Nov 02 2008
Stay focused on Your Business
Emotions are healthy! It’s absolutely essential to be aware of how you feel. Your feelings help you to be a balanced human being. However, unchecked emotions can keep you from being able to focus productively on your business. Emotions can go hey-wire and turn into monsters. When that happens you become scattered and foggy.
Anxiety, worry and stress are the common culprits. Often it’s around money but can also be a myriad of other issues that trigger these reactions. They can side-track you from having a sharp and clear focus. When those feelings surface it’s very easy to get thrown off track and begin to make decisions from those places. Stress decisions will often be poor decisions and could cause more problems. Likewise, when you are anxious your anxiety will cause you to constrict and close off access to solutions.
I tend to be a worrier and it’s usually around money. Even when I have enough I can worry that I might not have enough next month. It is beyond logic but it will totally throw me of balance. For you. it might be something else, but remember being an entrepreneur does not mean you don’t have moments of getting off track.
The important thing is to know what to do when this happens. What you want it to keep your focus sharp and on task so you can take steps to fill in the puzzle pieces easily and keep your business whole and complete.
Here are a three key things you can do when those emotions pop up.
1. Get out of your office and walk somewhere in nature. Breathing in fresh air and moving your body will allow you to come back into a place of calmness where your intuition and clarity will re-surface.
2. Find someone you trust to talk to. This needs to be someone who is positive and someone who believes in you. Someone whose presence will make you feel calm and empowered.
3. Look at your vision board, your mission statement or whatever you have that will remind you why you are doing your business. Remembering can bring you back to that place and put you back on track.
Part of being an entrepreneur is staying at the helm, being a leader and being able to calmly overcome obstacles when they arise. What are some other strategies that you use that have helped you when you really needed it?
Good stuff Kaya! Very timely for me too. I have been going through some things that are tugging at my focus on a minute by minute basis, but I keep on keeping on. You are so right about finding someone that you trust to talk to. Just yesterday I had someone to tell me that I am a winner and that was all it took to make me feel better.
One thing that helps me get back on track is knowing that I am not a quitter…so I give myself some positive self talk and move on.
Thanks for this great post and I think you are a winner too!
Hi Kaya,
I have a co-business partner, my husband, but, because we live and breathe the business 24/7, sometimes we are too wrapped up in it together to be subjective.
Sometimes it helps to to step back and get another perspective. I also have a couple of friends here on the island, one of them in my writers’ group, who have been very helpful because they see things from the outside.
I think, like you said, that listening to your intuition, that gut feeling, when you’ve turned everything logical off, can be very important.
Judy
Elizabeth
Thanks for your sharing. Sometimes it is so hard to stay with that focus when stuff comes up and isn’t that amazing how one supportive person can make all the difference.
Judy
I think doing business with one’s husband is really challenging. I tried it once and it was so hard to separate the parts of our life and that subjectivity, that you refer to, was huge. Thanks for sharing that intuition works for you too. Sometimes it is just not logical but I know it’s right!
Hi Kaya,
Just wanted to say that I’ve started reading your blog. I’m wondering if you have heard about the book, “What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business”. I heard the guy (Chris Flett) on the Today Show and thought you probably have already heard of him. I’m wondering what your thoughts were. He seems to be really taking on the ‘Old Boys Club”. I just emailed him, but haven’t heard back.
Anyway, keep up the great writing.
Best,
Bihter.
Hi Bihter
Thanks for reading my blog. I want to read this book, but haven’t yet. Too many things to do and too little time. Well, I guess there’s just as much time as always, just priorities.
I did watch a video by Chris Flett and I agree that women for the most part are still not knowing to deal effectively with alpha males. Luckily this is much more of an issue in the corporate world and does not come up so much in the small business realm.
I know many women who leave their corporate jobs and begin a small business just for this reason. Hilary Clinton is now a model for women of how to stay powerful and confident in the face of many alpha males!
Hi Kaya,
I’ve been doing some additional research on the author, Chris Flett, that I talked about on my last comment. His company is “GhostCEO” (www.GhostCEO.com) and his book is a bestseller. I found it on Amazon here. Anyway, he was in the NY Times last Sunday under the “Career Couch” and he makes reference to women’s blogs like yours so I thought you might like to connect. I’d like to see you interview him and see what he’s all about. I saw on another blog he was a guest blogger. His email is: chris@ghostceo.com
Best wishes,
Bihter.
Bihter
Thanks so much for passing on that great lead to me. I will definitely follow up on that and see where it goes. Stay tuned. Kaya