Running a business is hard work, with many challenges around all kinds of stuff, but the biggest challenge is with your own state of mind.

As a business owner, your mental and/or emotional state can have a huge effect on your productivity, your relationships and your business as a whole.

It could be that you wake up one Monday morning and just feel depressed. You don’t want to get out of bed, you don’t want to be creative, deal with employees or face the tasks that need to be done.

Owning a business is similar to being married. When things are sunny and happy, you love each other and it feels great,  you are energized and passionate. But sometimes things feel blah and the passion has gone out the window. Everything your partner does irritates you and you just want to be left alone. The choice you make at this moment is pivotal.

You can choose to stay in the dark place and be grumpy or you can choose to do whatever it takes to change your state of mind. The first step is to be aware of the fact that you have this choice.  You are not at the mercy of your emotions. You can choose what you want and how you want to be.

Here are a few tips that can help any business owner to move into a more empowered place and choose how to begin your day and how to relate to your business.

1. Remember your business vision. If you have done a vision board, take a few moments to look at it. It will remind you who you really are and what you are creating.  My own vision board has words like, “clear vision, lose yourself in the magic, be lifted to your higher self and we hear you”. When I read those words it reminds me of how I felt when I wrote them.

2. Energize your physical space. Clean your office, get fresh flowers, move furniture, light a candle, play uplifting music or anything that will help to change the energy on the physical level. Just the act of doing this will affect your state of mind and will help you to move out of a doldrum.

3. Contact your mentor or a close friend and share. Just talking to someone who is a good listener can make a huge difference. Depression lives inside and when you begin to talk,  it moves the energy outward and brings you back in touch with your life force.

4. Make a list of what you want to accomplish this week. Write it on a white board so you can easily erase things as you complete them. Creating your list is good because it is concrete and will get you thinking about what you need to do.  Right action is energizing and can get you moving.

5. Acknowledge all you are grateful for in your life and business. Give appreciation to people who have supported you and cared about you. Give thanks to everything good that has come your way.

Now breath, smile and move forward in your day and week with a positive state of mind.

One of my mentors, T. Harv Eker told me, “until you can manage a small amount of money, you won’t be able to handle a large amount.”

When I first heard this I felt like I wanted to crawl into a cave because my money management was atrocious. I never really knew how much I had (or didn’t have was more accurate). I just checked my bank balance every so often  and made sure I was still in the black.

My mental space was filled with creative and visionary ideas.  Money management seemed boring and a sure way to pop my helium balloon. Harv also said, “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.” I woke up and I realized that ¨until I began to clear out the money cobwebs I would stay in a place of struggle.

Here are a few typical types of money clutter and how to clear them out permanently.

1. Fear of really looking at your accounts and knowing what’s going in and out. This is an irrational fear that once you know it will be horrible. Avoiders  want to steer clear of fear at all cost because it is uncomfortable.  As a result, bills stack up, mail is left unopened or not dealt with properly and you never have an accurate picture of your money.

Solution: Become an excellent money manager. Check your accounts regularly and deal with stuff immediately. Get a good bookkeeper and put systems in place.

2. Spending money on impulse. As soon as you get some money coming in you think of ways to spend it on “stuff.” Some of the stuff could be useful but mainly it’s fun to spend it and it makes you feel prosperous.

Solution: Create a special account for play money and put 5-10% of your earnings in there each month. Spend that on fun stuff. Before you buy something you need for your business ask yourself, “Do I really need this?”

3. Worry that the money flow will dry up. When you are in business you depend on a stream of new business and your customers to pay you on time. Worry can clutter your mind and stop your creative process.

Solution:  Substitute worry thoughts for positive thoughts and keep your attention focused on what you need to do to provide excellent customer service and good value. Develop a solid marketing plan.

4. Unrealistic money goals. You know you want to earn more money but you never have actually sat down and did a strategic plan of how to get there. There are holes in your plan and you keep doing the same mistakes over and over.

Solution: Develop a business plan that gives you a clear map to how to reach your money goals. Get help if you don’t know how to do this.

5. Poverty consciousness. You feel unworthy and disabled. Maybe you are uncomfortable asking for money and receiving it. You don’t know how to close sales. Your clients sense your discomfort and don’t want to be around you. You feel small and make decisions from that place.

Solution:  Begin to hang around prosperous people and change your behaviors. Let go of staying small. Stretch out of your comfort zone as this is the only way you will grow.

Follow these five things are you will begin to  eliminate your money clutter and open the space for prosperity.

It’s  about  impossible to run a business without regularly experiencing mental blocks. It’s just part of the deal.

A mental block is like it sounds; a blocked mind. You know you need to do something but your mind says, no and you feel tangled or stuck.  Sometimes you can feel just like a frustrated child who feels unable to do whatever needs to be done.

Other times you just feel unequipped, stupid, afraid, out of your depth or blocked. This happens regularly for me in my business. If something feels hard I just want to ignore it and do something else. Why not? Who wants to struggle if you  don’t have to?

Some typical mental blocks business people experience:

Can’t think of how to write my web content.
Don’t know how to organize my files.
Quickbooks seems too hard.
How to tell people about a new product.
Schedule is a mess and am forgetting things.
Need to write a good sales page
Computer isn’t working right.
Software won’t install correctly.

The list goes on but I think you get the idea. It’s important to know how to overcome obstacles and mental blocks so you can keep moving forward in spite of  being challenged.  Here are a few things to help.

1. Get up and move.  Go for a walk or change your environment. This will shift your energy and break up the ice berg.

2. Start the process even if you  think you don’t know how. Sometimes just beginning will open the floodgates and new inspiration will float in.

3. Talk to someone you trust and share how you are feeling.  If someone can just listen, just the process of talking can move you through feeling stuck.

4. Play baroque music in that it helps your mind to let go and feel energized and more open and creative.

5. Get help. Sometimes it’s good to ask someone to do it for you. A good business person knows when to hire a professional to help.

So, the issues aren’t the problem. All business people experience these challenges. The important thing is to not get upset, know what to do and be willing to do whatever it takes.

The term, “Burning Desire,” can describe that powerful energy that will propel you forward against all odds. It’s made up of passion and it  can get you to move yourself out of your usual way of life and into a foreign territory .

This intense desire is what allows you to break out of  your strictly structured pattern  in order to reach a new goal.

It’s this quality that is present when you initiate a new direction in your life, a new business. It’s exciting and passionate and will over-ride your fears and self-doubt. Many solo-business owners begin their business from this place. Without the burning desire it would be way too scary.

However, sometime down the road, things can feel too hard and you forget the intensity of your original desire. When you are off guard, the fears and self-doubts can begin to creep in and sabotage your energy. It can feel like you are crashing head-on into a wall.

At this point, your attitude becomes paramount in importance. When faced with this kind of crisis, small business owners have three choices.

1. Avoid  Stay in bed and under the covers. Although this might feel safe temporarily, it is deadly to do this more than a day, as the longer you hide away, the stronger becomes your fears.

2. Run away.  Decide to quit. You feel like a small child and you just want to go back to your old life where it felt predictable and there is less chance of failure. It is never a good idea to make a decision to quit when you are in the middle of a crisis.

3. Do whatever it takes. Take action. Get off your behind and get help. Make yourself remember your original desire and make decisions from that place. All successful entrepreneurs make this choice. They choose life over death.

Which of the three choices do you want to make? Don’t wait until you are in a crisis. Nurture the attitude of number three all the time, everyday. Make that your mantra and part of your operating manual. Once that attitude takes hold, it will be a guiding star in the face of any crisis.

Do you  wonder sometimes why you seem to work so hard and not get the results you want? It’s hard work running a solo-business and it requires focus to learn how to have a fully orchestrated company.

I am reminded of my son’s Suzuki violin teacher when he was five. The very first thing she taught him was how to hold the violin and bow correctly and how to put his fingers on the strings the right way. She said, “If you learn the wrong way, then you will keep doing it the wrong way, and  no matter how diligently you practice,  your music won’t sound sweet and pure.”

Similar with running a business, it’s easy to just dive in and and begin focusing really hard, just like learning a new piece of complicated music.  However,  if you are doing things incorrectly, your business won’t hum and purr. Instead of being harmonized, you’ll feel struggle and frustration. You will just practice bad habits.

Take the time to learn how to do things with a business mind-set. If you don’t have enough clients, it could be that you are doing heaps of marketing but you are “holding the bow” wrong. Once you learn how, what a difference it will make. You’ll be able to feel the vibration shift and the music of your business will be melodic and powerful.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What areas in my business are not in harmony?

2. How might I be operating my business violin incorrectly?

3. What would it take for me to learn how to make sweet music?

What is holding you back from getting help or learning what you need to learn?  That’s the place to start.