Is Your Business Honeymoon Over?

Being in your own business is like being in a love relationship. And in a way, it is a love relationship, with love for the business idea, the possibilities it offers, and for ourselves as its creators and its partners. And just like in a love relationship, we go through stages, with changing degrees of our connection to the business, our belief in its success, and the confidence in our own ability to make it.

The first stage is a period of courtship, when we fall in love with the idea, can’t stop thinking about it and fantasizing how great it will be when we succeed. We "marry" the idea by actually starting the business and making a commitment to it. In the honeymoon period, when we are in the beginning stages of our business development, we are strongly connected to our grand vision and we have lots of trust, enthusiasm, motivation, confidence, and love to guide us. We look forward to our every day activities and we can’t wait to do what needs to be done to get us closer to success.

Then the obstacles happen. Things don’t go as anticipated, sales are harder to get than we thought they would be, we work longer hours, we realize we need to change some major direction in the business, etc. The honeymoon is over and the reality hits our business and our enthusiasm. Let me remind you that as hard as this stage gets, it is necessary and crucial to our success. This is when we start building the real business. This is where we find out what we really have to do to get where we want. And this is where we could really use our enthusiasm, motivation, and love that were propelling us in the honeymoon stage.

So how do you get your original entrepreneurial energy back? Here is a way: Mentally and soulfully connect to your grand business vision. Try this body/mind/soul practice: Every morning before you start working give yourself five minutes to close your eyes, get centered and picture your success in vivid colors. This is how you want your business to look like when you’re "done" with it, this is how you feel when you have it all. Be specific and envision the clients you are helping, the money you are making, your lifestyle, and your contribution to the world. Then picture where you want to be a year from now, again in vivid colors and with the same details. Allow yourself to feel the success of getting there in a year. Next bring on the vision of where you want your business to be in a month from now. Again, be specific about what you want to happen and let yourself feel the success. And lastly, bring it down to today. Imagine your perfect today, what you want to have accomplished at the end of the day, how you want to feel. Set a clear intention of having the day go as you plan but also remain open to the Universe supplying you exactly want you need, even if it means changing your plan.

Do this practice every day. This five-minute time investment will connect you back to your dreams and will let you create your business with loving energy and enthusiasm. It will make it easier to focus on things that bring you closer to success on your terms. Just like in a love relationship, when the honeymoon is over and the "not-so-lovely" sides of us show up and sometimes take over for a while, you greatly benefit from remembering why you got into this relationship and why you want to work on it.