How to fall in love with your business this Valentines Day
With Cupid’s special day fast approaching, I want you, as a business owner, to start contemplating the relationship you have with your business. When was the last time you told your business that you loved it?
Is your business providing you with a two way love affair – or are you contemplating cheating because it is more lust and hard work than pleasure and love?
“Why are we so quick to eliminate personal relationships in our lives that are not working, but in business we continue with the mundane hoping for a different outcome?”
So this Valentines Day, it is time to super charge the romance and fall back in love with your business.
Here are my top 5 tips to fall in love with your business, no matter where you are along your entrepreneurial journey:
- Rediscover your smile. Stop work for an hour, half a day – heck a full day. And take yourself back to those first moments. That initial “butterfly in the stomach” moments you had when you serviced a client or customer and you smiled from ear to ear. Most people call this “your why” – I call it “the reason you smile every day”. If it is not making you smile, think about how necessary that section of your business is and how can you replace it, amend it, tweak it, adjust it so that your smile returns.
- Opinions are valuable. You remember those days when you took your boyfriend/girlfriend to meet your posse for the first time. As soon as they went to the bathroom you asked your friends a million questions about what they thought. Same deal for your business. Often we get so caught up in the day to day, that we don’t even know we have veered off track. We don’t even know we are servicing clients we don’t want to service. We don’t realise we are working until midnight until someone tells us how dog tired we look. So ask your posse, ask your customers, ask for feedback. Feedback of any kind, helps you to grow and evaluate your business.
- Get creative. Now this is coming from an accountant who is the most uncreative person this side of … well probably the moon. However, after looking at spreadsheets and accounting software all day every day, sometimes – the love tends to fade. I too need the “spark” to be reignited. So I turn to creative outlets. Mandalas, adult colouring, vision boards, mind maps, collage of photos – when you see visually the relationship you have with your business, often the spark is reignited.
- Stop comparing. The grass is not always greener on the other side. Just like an ordinary relationship where “we want what they have got” – the house, the car, the kids, the travel – whatever it is. Often we do the same in business without even realising. I want their social media following, I want their branding, I want their professional reputation, I want their speaking gigs. JUST STOP. That shit will drive you bloody crazy. Instead of spending wasted time focusing on others grass, start nourishing your own patch and watch it grow. Invest time in you, your goals, your vision, your passions. You are enough.
- Enjoy a polygamy relationship. Okay so I am not speaking from personal experience in the relationship department, however, on the business front – building relationships with more than one person is GOLD. Imagine having at your disposal an accountant, a lawyer, a graphic designer, someone in retail, website guru and people in boundless other industries. Imagine the ideas you could share, imagine the problems you could solve, image the fun you could have and imagine the ongoing support you would feel. Don’t limit your relationship – but expand it every day.
I am not denying the business is bloody hard work. I am not denying you will never work until midnight again. I am not denying that it takes constant effort and that you will wear a multitude of hats to cross the finish line (is there even a finish line?).