Have you designed a business you’re proud of you and love every aspect of it or are there certain aspects of how your business is run that you’re beginning to resent?
Sure, at the core, you love what you do, and at the same time, there are things about your work that you don’t like.
Maybe, some of your clients are sapping your energy with their neediness as if they’re newborn babies.
Perhaps, their lack of planning and organisation is resulting in stressful last-minute requests. These make you leave everything else at the drop of a hat to put out yet another urgent fire that was totally avoidable.
So, once again, you’ve been forced to snack on your laptop to get it all done, while surviving on a few hours of snooze, skipping your exercise and missing out on reading your child a bedtime story.
Another scenario could be that you’ve outgrown some of the services you provide to your clients. When you started your business, you used to offer services based on your skillset and knowledge at the time.
As time has passed, you’ve gained new experience and knowledge. So, now you find that some of the initial services you offered your clients are uninspiring you at best and exhausting you at worst.
Instead, you’d much more enjoy serving them through a different set of tasks/activities that make you jump out of bed with joy.
However, you’re feeling stuck because your capacity is maxed out and you can’t take on more of the exciting work.
Your case may not even be anything to do with your clients or your services.
It could be that your environment is no longer right. Could what you use as your ‘office space’ be uninspiring you?
Or perhaps, you’re stagnating. You haven’t been able to develop on a personal level because all your time and energy have been poured into your business. So, all those hobbies you used to enjoy have been gathering unvisible dust.
That saying:
If you do what you love,
you’ll never work a day in your life.
Marc Anthony
doesn’t seem very fitting because while you’ve been busy following your passion and creating a business out of it, you’ve been missing out on enjoying other things that are important in your life.
As if it’s been stealing away from you…
- Being creative for pleasure.
- Reading a book that has nothing to do with developing your business skills.
- Socialising with your besties.
- Chilling out with your loved ones without keeping an eye on your phone.
- *Insert anything that matters to you*
Do you resonate with any of the above?
Ready to get back to enjoying the freedom of running your business?
Fantastic!
Then, it’s time for you to:
Re-assess where you’re in your business, what to change, and how.
Below are the steps through which I take my clients who are in a similar position to you.
These will help you to pinpoint what’s working and what’s not as well as what’s missing from your business and life as a whole right now.
I’ve shared personal examples as inspiration when coming up with your own.
Start by considering how you’re best positioned to serve your clients:
1. Who is your ideal client? You know that client with whom after you’ve ended speaking with or delivering a piece of work for, you feel energised.
(I love working with service-based business owners who are passionate about what they do. They are committed to making a change, ready to take action and ditch excuses.)
2. What is the service that makes your heart sing? How do you love helping that client the most? What makes your heart sing?
(For me, it’s through coaching with a hint of strategy and education where appropriate.)
3. What results do you feel proud of helping your clients achieve?
(For me, it’s about assisting clients in creating time for what matters in their life, so that they can lead healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives as their businesses thrive.)
Now, think about how you want to lead your life.
1. What do you want to do in your personal/home life?
How would you like to spend more of your time? What do you wish you have more energy for?
Making love with your partner? Playing with your kids? Enjoy the hobbies or interests that you have neglected and long to do again?
2. What’s important to you in running a business?
For example, flexibility and freedom are important to many of my clients, and yet they feel like they’re so tied to their business that they can’t stop thinking about it all the time.
Say, if freedom is important to you, what does it look like to you? What would it give you?
Finally, what needs to change going forward?
What will you need to do differently so you can serve clients who bring you joy, doing work that energises you and making the most of what matters in your life right now?
What’s the first step you can take towards that today?
Let me know in the comments below.
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Photo Credit: DanaTentis – Pixabay
