The daily grind can really get you down. Commuting followed by the same old faces in the office and the same old problems in your job leads us into the ‘living for the weekend’ mentality. Add some bigger personal goals to your life – challenges to your everyday existence of any kind, physical or mental – and use them to drive your life forwards and basically do more, live more.

My challenges are quite often related to sport. I have a challenge in April next year to ride 50 miles on my bike on a very hilly course in a race in West Wales. Now, I’m not a full-on rider so it’s going to take a lot of work to get fit enough for this. And I’m also not all that strong in the legs so hills just stop me stone dead, so the work is going to have to be really hard to make sure I can finish this thing.

The point I’m making here is that this bigger challenge – bigger than the everyday stuff we all have to do – is getting me focussed and making sure I train hard and put in the work to make the ride a success. It might also lead me to do more racing and get my legs strong enough to go up some bigger hills. Maybe even the French Alps one day. Who knows?

Set yourself a challenge and see where it takes you. Until you try, you’re never going to really know what you’re capable of. Use it to give you focus and create some energy and drive to achieve.

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Ian Mountford is a global recruitment expert and strategy coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.