Back to Basics: Why Do You Do What You Do?

I just had my weekly Yoga class on Saturday. My instructor is very good at giving us variety of challenges, which is one of the reasons why I enjoy her classes so much. Yesterday, she really focused on what are considered to be the basic standing poses, spending longer time on each pose than usual, pointing out the details that we should be paying attention to. Although they were all familiar poses to me, I woke up the following morning with muscle pains all over my body. This experience told me how I was “slacking off” here and there when I thought I was properly doing those poses every week. It was a great reminder that I was forgetting the basics.

We tend to forget the basic things in life, too: where we can find happiness, why we are doing what we are doing, who we should appreciate, and so forth. Same thing with businesses. Asking yourself the following questions may help you to get you going when you feel disoriented. (And many of us do get disoriented while trying to grow a business!)

• What was the compelling reason for starting your business? I had occasionally thought about owning my own business here and there, but it was my family situation that really prompted me to take the leap to start MTH Virtual Assistance. And, oh, I’m so glad I did take that leap! What was your reason?
• Do you wake up in the morning, looking forward to working on your business? We all have ups and downs, but if you start constantly feeling down about your business, it’s probably time to step back and analyze why you are feeling that way. It’s easy to get sucked into negative emotions, but don’t get caught in that trap! There are *always* options. If you can’t find any, maybe it’s time to seek out a coach or a mentor who can help you.
• Are you acting as a business owner or a technician? Read The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber, if you haven’t. I re-read this book from time to time to remind myself that I am a business owner. I admit, I still have a rather big technician part in me (a nature of many VAs, LOL), but I’m working on becoming more of a business owner every day.
• Are you being authentic in your business? I was just listening to Ali Brown’s Online Success Blueprint System CDs (another resource that I keep revisiting), and I heard somebody say that if you were authentic in your business, things would become easier for you because you are not trying to be somebody you are not. That reminded me of one job I had in the past that made me miserable because it required me to act like somebody that I was not. (I would never work in a job like that again!) How about you? Can you be yourself in your business?
• Do you have a genuine passion towards what you do, even if you can’t explain why? My husband loves watching college football, and, well, I don’t. I’ve tried enjoying watching football games on TV with him like a good wife, but I still don’t understand why he loves it so much! But I do understand his passion towards college football is genuine and uplifts his spirits. And I can say the same thing about my business (although my husband probably does not understand why I like it so much, LOL). Do you feel the same passion towards your business?

Hope this little basic checklist will help you look at your business with a fresh eye.

And let me know if I can help you take your business to the next level after covering the basis.