The business world is a noisy, competitive space. Business owners, managers and operators are bombarded daily with the expectations of staff, employees, customers and competitors as well as trying to keep up with never-ending changes and the constant noise of ‘should’s’. You should do this every day, you should post to facebook twice a week, you should have the best website, you should sign-up for this marketing program, on and on it goes, particularly in this era of social media.
But you need to know what is important to you. Why did you start your business in the first place? Was it to be able to work from home so you had more time with the children, yet you find you are working long into the night just to get stuff done? Was it because you saw a gap in the market that you wanted to fill, yet now you find you are having to branch out into other areas so you can compete with a new business down the road?
Are you working your business or is your business working you? Sometimes it pays to take a step back and evaluate the pros and cons, the things we include and exclude, the why’s and wherefore’s. Are we being motivated from an internal belief and values system or are we being pushed along by what everyone else is doing, the expectations of others or the marketing and social media hype.
Pretty soon you find yourself off on a different tangent every other week looking for that fast fix that will propel your business into the next millenium while all the time, you are losing sight of who you are, why you started your business in the first place and what you wanted to achieve.
In the words of the great philosophers: “Know thyself.”
Take some time to determine your values and the values you want your business to portray. Make a point of shutting out all of the marketing hype and opinions of people who don’t know you or understand your vision for your business. Determine what really matters to you and what is important to your business. This one step alone, can help get you back on track to living life on purpose and running your business the way you originally envisioned it to be.
Time to flourish
Helen.