focus to another part of the project.

Take a break from developing the actual course and put some effort into marketing. Your marketing efforts don’t need to start when the course is finished. You can begin building a buzz from the early stages.

One major benefit in doing this is that you’ll get to interact with your perspective customers. They may indirectly give you new ideas or angles for your course that you previously didn’t think about.

You’ll be surprised at how quick you’ll get your motivation back!

Your shift in attention doesn’t necessarily have to be on the marketing component. It could be on designing the overall look of your site, creating a logo, networking at a meetup, participating in forums, so on and so forth.

The idea is to make sure that whatever you choose to do keeps momentum going for your project.

It’s even okay to take some time off. A fresh mind is often a sharp one.

If you do take some time away from your project, make sure you have a system in place to hold you accountable for returning. The more time that you let go by the harder it will be to re-dedicate yourself.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter