Starting a business comes with so much excitement, energy, creativity, inspiration and drive. But, very quickly into starting, it can be a week, month or two months, the excitement and energy turns into: doubt, confusion, feeling lost and that it's a waste of time. This is very natural and happens to a lot of individuals who start their businesses, they start to doubt their ideas and whether what they're doing will even lead to success, confusion around what they're doing and why and start to feel overwhelmed and lost by all the information and things they notice other businesses doing. Whilst we live in a great time where we have access to a wealth of resources, including free, it can get overwhelming and prevent people from moving forward in their business because they're so worried if they are doing the right thing as there are many different opinions and experiences of people documented on the internet.
To get past these feelings and start to see success in your business, here are THREE strategies I would recommend you implement to help you push through when you think it's getting a lot and you're not sure what you are doing.
Disclaimer: Information in this post is intended only for general and entertainment purposes only. The reader is responsible for any harm, injury, loss caused from display and use of this information. Reader discretion is advised. Thank you.
1. Get Clarity!
I have seen so many videos, social media and blog posts talking all about the WHY! Seeing it being talked about many times by many different people I would quite often skip past this tip and not bother learning about it since I did not see the impact. But, this is vital for you to not fall into the trap of those feelings which might lead you to quit your business, that had you kept going would have become something so phenomenal and more than you imagined.
This does not have to be a long, tedious and draining exercise, to define your why take some time to just think about what you want to achieve out of this business that you are trying to build. Your do not have to have just one why but it can consist of a few, so mine for example are:
- build an income stream that is controlled by me
- have the freedom to take breaks in my career when I need to
- access resources to allow me to experience life and enjoy it
- gain and practice skills and grow my knowledge
- do more good for my community and increase my contribution to society
- have more time to dedicate to my religion
these are all of the things that motivate me to continue:
- creating content for this blog
- creating content for Pinterest
- researching blog post ideas
- learning how to make my pins eye-catching and interesting
- creating printables for my Etsy
even when I might be experiencing confusion of, whether what I am doing is even worth it or if it is even having an impact on my business and will it generate results. Being able to think back to my why/s gives me the energy to keep doing the tasks that will eventually pay off and will transform into powerful results for my business. So, if you're feeling stuck then make a list of things of why you want to build a business and what you hope to achieve from it. This will help you to continue doing the work you're doing in your business and feel more positive and energised. Every time you feel doubts and feelings of lost and overwhelm then look at this list to refocus you on what is important.
2. Take it Slow
Sometimes slowing down can make you feel more confident with what you're doing in your business and create ease for you to keep going with work you need to be doing. Slowing down does not mean taking a break, stepping away from you business or giving yourself a few days to not work on it - if you break away from your business then it will be harder to push yourself back into to it. Weeks and months can go by before you feel ready to come back. Once you do come back you feel like a failure and want to start all over again - this just leads to a cycle where you constantly start - hit a block - stop - come back - and start again with a new business idea.
So, do not detach yourself from your business but choose one thing to do every day. For me this might be - creating a pin for Pinterest and spending 15-30 minutes pinning, or planning out a blog post, or researching blog post ideas, or writing up a blog post. Whatever it might be - in times of a lack of energy and drive I pick only one thing to achieve in the day. This might slow down the progress of your business and results might take longer to come but doing this will make it a part of your daily life and by sticking to it you will stay connected to your business.
It might take you a while before you start feeling excited again, this might not happen until you start to see a level of success such as making a certain amount of income, getting certain amount of sales, views, social media engagement and popularity of your business. Therefore. as your taking things slow start to take on more tasks slowly in your business so you can get back on that acceleration of getting those results which will be enough to bring back those initial feelings of excitement, energy and creativity.
3. Be Sincere
We often hear people say do something you're passionate about, this was hard for me because I didn't really know what I was most excited about since I was interested in many different things and was unsure how to get started. I thought that I didn't really need passion for what I was doing and could just do something related to previous experience, but I wasted two years of my time pursuing something which I had the least passion and interest in because I thought I have experience in this. Lack of passion and interest meant that it was draining to do market research on the topic, I didn't really have an interest in the customer I was creating the products for, and I was just creating mediocre products to put on the market quickly so I can start making money. All of this meant that I didn't like my products, didn't like promoting the products or to the customers and this just made me give up quickly so many times because I was not making instant success, money, which was the only reason I was doing this. I kept going back to it and leaving it, this cycle repeated many times before I changed my course to what I was interested in.
My YouTube history is filled with videos of people creating their digital businesses, doing freelance work, learning different skills and doing service-based work, creating financial freedom and success, enjoying life with their loved ones because of the freedom their business gave them. So, clearly there was an interest in developing skills so that I could sell services and build a business around helping people navigate their businesses and how they can succeed. This has kept me much more interested in what I am doing and has made it easier to do some of the tasks, it's not always easy because I still feel lost and doubt myself especially when I am creating products as I am not sure if it's useful, valuable and something an individual will buy. But, having an interest means that I do not find market research tedious or boring rather I can continue to watch and read content that I already was and use that information to create and improve my free and paid content / services / products.
My sincere advice to you is to be sincere with yourself. We live in such a fast-paced and constantly changing and moving world that for us to slow down and take some time to think or plan is challenging, we want to get started and moving on our businesses now so that we can be successful tomorrow. But, while it may be hard, taking that approach would only lead to a crash and a waste of your precious time. So, take some time to ask yourself whether what you are doing in your business is in line with your interests. There might be certain things that are not and that is perfectly alright but if the main objective and theme of your business is not then you might need to make slight, or drastic, changes to pivot your business where it matches with your interests and values.
Doing this will make it easy for you to create content that you are sincere about. I am currently writing this blog post and I have written all of it with great amount of honesty because I can relate to everything that I have written about. This has meant that even before publishing it I am incredibly proud of it and content with it - I do not need to see 'success' for me to feel like I have achieved something because I already feel that way as I have created the content with sincerity and interest. Working on your business should feel like this, you should feel content and satisfied with what you are doing because you are doing it with interest and sincerity. Being sincere to yourself and your customers by putting content out that you believe is valuable will already make you feel like your business is a success!
As you can tell this point is INCREDIBLY important to me because it will make challenges in your business journey slightly easier to face and make you feel more proud of what you are doing since you are doing it with integrity and honesty - both to yourself and your clients.
This is it for today's post, I definitely have a LOT MORE advice from the failed business attempts I have had in the past and the information I have picked up on from hearing and reading about failed businesses of other people but this post has become incredibly long as it is. I would love to create another post with the other valuable lessons I have learnt and share it with you guys so make sure you follow this blog so you can read it once it goes live.
Thank you all for reading! Please let me know in the comments down below your thoughts on what was mentioned in this post and what lessons you have to share.
Additional Resource
Check out this 'weekly business review' printable in my Etsy shop to help you organise and grow your business by focusing on key business initiatives, track progress and set goals for the week ahead:
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