By Princess Jones
Owning your own business isn’t easy. When you work for someone else, it’s easy to get up, do your job, and go home. If business is bad, you still get paid. If you don’t get paid, you go find another job.
However, the problem with being self-employed is that if things are not going well, you don’t get paid. If the business continues to suffer, you may start to wonder if you should pack it in and let someone else have the worries. But you shouldn’t let the bad days push you into giving up. If you have ever opened your books and seen red then listen up.
You are your best investment.
You deserve your trust. A little confidence goes a long way. When things go bad, it’s natural to blame yourself, and assume you did something wrong. Try not to make this personal. It may be that the market is down or that your plan needs some tweaking. If you made a bad business decision, like selling fur coats to environmentalists in summer, then reassess.
You have certain talents and interests that drew you to opening this business. Trust in those instincts — they’ve gotten you this far. Believe they will lead you toward making the right decisions. Don’t give up on yourself. If you want to succeed, the only thing that can stop you is you.
Determination is your key to success.
You have heard all the “overnight” success stories that didn’t happen overnight — the twelve rejections before the bestseller was published or the brilliant mind that flunked math. What about all the success that shouldn’t have happened? Think of the singer who lip-syncs on stage, the athlete that takes drugs, or the best seller with spelling mistakes.
Let’s avoid associating your success or failure with whether you “deserve” it. Not everyone who deserves to succeed does and not everyone who succeeds deserves success. The difference is determination. The successful ones try everything, right or wrong, in order to achieve their dream. If they can do it, so can you. Keep pushing forward. Success might be the result of your next try.
Quitting can wait.
Procrastination is never good in business, but this might be the exception to the rule. A bad day can feel like the end of the world. Suddenly, you can find your negative thoughts spiraling, convincing you that nothing can ever go right again. You may want to throw up your hands and give up. Instead of quitting right now, put it off.
Set a day six months from now to shut things down and put a plan in motion in case things haven’t improved. Use verbiage like “If [measurable metric] doesn’t reach [realistic goal] by [realistic time period], I will start the process to shut down my business.”
Just don’t make an emotional choice to throw it all in. Give yourself the chance to succeed. We aren’t saying that determination will make success certain, but if you quit, you will certainly fail. That’s the only guarantee.
Photo credit: Marker and written note from hafizi/Shutterstock
