3 Ways to Fall Back in Love with Your Business

Even I struggle to love my business somedays. It feels hard and tiring and I find myself lusting after my “ex” who was easy and fun. I never had to worry where my next chunk of cash was coming from. I would cruise into the Petrol Station in my company car with my fully loaded fuel card. Jumping on airplanes every few months and staying in fancy hotels with room service! Yes please! Except my ex wasn’t easy and fun. My ex was a creep. A soul-sucking, confidence-draining, completing infuriating creep. I romanticise our relationship when my business is grinding on my last nerve. 

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to forget the bad times and apply rose-tinted glasses to your old employee life?

There is interesting research into why this happens but I won’t nerd out here and drag you into my science brain black hole. Let’s get practical instead and talk about how you can fall back in love with a business that has been behaving like a philandering husband on a reality t.v show. Married at First Sight… I am looking at YOU. *Side note – this is the first time I have watched it and I lasted two episodes. What an absolute goat rodeo that show is. 

Let’s get lusty Profit Lovers!

Remove your ex from your options

When you give yourself the out of “I can always go back to a job” you have a very comfortable fall back plan. I see this one a lot. Getting motivated to get uncomfortable, which by the way is just part of being self-employed, is hard when you’re looking back over your shoulder at that comfortable place to fall. Yes, in theory, you can go back but you’re going forward. You’re moving ahead to a place of uncapped income, flexible work hours, free choice and so many possibilities. 

Remember why you made the decision to be your own boss. If you’re in Members Club go back and do the Motivation Kit. I redid the exercises last year after a particularly heinous month. I traveled back to the ex-files and recalled the exact moment I knew I had to leave. The next day I kicked myself in the butt and had a killer of a month. 

*I am writing a blog tomorrow about part-time jobs to support your business growth and how to make it work!

Don’t kid yourself

It is so very easy to feel frustrated and fed up because your business just isn’t working. You don’t know what to do next and you walk around declaring loudly with big hand gestures and a face like a slapped bum that you “have done everything and NOTHING works”. Not true. I can guarantee you haven’t done everything. I have heard this statement a thousand times and thousand times it just wasn’t true. Statements like this unfairly diss your business and kill the romance. It is hard to love a business if you have declared it to be a failure which is exactly what you’re doing when you claim nothing works. 

Instead, write down a list of everything new you have tried over the past 6 months and everything new you can try in the next 6 months. If you’re really stuck on this then get some help from an outsider. My friend was on a rant a few weeks ago about her husband. I quickly stopped her and pointed out that he would literally set himself on fire to keep her and their kids warm. I am sure he can be a bit of a wang at times, but he is doing everything he can to make their lives amazing. She just couldn’t see it until I pointed it out with my natural flair for harsh, blunt and swear word peppered advice. 

*Another shameless Members Club mention, we do this EXACT exercise in members club as a group challenge. The goal is to come up with as many new and exciting ways to grow as possible. 

Celebrate the positives!

As soon as this blog post is finished I am off to the beach for a swim. I will be floating around in the ocean with old Salty, dog of the seas a.k.a Ziggy (who has his own inflatable boat). I will then be taking myself and old Salty out for a Valentines Day lunch because I can. I am self-employed and I can do as I please. 

Anytime I feel like the spark has gone from my relationship with my business I do something I most likely couldn’t do as an employee. I take days off, I go to the movies in the middle of the day, I work weird hours, I take looonnnnggg lunch breaks and mid-day naps…. We all need to be reminded that self-employment isn’t just about money. In fact, I would say for 90% of the woman I work with it is about freedom and flexibility over finances. So don’t forget to celebrate that! 

If you’re feeling like you can’t do that stuff because you’re too busy or customers might email or call etc… you’re too tired up in your business. You have allowed your business to become a stage four clinger, you’re one step away from a full-on obsessive stalker-like relationship and that is no good for you or your business. Your business will be fine without you for a few hours. Your customers or clients won’t die if you don’t respond immediately to their emails and calls (unless you’re an E.R Doctor…). 

Don’t let your business become your stalker!

Now over to you! Is it time for you to fall back in love with your business? What can you do in the next few days to re-ignite the passion?