Marcus Straub
You can be very successful business owner. But if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, true success still eludes you. Business becomes a well-rounded and balanced experience when you actually enjoy the journey to the success you desire.
While there’s no doubt you’ll encounter challenging and unpleasant experiences, it’s important for you to like what you do overall. The more you enjoy your business, the better. We often don’t enjoy our businesses as much as we can, though because of missing links in our own perceptions and actions. Remember, happiness and true success go hand in hand.
Be grateful to be in business. When you take time to explore your situation and become truly grateful for the fact you’re alive, your reality begins to improve. As you take gratitude even further, you come to realize how wonderful it is to be in business, to have the team and customers you do and to face the situations and opportunities before you. With this, you’ll enjoy your business like never before.
Establish a clear purpose for yourself and the business. Without a clear purpose as to why you’re in business, it’s easy to become confused, lost, overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s likely your team will feel the same way, and the happiness and success of all will suffer. A clear purpose will help sustain you in challenging times and propel you toward the success you seek.
Develop your vision for the business. By considering what it is you actually want for your business, writing these things down and creating a clear vision, you will put yourself — and your company — on a path to greater happiness and success. With this clear vision in place, you can get everyone on your team on the same page about why you’re all spending so much of your lives working together to do what you do.
Add in some much-needed structure. Structure actually provides the necessary parameters to help you accomplish the vision you’ve created. These guidelines reduce chaos and confusion while increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Determining deadlines, how jobs are done and who handles what creates freedom for you and your business, not limitations. Structure creates a process in which tasks are handled in a consistent fashion. As your business runs smoother, everything becomes more enjoyable.
Consistently move in the direction of your vision. Effective and consistent action is a wonderful habit to develop in you and your team. Rather than a roller coaster of action and then inaction where progress comes and goes, consistency allows your company to continually move forward toward your vision. You are the leader in the development of consistent action. If you first create this habit in yourself, then your team has a solid example to follow.
Surround yourself with people who are self-motivated and believe in your vision. Who you bring into your business matters greatly in realizing your vision and achieving the happiness and success you desire. The strongest team members are those who have a positive attitude, are solution-oriented, self-motivated, self-accountable and believe in your vision for the company. If you want to have more fun running your business, it’s vital you hire people who create fewer limitations — and more opportunities — in accomplishing your goals.
Make time for your life outside of business. Your business is only one aspect of your life. You also have family, friends, personal interests and passions. For your business to be more enjoyable, it’s wise to bring balance to your entire life. Pay attention to these important parts of your life as you work to make your vision for the business come to be. You will remain refreshed and energized to operate at a higher level.
Having more fun in your business isn’t difficult. It simply takes desire and effort on your part to make it so, along with some effective guidance. As I help business owners become more grateful, establish a clear purpose, develop their vision of what they want, add structure, develop the habit of consistent effective action, build powerful teams and engage their lives outside of the business to a greater degree, amazing things happen: They become happier and more successful, and doing business is more fun for all.
