When I first started my business, I listened to a lot of motivational speakers and read 'success' books that preached to be successful in business we've got to make huge sacrifices, we've got to work 80-hour weeks, we've got to compromise, we've got to sacrifice time with our family or time off.
And while there are lots of people in the world that will tell you that that's how you have to be successful in business, I'm not one of them.
I no longer believe that. I used to believe it but I don't believe it any longer.
My personal experience has been that the more I focus on setting up my business in a way that is based around my strengths and my preferences, the easier business gets and the more business flows in.
In the 11 plus years that I've been helping business owners to grow their businesses, one of the things that I've noticed is what I call the invisible wall. What I mean by this is suddenly rather than being a 'Client Magnet', a person has actually become a client repellent. Opportunities are falling by the wayside and business is drying up.
Typically when we start to explore that, there is normally some aspect of their business that has become less fun or less enjoyable or actually to the point of something they really don't want to do.
So that rather than feel good about the new business that's coming in, it's like the idea of winning a new client makes their shoulders sink because they're just associating it with more work and more struggle and more sacrifice.
So what we need to do is identify the struggle or sacrifice, and find a way to remove it. So, for example, it might be for example that someone has a lot of admin that they hate doing associated with working with a client, and the tweak that we make is we find someone to come in and take over that admin part for them.
I've observed that the instant we make that change, suddenly the business flows in again. And it seems always magical but it's like there was an energetic invisible block that was preventing the business from coming to you.
So I think one of the most important things you can do to ensure the long term success of your business is constantly ask yourself, "Am I really doing business on my terms? Have I set this up for my optimum quality of life and for my optimum growth and learning and fun? Am I still enjoying this as much as I could?'
And if the answer to any of those questions is anything other than an unequivocal 'yes', then make the adjustments and tweaks that you need to. Vaccinate yourself against the strong and prevalent belief amongst business owners and business success literature that you can't succeed without sacrifice.
(c) Bernadette Doyle, 2008. Reprints welcome so long as by-line and article are published intact and all links made live.