When you start your business, you usually have a pretty good idea why you started it in the first place. In most cases, you start from a place of passion. From love for a particular thing you do — there’s something you want, or need, to share with the world and you can’t hold yourself back.
But a few years down the line, after a few bumps in the road, you might start realizing that the love you had, has slowly disappeared over the years.
So, how do you rediscover the love for your business? With 4 tips, I’ll help you do that today.
Where did the love go?
After a few years, a lot of entrepreneurs feel as if their business has become a chore. It’s no longer something you feel excited about when you get out of bed on a Monday morning.
Let me start by saying there’s no shame in feeling this way, because I’ve been there a few times myself and the essence is to rediscover the love for your business — not throw in the towel and never look back.
I’d like to start by asking you one question: what would you rate your business today based on the level of passion you feel for it? And be honest to yourself, no one’s here to criticize you.
Anything below a 7? There’s work to do, I’m afraid. So, let’s go through my 4 steps together.
4 steps to rediscover the love for your business
Tip #1: Your gut will show you the way
A mistake I made, and you probably too, is listening to other people. And some people tend to think they know best which evolves into them giving you unsolicited advice.
Advice about what you should be doing, what you shouldn’t be doing and everything in between. I was told that I needed to coach less, delegate more and should be doing less in general.
And the mistake I made? I took this advice to heart, I took their unsolicited advice as truth. So, I started coaching less and delegating more, but then after a few months I realized that coaching was my passion. It’s what lit my soul on fire and I stopped doing it because someone told me I should.
So tip #1 to rediscover the love for your business is: follow your gut and follow your own advice because what do other people know about your business?
Especially about the inner workings of your business, maybe they’re advising you to outsource certain tasks but what if you’re outsourcing the thing you love doing most? It’s like a painter being advised to outsource the creation of their paintings. Makes no sense whatsoever.
Always remember that you’re the only one who knows and sees the full picture of your business, so don’t take advice from people who don’t have no idea about the full scope of your business.
Tip #2: You are not your business
Many entrepreneurs entwine their identities with their business, but you are not one vessel. Your business is more like a partner, something that stands and lives beside you but is not an integral part of you.
You are not a servant to your business and you shouldn’t act that way either.
So, how do you stop this from happening? Make sure, you have an appointed work spot — especially if you work from home a lot, otherwise your entire house will feel like work and that’s something you need to avoid.
Also create an off switch for yourself — does your phone feel like work to you? Then take some time away from your phone at the end of the day. Spend time doing things that don’t feel like work for a few hours at night.
Tip #3: Identify what brings you joy
Remember why you started your business and what parts of it brought you joy.
I started an online business partly because I adored coaching people and helping them become their best selves, but also because I loved the freedom. Since everything happened, I could work from wherever I wanted to and that is something that brought me immense joy.
Until I realized that I wasn’t working remotely as much as I intended to do because I wanted to be available to my team, to my family and to my clients. And making that decision cost me my happiness, because I wasn’t enjoying the freedom I thought I had.
So, do you feel like you’ve lost the love for your business and are you looking to rediscover it? Then take a look at WHY you started and if you’re still taking advantage of those reasons.
Tip #4: Strive for attainability
Setting targets, a lot of entrepreneurs love setting targets and are cheering on the inside when they’re setting them.
There’s a lot of things I could say about setting targets, but since we’re here talking about rediscovering the love for your business, I’ll focus on one thing and that’s: attainability.
I’m purposely not saying realistic, because I don’t believe in setting “realistic” targets — what’s the fun in that?
Instead, I invite you to aim high while making sure your targets are attainable. Your targets need to motivate you, not feel like a weight holding you down. When you set targets that are a tad too ambitious, you’ll end up feeling as if you failed and that’s never something that will put you in the right headspace.
Setting your staircase goals
Staircase goals allow you to set 3 to 5 different targets and each one means something different.
- Lowest target might be your breaking even
- Middle target is a target you’d be happy with
- Highest target is your “I feel great” target
Result based goals versus process based
Then there’s also a difference in setting numerical goals, where you aim for a certain amount of money or people and then there’s process based goals, where you aim for something to get done.
Examples:
- Result based goal: We want 1000 people to register for the BFE™ Fast Track waitlist
- Process based goal: We want the sales page for the BFE™ Fast Track to be finished by (date)
Set some different goals for yourself so you know what you’re aiming for.
Go out and rediscover your love for your business
There you have it — my 4 steps you can take to fall back in love with your business. I’ll sum them up for you:
- Don’t listen to other people’s advice
- Detach yourself from your business and find your off button
- Implement more of what brings you joy
- Strive for attainable goals
I really hope these 4 steps will help you get back to giving your business a 9/10 — because a perfect business doesn’t exist.
PS If you want to bring more freedom into your business while creating more profit, I’d love to help you do that in my BFE™ Fast Track. It’s my flagship program, the Business Freedom Elevator™, in a new and improved format.
With 12 weeks of coaching, I’ll help you turn your passion into a profitable business.
Get yourself on the waitlist now: fastforwardamy.com/bfewaitlist
And if you’re looking for a free resource that will help you manage your energy, I’d love to offer you my energy management worksheet. It’s the ideal exercise to end your day to identify what energy levels you end your day with and it helps you evaluate what went right and what could have gone better.
It’s a self reflection exercise that will definitely help future you to properly regulate your energy levels.
Feel free to try it: fastforwardamy.com/energymanagement
Watch this episode on YouTube or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and search for episode 198 of the Play To Win podcast.
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