Sometimes business owners aren’t as happy running their business as they thought they would be. Most seem to understand that building a business will take hard work, a large volume of work and a certain amount of stress. But if you are rarely happy in relation to working in your business, perhaps it is time to ask some questions.
Some people start businesses that they think will make them a lot of money but they have no passion for the concept or work involved. If this is you, you are unlikely to succeed and you are even more unlikely to ever be happy. Even if you do succeed, you will have tied yourself to a business that you hate. Be sure to go in to business with both a great idea AND a passion for what you do.
As stated above, most of us know that successful businesses are hard work, and are not built overnight. You need patience and perseverance. But how much harder is it to exercise those traits if you are unhappy with your day-to-day work? This is not to say that at times there will be tasks you need to learn that you don’t enjoy, or that you don’t pitch in when there are ‘boring’ jobs to complete. But if those times turn into weeks, months and years, no amount of patience and perseverance is going to result in happiness.
It is also important to think about your motivations. If you are working solely to attain material things, you will soon learn that money doesn’t buy happiness. If your goals are entirely about earning a certain figure, you will find yourself unhappy in the leaner times. Whereas if your purpose for running your business are for other benefits, your happiness is not necessarily tied to your financial success. In any case, wealth should be an outcome of your business, not a strategy. Having “get rich quick” as your goal is not only unrealistic, it is also a sure fire way to be UNhappy in business. Align your goals to non-financial values and you are far more likely to have a successful business and the happiness you also no doubt want along the way.
Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender