Being an entrepreneur is a roller coaster ride – all business owners face the same ups and downs, the same challenges, the same trials and tribulations and it’s easy to get caught on the ride. The sad part can be that we get so caught up with the ride that we forget to take the time to enjoy it.
Running your own business has a huge amount of joy on offer. This can come from doing what you do really well, having happy customers, building a successful and impressive business, from learning new skills and from building a good team of people around you. Unfortunately these get lost in amongst paying the rent, a customer complaint, a supplier messing up an order, sick staff members, increasing competition and a host of other equally distracting day to day demands for your attention.
I recommend that you take a few minutes each week and write in your diary or on a computer log of some sort what your achievements have been for this week. Just the good stuff – and they can be as big or as small as you want them to be. It’s best not to just focus on financial achievements although these are without doubt important. It is interesting how doing this exercise balances your feelings towards how the last week has actually been.
Good things don’t often require any further action or follow up – they just happen and you move on. But the more trying details require your attention and focus, quickly overshadowing the good that has happened. But when you keep a log of the good things they become more concrete. I make a point of emailing everyone in my office whenever something good happens – maybe it is a nice call from a happy customer, an article in the paper about one of our clients, a new contract, something positive regarding a member of staff, sales figures and results this month this year compared to the same time last year and so on. My team all comment on how nice it is to hear these snippets of positive information coming from the boss.
Whichever way you want to do it is up to you. But take the time to enjoy the journey by reinforcing the positive things that happen during your working week.
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