5 Steps to Take When Your Enthusiasm Wanes
If you’re like many small business owners, you were full of enthusiasm and spirited motivation when you first started your business. If you weren’t, it never would have taken off, much less soared into the stratosphere — or however high you’ve managed to push it so far.
The more clients you added, the more stable your company became, the more excited you got about your initial investment of time and money. Small business owners are nothing if not dreamers and inspiring leaders. Everyone either envies your success … or wants to join your team.
Risk vs. Reward
Small business owners share a number of characteristics. Among the most common traits, they:
- Love the thrill of risk-taking
- Are always full of new ideas
- Possess a strong need for challenges
- Get a kick from beating the odds
- Are fiercely independent
- Bore easily and need stimulation
Depending on how you look at it, these common traits can be positive or negative. Risk-taking gives you a big shot of adrenaline, for example, which can be addicting. You may end up seeking out those risks, which can lead to rash decisions. But if small business owners were afraid of the unknown, no new businesses would ever get started!
You may value your independence, but often that impedes your desire to ask for help. So, while new ideas and innovations are prized qualities because they lead to discovery and foster growth, these same qualities can cause you to make hasty, imprudent decisions. And so a virtue becomes a vice that hurts your business.
Keeping Yourself in Check
An effective tenet for all small business owners is to get in the habit of keeping a watchful eye on your emotions and your thinking. In other words, objectively watch your own inner workings as closely as you watch your bank statement and your employees.
“Physician, heal thyself” is not a mantra designed strictly for doctors. In fact, it aids anyone, no matter what you do for a living. When you pay attention to your thinking, you shape your future. As the great philosopher Anonymous once said:
Watch your thoughts for they become your words.
Watch your words for they become your actions.
Watch your actions for they become your habits.
Watch your habits for they become your character.
All your actions first begin in your mind. Think it and make it so. Small business owners are acutely aware of this mental phenomenon — you know that your business, your inventions or your innovations first came from a tiny seed planted in your subconscious. Knowing this, it should be easier to accept that the end of your business — whether it’s your imminent demise or your successful transition — also comes first from your thoughts.
The Choices Are Yours
So what are small business owners to do when the thrill is gone? To whom do you turn when your latest new ideas are threatening to blow off the top of your head if you don’t act on them? Where do you go when you just need another challenge or you’re bored?
Like the many small business owners who’ve found themselves in this situation in the past, one of your choices is to scrap the whole enchilada and start over. But that option typically leads to regrets rather than continued success. Consider these five more effective approaches to scratching your itch:
- Start a hobby. After years of devoting all your time and energy to your business, look to other enjoyable pursuits to challenge yourself and provide unpaid suitable risks. For example, you can try whitewater rafting, learning to fly a plane or taking up yoga.
- Take on a second job. Once your business is running smoothly, you may be able to step back, an inch at a time, until your daily input is no longer as vital as it once was. Follow your bliss to another income-producing gig, such as writing a book, teaching or creating a new app.
- Sell the business. Getting your company ready for a sale takes time. Talk to a business broker for tips about how to prepare, explore markets and find the highest bidder. The whole process of selling your business will be enough of a rush to keep your adrenaline up for a while longer.
- Expand your current line. Promote some of your best workers to management while you pursue other avenues of products or services you might offer. It may feel like you’re starting a brand new business, but without all the stress that small business owners take on to feed the need for something new and exciting.
- Find new markets. In the same vein as the above tip, work within the existing structure that you worked so hard to create. Take a trip overseas to look for new clients. Open an office in another city. Franchise your idea and spawn a new generation of entrepreneurs.
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