Maybe I’m just a screw-up.
You see, I find the biggest battle I?face in business isn’t with competitors, or finding new clients, or customer service.
It’s the battle that is waging right between my ears.
It’s the voice that says “sales are terrible this week, you’re going to fail.”
Or the voice that says “my customers don’t appreciate me.”
Or the voice that says “why don’t you just stay in bed this morning instead of writing that proposal?”
I?hate this mental stuff. It makes running a business much harder than it should be. It makes me stressed and sometimes angry. It makes the people I?love suffer.
Sometimes it makes me want to give it all up and go get a job. (But only for a second.)
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Yet…I?have the suspicion I?am not alone in suffering this.
I?bet there are thousands of business owners who face exactly the same battle every day. It’s just that no one talks about it.
The battle in our heads is like a dirty, little secret.
And there are precious few resources to help you fight it. (When, really, it should be item #1 on the biz school curriculum.)
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So here’s what I?try to do. Like I?say, my head is still screwed up at times, but I find these things help:
- Facts trump emotions: If my head is telling me that things are going badly, I take a look at the data. What do the actual figures say? It’s better to base my reactions on reality, not emotions..
- Remember this motto: Things are never as good as they look from the outside…and never as bad as they look from the inside.
- Join a support group: I’m in two mastermind groups where business owners support each other.
- Ready the Stoics: Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, should be on the bookshelf of every entrepreneur.
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Do you have any other tools you use to win the battle that goes on between your ears? I’d love to hear them.