I’ve talked before about how running a business can feel a bit like performing an incredibly complicated balancing act. With so many things to worry about it can be tempting to prioritise almost everything else above taking care of ourselves emotionally.
Unfortunately, this is usually a bad call in the long run. Your state of mind will have a huge impact on how effective you are as a leader and manager, and if you’re not in good emotional health it’s highly likely that your business will suffer.
It’s because of this that headspace is a very valuable commodity in business. Getting in the right mindset and staying in it is a very effective way for business owners to ensure that they’re able to be at the top of their game.
But how do you get that headspace? Here are five tried-and-tested tips from me.
Take a look at the big picture
The day to day minutiae of running a business can be exhausting. Admin tasks can feel relentless and solving problems with customers and employees can really get you down. Often it can be helpful to step away from those daily processes and get a good look at the bigger picture. If you can find the time to get away from your usual place of work and really look at your successes and the progress you’re making towards your big business goals, I bet you’ll feel a lot better for it.
Schedule time for activities you love
There are a lot of things that go into building a well-balanced life, but one of the key things is to make sure you have time to do what you enjoy. If your whole life is devoted to the things you feel you ‘have’ to do: running your business, taking care of your family, maintaining your home, etc etc, there may be no time left for purely enjoyable activities. I’m a big believer in the importance of play time for grown ups! Not only are hobbies and fun activities a great way to relax and reduce stress, they can also open up your mind for creative thinking and problem solving.
Experiment with mindfulness meditation
The word ‘meditation’ often has negative connotations. If you’ve never explored it before, you may think that it’s a bit of a hippy thing to do. For many of us, though, mindfulness meditation is a key business tool. I like to think of it as a helpful method for clearing my mind and recharging my emotional batteries ready for the next task. If you’ve never tried meditation before, I’d really recommend headspace.com’s free ten day introductory course.
Consider coaching
There’s a reason I run a coaching company and that’s because I believe 100% in the power of working with a good coach! Coaching can be beneficial in a huge number of ways, including finding headspace. My Taking Care of Business, Taking Care of You membership programme is particularly well suited to business owners who are lacking in this area. It’s designed around a monthly one-to-one coaching session that gives business owners like you the space to discuss and address any issues that are holding them back, whether the root is personal, professional or a confusing mix of both!
Take a walk in the fresh air
This one may sound too good to be true, but the simple act of going out for a walk can have a big impact. I find that there’s something about the combination of fresh air and exercise that helps to clear my mind and focus on my priorities. Doing this can be an excellent way to let go of the everyday minor stresses of running a business. In fact, I find this so successful that I often invite my coaching clients to take a walk with me! Some of the biggest client breakthroughs I’ve witnessed have been during these ‘walk and talk’ sessions.
Do you have any more tips for gaining business headspace? I’d love to hear them if you do. Why not leave a comment below?
When was the last time you were able to view your business from any perspective other than your own?
We often forget just how much our thoughts and opinions are informed by our own knowledge and experiences. In other words: the view you get of your business is coloured by all the things you know. Your customers will all have their own personal knowledge and experiences and that will make them see your business in a different way than you do.
This isn’t the only reason why a new perspective can be hugely valuable in business. Running your own business can be isolating (in fact, I’ve blogged about lonely entrepreneurship before) and this isolation can lead us business owners to feel very inverted. If your perspective has shifted inwards in this way it can become even harder to view your business impartially.
When we only look at our business from our own perspective it becomes difficult to make informed decisions about how to move forwards or on what aspects of our provision need more work. Sometimes our own perspective can be very narrow, and this can blind us to issues that need to be addressed.
There is good news here: running your own business doesn’t have to be something you do entirely without help! There are people around you who will be keen to offer support, whether that’s friends and family members or professional coaches and consultants.
Much of the important work I do as a business coach is opening up a new perspective. An experienced and qualified coach can help business owners to look at their business from another angle.
This means that you’ll be able to:
Find new solutions to ongoing challenges
Get a better sense of how customers see your business
Discover issues that have been going on under your radar
Be inspired to try new things
Benefit from different experience and expertise
Explore new ideas for moving forward
Consider opportunities that have been in your blind spot
Talk through options from a new angle
Understand how your actions as a business owner look from the outside
Get insight into the customer experience you’re providing
Correct any assumptions you’ve made about your target market
And all this just from opening up a new perspective on your business!
If you feel that your business is being held back, I think you would really benefit from getting some trusted outside opinions. To get started, why not have a conversation with a friend, family member or a coach like me? You might be surprised how much of a boost some fresh ideas could give your business.
I’ve said it many times before, but it’s important so I’ll say it again: it’s almost impossible to separate our ‘work’ selves from our ‘home’ or ‘family’ selves. We are all three dimensional people with various roles and responsibilities and when something is going wrong with one of those roles, it often has a knock on effect on the others.
Let’s take a look at a couple of scenarios.
What if you… had more work than you could handle on your own
Having too much work is definitely one of the better business problems to have(!) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t tricky to handle. If you’’re racing to stay on top of an unmanageable workload it’s likely that you’ll be arriving home late and leaving early. Any personal tasks are likely to get pushed to the end of your to do list, never mind actually spending quality time with those closest to you.
What if you… had a difficult business decision to make
There are a lot of decisions to make in business. Where to invest, who to work with, which direction to move in, which expenses to cut… the list is almost endless. If you have a tough choice to make you may find that it takes over all areas of your life. A decision like this can be hugely distracting and may stop you from being able to properly enjoy your much-needed downtime.
What if you… were worried about your business finances
Money worries are never pleasant. If you were trying to deal with stresses and strains associated with this, it would be very hard for you to avoid taking them home with you. Stress can be seriously incapacitating and you may find that your health goes downhill. You might also find it difficult to engage with your family as you usually do and your relationships may suffer as a result.
What if you… had a communication problem with an employee
Employer/employee relations can be hard to navigate. Even a small communication misunderstanding could snowball into a much bigger issue. We spend a great deal of our lives at work and the quality of our relationships with the people we see there can therefore have a big impact on how we feel about ourselves. If you have a communication problem with an employee it could make you feel self-conscious or anxious about how other people in your life see you.
These scenarios represent many of the worries and concerns that I frequently address with my business coaching clients. Do any of them sound familiar? If so, why not reach out? The right coach would be able to help you address problems at work and at home, and therefore empower you to be a more effective business owner.
My coaching clients are three dimensional people with many different facets to their lives. They are business people, yes, but they’re also parents and partners and academics and craftsman and highly regarded professionals. If I were to just look at their issues and concerns in one dimension, I wouldn’t be able to address them even half as effectively as I can when I look at the whole three dimensional picture.
The reality is that hardly any of us are able to effectively separate our working lives from our home lives. However efficiently you try to set up systems to keep the two apart, there will inevitably be ‘leakage’ from one to the other.
Don’t believe me? Here are just a few of the ways your life can have a detrimental impact on your business.
What if you… broke your leg
You go out one Saturday to walk the dog with your family and a nasty slip turns into a broken leg. The logistics of how this would affect your business could be huge. Many business owners do a lot of driving and traveling, which would be very difficult to manage. Doctors appointments could eat into business time and it would likely be difficult to concentrate on your business when you’re in a great deal of pain and discomfort.
What if you… had to deal with a family tragedy
None of us want to think about this one, but if you had to deal with a family tragedy such as the loss of a parent, you would undoubtedly have to take time away from your business. Compassionate leave and paid holiday doesn’t exist in self-employment and so you may feel you need to return to work before you’re ready. This would obviously have a huge impact on your state of mind which would affect your effectiveness as a business owner.
What if you… argued with your partner before an important meeting
Our partners are a huge part of our lives and the state of our relationship with them can have a big impact on how we approach things. Something as simple as a disagreement with a loved one over breakfast could affect how we function for the rest of the day. This could be very problematic before an important meeting or a delicate piece of work.
What if you… disagreed socially with a client
When you work with a client for a long time it’s natural for you to develop a social relationship with them. In some cases this can work well, but in others it can lead to unexpected conflicts. This is also true when things happen the other way round and a friend becomes a client. A disagreement with them in a social context would inevitably lead to a loss of trust and would affect your business dealings with them.
What if you… were dealing with a troublesome teenager
Problems at home can really affect our confidence, especially when they make us doubt ourselves. The way we interact with our children can be a hugely emotive issue and if you don’t feel that you’re able to do so effectively it could make you feel seriously self-conscious. This self-consciousness would be likely to spread into other areas of your life and could make you doubt yourself professionally.
It’s because life problems like these can have such an impact on our businesses that I believe in working with my clients as people, not just as business owners. If you’ve struggled with these issues or ones like them in the past, you may benefit from better addressing them in the future. Take my questionnaire Are You Ready for Coaching? to find out more.
If there’s one emotional tool that will give you the edge in business, it’s resilience. The more under-confident among us can sometimes feel that being self-employed is an exercise in constant knock-backs. Especially in the early days, it can often feel that you hear the word ‘no’ twice as often as you hear ‘yes’.
When this is a problem for my clients, I talk to them about what I like to call bounce-back-ability. As a business owner, if you’re able to bounce back quickly from knock backs you’ve already got a head start. Business owners who aren’t able to bounce back quite so speedily can very easily become demoralised. In this situation, it’s tempting to think about giving up on parts of your business, if not all of it.
The great thing about bounce-back-ability is that it doesn’t have to be something you’re born with. There are many ways that you can build your resilience levels and doing this is likely to have a big impact on your effectiveness as a business owner.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Remember that it’s not personal
If a potential client turns down your product or service, it’s more than likely because it’s just not a good fit. When you receive a knock back like this, try not to take it personally. Odds are that they wouldn’t have been the right client for you anyway.
Train yourself to look on the bright side
Optimists tend to be more resilient than pessimists. Even if you tend to fall on the pessimistic side of the scale, it is possible to train your brain to look at things more positively. Next time you experience a business set back, try and find a silver lining. Perhaps the client has said they’ll consider you for future projects, or maybe any work you’ve done for them could be adapted for someone else.
Look at knock backs as a learning opportunity
Business owners are always learning. Even the veterans among us need to ensure we continue to develop our craft. When you receive a knock back, look at it as an opportunity to learn. Is there anything you could have done differently? What could you do to avoid this situation in the future? How could you make your business proposition more attractive to other customers?
Develop a sense of humour
Remember the saying about laughter being the best medicine? If you can look on the funny side of bad business experiences, you’ll be much more likely to bounce back from them quickly and effectively.
Give yourself some TLC
Developing bounce-back-ability doesn’t mean that you won’t experience disappointment. This is a very natural emotion and it will never go away altogether. Just as you might celebrate achievements, don’t be afraid to give yourself a bit of TLC when you hit a roadblock. The better you take care of yourself, the better placed you’ll be to recover.
Of course, it can be difficult to build resilience all by yourself, which is one of the reasons why many business owners benefit from the support of an advisor. If you’re working on your bounce-back-ability, make sure you have someone you trust to talk to about it.
Success in business requires many things; good planning, a strong skill base, a wide network, a heavy sprinkling of luck and a lot of confidence. No matter how solid your business plan, if you don’t believe 100% in what you’re doing, it’s likely that no one else will either.
Unfortunately, I meet a lot of business owners who don’t have confidence in what they’re selling. This is a really common issue that can really be holding you back.
If you’re not completely confident in what you’re selling, it’s likely that:
You’re charging less than you’re worth
You’re failing to put yourself out there for new opportunities
You’re wasting precious time worrying
You won’t know what direction to grow your business in
You’re hesitating over every decision
Your customers will be tempted to go elsewhere
You’re not enjoying your business
In my experience there are usually two reasons why business owners aren’t confident about what they’re selling. The first is that they have low self-esteem and the second is that deep down they know there is a fundamental problem with their business.
Reason one: low self-esteem
Let’s tackle the self-esteem problem first. Almost all of us struggle with our self-esteem levels from time to time, but for some people it can start to have a big impact on all areas of their lives. If it’s low self-esteem that’s causing your lack of confidence in your business, this can be a really lonely place to be. One of the key ways to deal with this issue is to get some support.
Today I wanted to draw your attention to a few changes around the website. I’ve been working away behind the scenes to develop a few new options that will make this corner of the internet even more helpful.
Those of you who’d like to stay up to date with Green Shoots Coaching news might also be interested in my newsletter sign up option. Simply scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your email address to receive future updates straight into your inbox!
Your business is likely sitting on an extremely valuable resource you’ve never thought about using. That resource could tell you a great deal about the reality of your business, it could help you evaluate where you are and it might even be able to give you some excellent tips on how to move forward.
What is this resource? Your employees.
I talk to business owners every day. Many of them own SMEs with employees. Most of them have never thought to ask those employees what they think about the business.
As a business owner it would be impossible for you to keep an eye on every single aspect of your business every single day. Luckily, you’ve got those areas covered. Your employees are seeing the things you can’t and they have the benefit of different kinds of experience and expertise. They’re likely to have a whole new perspective on how things are going: and that perspective could be hugely useful to you.
Unfortunately, this valuable information can often be difficult to access. Your employees might not be confident enough to voice their views, or you might not have the kind of relationship that would enable you to ask them.
If this is the case for you, why not work towards empowering your employees to share their opinions? You could try:
Planning team building activities to develop work relationships.
Introducing a ‘suggestion box’ system.
Encouraging group discussion during staff meetings.
Improving work satisfaction levels across your workforce.
Making time for regular two-way appraisals.
Ensuring that your staff feel valued.
You may find that you need to dig a little deeper in order to really benefit from your employees’ perspective. In my experience it can be extremely helpful to work with a trusted support team to find out what your employees have to say about your business. A business coach or consultant would be able to act as a sensitive liaison between you and your employees to enable you to learn more about what’s working in your business and what isn’t. This can be particularly relevant in cases where your employees have feedback to share about your leadership that wouldn’t be appropriate to share directly with you.
When you make the effort to learn from your employees, either through direct relationship building or with the help of a confidential outsider, you’re likely to gain knowledge that will help to improve your business and build a better relationship with your employees moving forwards.
Are you ready to learn more about your business? Head over to my case studies page and read Tim and Sarah’s story to find out how they did it.
I’m a big advocate of the concept that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
This is something that comes up a lot when I’m working with clients. From an outside stand point it’s often easy to see that a business owner is getting the same results because they’re putting in the same efforts over and over again. When you are that business owner, however, it can be much more difficult to realise that this is the case.
If you’ve fallen into this trap with your business, it’s likely that it’s seriously holding you back. There’s an obvious solution here, and that’s to try something new. Unfortunately, when you’ve been marketing the same services in the same way to the same people for a certain length of time, it can be really tricky to break the cycle.
Here are five ways to break old habits and try something different:
Look at your business from a customer’s perspective
When was the last time you looked at your business from a different perspective? The way you’ve always done things may work for you, but if they’re not working for your customers you’ll need to rethink. One effective way to do this can be to try and experience what things are like for your customers. You could do this by surveying your customers, asking for honest feedback, or even by hiring a mystery shopper.
Work with different experts
If you work with people such as marketing experts, designers, copywriters and photographers, you might want to consider whether it’s time for a change. There can be a great deal of benefit to be gotten from building working relationships with these people over time… but if what they’re doing isn’t working for you you might want to shake things up. Engaging the services of a new team of experts could help you to do this.
Talk to a coach
It can be difficult to break out of old habits if you’re not sure why you keep returning to them. For example: is it a lack of confidence that’s stopping you from trying something new, or is it because you’re not sure what you’re aiming for in the long term? A session with a coach could help you to address some of these issues and gain more of an awareness of the opportunities that are available for you and your business.
Go back to basics
When was the last time you looked at your business plan and strategy documents? If it’s been a while, it might be a good idea to review them and consider whether there’s anything you want to revisit, anything you want to re-address, or anything that’s been missed out. If you don’t have a business plan or strategy documents, going right back to the beginning and developing some could put you in a very good position to have a fresh start.
Take some time away
Owning a business is extremely full on! When you spend every day inside your business it can seem almost impossible to be able to step back and see the big picture. If your business practices have got a bit stale and you can’t see a way to refresh them, it might be time for you to take a break. Many business owners find that taking a holiday from their business and doing something different can be very inspiring.
Over to you: have you ever got caught in a cycle with your business? How did you break out of it? I’d love to hear from you on Twitter.
It’s not easy running a business. I know this both from my own firsthand experience and from the business owners I work with. There are an awful lot of decisions to make, situations to manage and issues to juggle… and that’s before you even get into doing whatever job it is you actually do.
Luckily, it’s possible to get support. I’m a big advocate of finding a trusted advisor to work with. Ideally, this advisor should be someone you can speak openly to who is qualified to help you work through the challenges that will inevitably crop up.
I am that trusted advisor for many business owners. I’m very proud to be in this position and take the work I do very seriously. Through this work I’ve become passionate about helping business owners to be the best they can be, both within their business and their wider lives. This passion drove me to create my coaching membership programme Taking Care of You, Taking Care of Business.
The main feature of the Taking Care of You, Taking Care of Business programme is regular one-to-one coaching sessions. In my experience, there is a great deal of value in working with a coach on an ongoing basis. It may seem like a big investment to set aside regular time for coaching, but I think the benefits are well worth it. Here’s why.
Regular coaching helps you to meet targets
It’s easy to talk about the changes that need to be made in your business: it’s harder to actually do the work in order to realise those changes. When you meet with a coach regularly, that coach will be able to hold you accountable. This will make you much more likely to find the motivation to work towards your targets!
Regular coaching helps you to grow in the right direction
Growth doesn’t look the same for every business. Ten business experts could look at your business and suggest ten different ways for you to move forward. The question of which direction is right for you is more difficult to answer. If you work with a coach on a more long term basis, they’ll be able to support you to find the type of growth that fits best with your values and your future ambitions.
Regular coaching helps to flag up personal issues
True life/work separation is very difficult to achieve. Instead, it’s likely that any issues in your personal life are having an impact on your business and vice versa. When you build a relationship with a coach, they’ll be able to help you discover whether there are problem areas elsewhere in your life and how they might be having an impact on the success of your business.
Regular coaching helps you to treat the cause, not the symptoms
Businesses often suffer from a variety of issues. In many cases, a handful of initially disparate symptoms may all relate to the same cause. It can be tricky to trace a true cause, and often it’s only through ongoing sessions that a good coach is able to get right to the root of the issue.
If you think your business might benefit from regular coaching sessions, why not take my questionnaire Are You Ready for Coaching?
