Running a business is tough.
There are a lot of things you’re going to have to do, and a lot of tough decisions you have to make in order to guide the ship. What’s going to be the make or break point is your level of passion you have in the journey.
The first step in knowing your small business is prepared to be a successful one, is to know that the greater vision of your work is far more fulfilling to you than the work involved to make it a reality. Therefore, you wake up inspired to tackle the day regardless of the obstacles at hand.
A captain of a ship would never embrace the tides and storms of the ocean without the passionate burning desire to reach new lands.
“A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for”
The first measure of small business success is the intention and passion behind the journey.
If you can attest to waking up fulfilled and inspired, then let’s carry on. If not, we suggest you do some soul searching into who you are and what it is you want to bring to this world to get a clearer vision.
Picture your life objectively as it is right now from a 300 ft. aerial view. If you could make a few changes that would ultimately allow you to wake up inspired and go to bed fulfilled, what would shift?
Think about it in terms of dollars, hugs per day, vitality, self-love, etc.
There is an exercise linked at the bottom that will allow you to put targets on your dreams, changing them from their dream state to a tangible goal.
Once you have these targets, you can then look at the business you are running to see if it currently allows you to have these things. For example, if one defining measure of success is by attending every one of your daughters dance classes, do your business hours reflect the days and times you need to be relieved from being at work?
If your goal is to personally take home $30,000 each month, do you have the right volume of clients investing enough into your business to allow you to cover the overhead, taxes, and still reach this number? Do you have enough services, products, and/or population in your city to ever achieve this number?
Once we have these measurements for success running parallel in agreement, next we need to look at your values.
Core Values is another famous term in our business jargon. They are the things you wholeheartedly value the most in this world, thus causing every decision you make to consciously or unconsciously derive from them.
Our goal is to allow your Core Values to consciously direct your ship. That each personal and professional decision you make, falls into one of your five core values.
…The further down the list, the less priority you will tend to give it. If a decision doesn’t fit into one of your five core values, you will likely find yourself hating every minute of it – delegate!
When all the three principles are synchronized, here is the result:
You wake up to go to a business that is part of a greater vision for your life’s work. This vision pulls you out of bed to get ready for the next step in your personal journey.
Your work no longer controls your schedule because you’ve rearranged some things to ensure that your personal goals are being met throughout each day as well as your professional ones; it is the reality of being able to have BOTH in life!
You know what it is that drives you so you consciously decide to take on only the things that fit into your value system.
The exercise linked below is going to help you accomplish this vision for your life. Start with SMART goals, but once you start seeing your success manifesting in your daily life, it’s time to think bigger!
Here is the template for you to begin mapping out this journey towards a more authentic expression personally and professionally:
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