What I’ve been thinking about this week is how to get your life (and/or businesses) in alignment so you’re in a good, positive state of mind.
If you’ve started or will start your own business, you will go through times where things feel off. Or when you don’t feel like you’re doing what you should be doing.
There will (hopefully) also be times where you feel super pumped and in-sync with everything going on, you have momentum, you’re making money, etc.
So the obvious question is – how do you get to that second state, and avoid the first?
Well firstly, you can’t avoid the first state entirely. No road to success is clean and neat and tidy and without hard times. So accept that right now.
But second, I think that if you are aligned with your business and expectations – and despite some tough times – you will start progressing and enter that second state much quicker.
This requires really asking yourself “what do I want to be doing?”, “where does it align with a good business/life path?”, and then taking action.
In other words, get aligned with your expectations for yourself. I think that starting or growing a business transcends your professional life and goes hand-in-hand with your life in general – so make sure all of those are in sync.
Ask yourself things like:
Do you want to be an influencer (don’t like that word, but hey, it’s a thing whether we like it or not)? Would you even like it? Do you enjoy posting selfies and putting your face out there?
Do you want to start a tech company, managing people and dealing with investors?
Do you want to start a smaller lifestyle business and prioritize family or travel?
Is working remotely appealing? Do you actually want to travel the world or are you more like me who doesn’t love being away from home for more than a month?
The more aligned your business goals are with your actual wants and needs and expectations, the better off you’ll be in the long run. But it’s up to you to write those down and come up with a plan of action.
If you can get to the basics of what you want, it can go a long way. Especially because like many other things in life, growing your own business is simpler than you think.
Have you ever played spike ball before?
It’s a fun little game played around a round net, and I recommend looking it up if you haven’t because it’s a lot of fun in the summer and me trying to explain it in a blog post just wouldn’t do it justice.
Anyway, after playing it for the majority of the afternoon and reflecting on it, I thought I had a good grasp of what went into winning or losing. While the sport has a variety of rules and strategies, when looking back, I think there are 3 keys to victory:
1) hand-eye coordination
2) teamwork
3) positioning
I’m not going to go into detail on why, but I realized that when starting out a new business – especially as a solopreneur – what’s most important is to cut out all the noise and just focus on the 3-4 things that will give you the best chance at success (like the above 3 in spike ball).
If you’re starting a services business like I did, my suggestion would be to focus very hard on:
1) picking a service that’s in-demand that you know you can provide well
2) networking/marketing as effectively as possible
3) providing amazing customer service
The rest is mostly noise. You don’t need a logo, or even a website. Testimonials are nice, but they aren’t needed and you may not have any at the beginning.
Focus on what’s crucial to get you going or growing, and then you can spend the time or money on other things.
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