Have you ever felt yourself losing passion for your business?
We all know how important passion is when you work for yourself. It’s what drives us, as entrepreneurs, to get up in the morning. To work hard and often for long hours. To bounce back when we hit bumps in the road. And it’s what shines through when we talk to our clients and customers. As I often say on this blog – people buy from people, after all.
But when we’re going through a particularly rough patch on our entrepreneurial journey. Or when the overwhelm starts to creep in and it all feels a bit too much.
That’s when we find ourselves losing passion for our businesses.
The moment you lose passion for your business, it becomes just another job. Stay passionate and never work a day in your life.
So what do we do when that happens? What should you do when you’re losing passion for your business? The first thing is don’t panic, and don’t just throw in the towel. That passion that you were so full of when you started can be reignited.
5 ways to re-ignite your passion for your business
1) Give yourself a break
Be kind to yourself when you’re feeling like you’ve lost your mojo. It might not seem that way, but we all have days when we feel like that. So give yourself a break. Take the time to pause, and then move forward at your own pace – don’t just jump into making decisions before you’re ready.
2) Revisit your why
We all have a reason why we choose to work for ourselves, so if you’re losing your passion for your business, it might be because you’ve lost sight of your why. Equally, it might be that your why has evolved since you started, and that’s ok too. Either way though, take some time to remind yourself why you want to work for yourself.
3) Remind yourself of what you enjoy (and what you don’t)
This stage is about the detail. It’s about understanding what you don’t love about your business, and what you do. When it comes to the negative side – what can you do to change or remove things that aren’t working for you? And what can you put in place to ensure that you’re able to spend as much of your time as possible doing the things that you love?
4) Don’t be afraid to shake things up
It’s unrealistic to expect things to always evolve in ways that we predict or expect. And nor are we likely to grow a business in the exact manner that we set out to, at the beginning. So never be afraid of shaking things up and doing things differently. A change is as good as a rest as they say.
5) Find a balance
Sometimes we can lose the passion for our businesses when they become all-consuming. So this last point is a simple one. Make sure you have appropriate boundaries in place to give yourself a break going forward. We all need to be able to take time out to rest, reset and recharge.
And if it’s still not working?
If your passion still hasn’t found its way back to you, it’s a good idea to talk to someone. To talk through how you’re feeling and to try to understand why you’re feeling that way. This might just be a family member or a trusted friend.
Or it might be you feel you need some more dedicated, professional input from an adviser or business coach. My ‘Away Day’ package is designed for this exact purpose, and you can find more about it here.
Whatever you do though – when you’re losing passion for your business don’t just give up. Think things through carefully. Take your time. And make decisions based on considered facts. Not instant reactions.