Do you really have your own freedom when you own a business? Not really. In reality, owning your own business is a difficult, constant juggle. While it is certainly rewarding, there is still a mounting pressure to get everything right, succeed and commit yourself 100% to everything. This often means working all the time, with little downtime.personal development coach and an Access Consciousness Certified Facilitator specialising in Right Voice For You, Christian Verny shares how you can give yourself more freedom in your business.
For me personally, I was under a lot of stress to grow my business and was constantly thinking of ways to getting everything done, by myself, using as many hours in the day as possible.
image via pinterest
So, how can you actually have more freedom in your business? Here are 5 tips to help you get started.
1. Your business is not You – destroy your relationship with your business
When people start their own business, it’s like the equivalent of a new mother and her baby. You want to be so kind with your business, do all the things required and take care of it. Does this work? Yes, at the beginning, as you put all the energy required to start the business. But after that, you are even more attached to your business and often don’t have the capacity to see things clearly. This is because you start seeing your business and yourself as one entity.
What if your business can be a separate entity from you? In this way, instead of limiting yourself with just one business, you could have several. Your business is not you, you can let go and look at hiring people you trust to help you. It doesn’t mean relinquishing complete control over your business, but loosening the reigns so you have room to breathe and room to contemplate how to constantly make it greater, embrace growth and continue to be successful.
You can destroy your relationship with your business every day. And then each day you are authorized to create a new relationship between you and your business(es).
2. Having fun with your business
List 5 tasks in your business that are not fun at all. Now look at the answers and ask questions:
– What can I change right now to have more fun with this task?
– Who else could do this task with total ease?
– Who can I talk to that will help me get through this task, or look at it from a different perspective?
If you’re not doing what you love, you can’t really be free. So if something in your business is not working or you’re struggling to get through a particular task, ask questions. Questions will help open you up to ideas, perspectives and possibilities you may not have otherwise thought of. It will help you find ways to have more fun and ease with your business, thus allowing more freedom.
3. Destroy your business
As your business is a separate entity you can also destroy your business, the way it’s running and the manner you are working.
You probably remember the case of Kodak who was dominating the market in photographic film during most of the 20th century. In the 1990s, they missed the evolution of digital photography and subsequently started having financial issues.
In business, thinking of new ways of working, new services to offer, new products and other opportunities for innovation, will keep it growing and successful and you in turn will feel more freedom and less stress. You can, figuratively, destroy and recreate your business every day. All that’s required is that you stop doing the same thing over and over again in your business.
Tip: look at what other people are doing in your market and start implementing small changes, before turning to larger ones.
In destroying and recreating your business everyday you have the freedom to adapt and do whatever you want with your business.
4. Ask for help
If your business is not working as you want (or even if it’s working well) you can ask still ask for help.
What areas of your business do you require help in? Is there a skill you’re lacking that you need someone to fill? Are you stuck and need advice to move forward? Whatever is it that you need, you are not alone in the world and there are so many people with different skills and experience that can help you and your business. Asking for help doesn’t always mean looking at people to fill in a gap or solve a problem – what resources can also contribute to your business? Is there a new piece of technology – a program or an app, that will help you do your business more accurately and efficiently?
No problem needs to go unsolved so don’t be afraid to look to different avenues, services and people to help shape your business the best way possible.
5. Destroy your Judgments
We can sometimes have judgements around the way we should be running a business, sometimes because it’s “the way we always do it” or you want to emulate someone success who is doing the same thing. But having and keeping these judgments can keep us stuck.
The next time you have a judgement of your business, ask a questions, like: what’s the value of having this judgment? And what does this create for my business?
If we want to grow our business, we need to avoid limitation. Most of the time judgments are just interesting points of view, and we can change them in a second if we want to.
What if having your business could contribute to people and the world and give more fun and freedom to people, and yourself?