Ever get to the point where you just hate your business?
The tasks that used to thrill you now feel like a burden, your customers are getting on your nerves, and even the smallest things get under your skin.
You don’t want to quit. But it would be nice if you didn’t hate the idea of going over to your computer desk…again. You don’t want to feel so burnt out.
Burnout is dangerous. It’s what makes you want to quit following your dream and get a job in retail, where you’ll tell everyone about how you “used to work for” yourself.
When you start to hate your business, here are eight tips to get your head back in the game and fall in love all over again.
1. Get back to basics
Finish this sentence:
“I started my own business because I ______________.”
Do you remember?
At one point you had the passion to make a drastic change in your life. Pinpoint where that was rooted in and spend some time getting in touch with those driving factors again.
Which projects, blogs, possibilities, or industry leaders inspired your passion?
Revisit not only those feelings, but the actual words or places that moved you. Get involved in old communities again, and let yourself be invigorated, either be reinvigorated by the feeling of returning, or by how far you’ve come since you started.
2. Play To Your Strengths
Quick, what makes you, you?
Ok… maybe it’s more involved than that.
We all know what our strengths are or what we want them to be.
Instant gratification only gets us so far in terms of happiness. It’s not sustainable and it won’t carry you on days when work is a slog.
For satisfaction and reconnection with the passion behind your work, create a project that lets your use your strengths. What that project is is up to you, the important thing is that you give yourself the opportunity to flex your muscles over the long term. You can create something, organize an event, learn something, write something, options are limitless.
A new project utilizing your natural abilities will inject new energy into work when you start to find it dull or repetitive.
3. Take A Break
Take a real, legitimate, break.
Leaving the office and taking your phone, laptop, and iPad home to “keep tabs on things” is not a rest. Your brain keeps the work lights on even while you nap or socialize.
You’ll need to plan your break for a time when it will only benefit you and your business. If you’re taking time away that will cost you money or require extra work when you return, you’ll be losing the ground you’ve gained while you’re away.
If business burnouts are a frequent happening for you, you need to schedule regular downtime and protect it fiercely. No calls, no emails, no checking in, no exceptions.
The point of a break is to really rest, because when you’re tired to the bone of the business you’ve created, rest may be your only chance of a change in perspective.
4. Learn Something
Read a book.
Take a class.
Find a new blog.
Attend a webinar.
Education is beneficial to your relationship with your business, regardless of whether it presents an immediate change or not. Learning is a new perspective, it’s tantamount to opening a door to change. It might be the first step in a process to the kind of change you really need.
5. Practice Habitual Gratitude
The habit of active gratitude changes how we view our situation.
Instead of seeing your business through a haze of too many phone calls, irritable clients, and a miles-long list of tasks to accomplish, meditate for awhile on what you have.
- What do you have/can you do that someone just starting in your field would kill for?
- What do you have/can you do now that you didn’t/couldn’t a year ago? Six months ago?
- Who has come into your life and changed it for the better?
- What can you learn from your immediate situation that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise?
6. Re-Invest In Yourself
Paint your office, run an ad, buy a new monitor.
Get a new shirt, a new coffee mug, hell- spring for the BIG pack of pens you like.
It doesn’t have to be a grand change. Just. a. change.
It doesn’t have to cost a lot to reaffirm to yourself that your business, your goals, and your accomplishments are worth some kind of investment.
7. Make A List of EVERYTHING You Hate About Your Business
This could take days to really complete, so give it time.
Separate the list into things you can change immediately, things you can work to change eventually, and things you can’t.
Then, make a game plan for each. If you hate going to work because your office is messy, make yourself organize it now. Today.
If your business is run from a rickety building that doesn’t suit your needs, start a moving budget and do research on new locations for when your lease is up.
If what’s bothering you can’t be changed, change yourself.
Adapt.
Find a new way to look at things, reevaluate your position or opinions, analyze your goals.
Ultimately, find ways to make it better, one step at a time.
8. Write Out Your Mission Statement
Your mission statement should go beyond what you plan to accomplish.
Put your heart into it.
Anyone can write a generic block of text, with fluffy goals and padded language that, at its core, means very little.
What did you create your business for? What sets you apart, and what do you believe in not just as a business owner, but as a human being?
If any line of your mission statement doesn’t genuinely move you to your core, nix it.
You can do better.
Your business shouldn’t just inspire you, it should do it for the people it serves. Isn’t that the beauty of working for yourself?
You have what it takes, because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have made it this far.
All it really takes to fall in love with your business all over again is a moment to reflect, and reconnect with the reasons you wanted to make the world shift in the first place.
It can be good again. You can be good again.
Just remember, you do it because you love it.
Heck, even the most powerful of CEO’s need to take a step back from their business for a little while.
You started your business to make a dent in the universe.
So what are you waiting for?
Go.
Do it.
Just be sure to leave a comment before you go.
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