Monday 17 September 2012

How To Keep Going

Attending network meetings I often hear people asking how to stay motivated when business seems slow or the phone isn't ringing.  Or how to keep focussed when daily life seems to intrude on business time.  Being self-employed friends and family don't always take business hours seriously and think it's ok to pop in at anytime.
It's not easy especially when you work alone and don't have a team of people helping to reinforce your confidence, so how do you do it? 

One way is to talk to other business owners, sometimes working from home or by yourself can leave you feeling very isolated and make you doubt yourself so mixing with other business owners can help you to see that your not alone and there are others in a similar position.
If you're not able to attend meetings then social media is another way of connecting, it's also a way of observing trends - financial drops, holidays etc. Just being able to reach out and connect can be all it takes to give you a boost and keep you going.  On many occasion it's been a person I've never met that has in 140 characters or less made me smile or given me that boost I needed not to give up.
Also set yourself smaller goals, we often set ourselves impossible targets and then are disappointed when we can't reach them!  Whilst its incredibly important to have a long term plan it's equally important to set realistic "to do" lists that you know you can complete. Some weeks it's all about being day to day and not focussing on 3 months time.  That doesn't mean that you're failing or that your business doesn't have what it takes for the long haul it just takes away a little of the pressure and helps you see the smaller successes!  We often miss the little things when our eye is on the bigger picture and that little job you did that wasn't much of an earner but that made the client really happy is just as important (if not more so if you've achieved at a time when you're feeling bad about yourself).

I think the key thing is to realise that every bad day, every negative thought, every decision to give has been felt by those we seek to emulate, those who seem to have it all, you're not alone in this you just have to reach out!

I'm always happy to chat or offer any words of support and you can connect with me on Twitter http://twitter.com/taryn_creative or at www.creativethinkingcdm.co.uk

 Taryn Lee

No comments:

Post a Comment