Think back to when you first started your business. Do you remember
your initial excitement and enthusiasm? If you’re like most entrepreneurs,
the energy behind your enthusiasm allowed you to end 18-hour days with
a smile on your face.
Are you still smiling?
If not, it's time to ask why. This was your dream - your vision
of independence. Yet, so often the dream gets lost in the demands and
details of running a business. When this happens the pattern of over-work
can set in and repeat over and over.
When you started your business did you visualize yourself having
more time for hobbies or recreation? Or creative projects like writing
a book or teaching? If so, realize that you can break your current pattern
and revive your original dream or even create a new one.
Below are steps you can take to make it happen.
1. Rediscover your passion. What specifically did you imagine yourself
doing once the business was up and running? Be honest. Be clear. It
can be an interest outside of your business or related to it.
2. Make a conscious, fully committed choice to live it. Don't ask
how it will work. If it hasn't so far, your head will tell you it never
will. Like my friend says, your head is a bad neighborhood - get out
of there.
3. Be vigilant about your choice. Guard your decision with a bulldog
stance. It's when we fall asleep that the dream gets trampled on or
swept away in the debris of everyday life. Wake up in the morning and
go to bed at night with a firm resolve to live it.
4. Prepare for changes. Assess your business carefully. Be practical.
Are you wasting time on time-consuming details that can be streamlined
or cut back? Your decisions will most likely affect your money, time,
energy and relationships. Know that you are creating positive change.
Be compassionate with yourself and others, but stand firm.
5. Be courageous. Write down three action steps toward your goal.
Now act. Take the first step, then the second. With each step you take
fears will haunt you - most likely the same ones that have allowed you
to stay stuck. Disregard them. Step over them. Move on.
Granted it is not easy to change once a work pattern has set in.
But you will feel renewed and energized with each step you take to reclaim
your business dream.
© Copyright
2007 Susan Ann Darley. All rights reserved.
COACHING - Take conscious control of your life and live
creatively in the solution.
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