Starting a business is exciting! Your creative juices are flowing, your vision crystal clear, and you’re absolutely stoked to dive into doing what you love. But let’s be real, at some point, this ‘honeymoon phase’ fades and reality starts to kick in – This may just be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. You lose all the excitement you once had, and you desperately need to fall back in love with your business.

Let me give you a classic example…

Nearly 40 years ago, a guy joined a coffee brand as the CEO. He was a real genius, and helped the company to grow rapidly. Under his leadership, they rolled out all sorts of cool stuff, like those irresistible Espresso Bars we all love.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting: this guy wasn’t just about the business side of things. He genuinely cared about his team, making sure they had sweet perks like health benefits and even stock options for part-timers. Oh, and let’s not forget about the game-changing invention of the Frappuccino – yep, that was all him!

But as with any fairytale, there was a plot twist. It appears that the CEO and the company founders weren’t on the same page. While they were playing it safe, the guy was all about dreaming big and taking risks.

He saw the company as just not a place to grab your morning brew, but a cozy spot where people could come together, interact, and savour top-notch coffee together. He wanted the company to be ‘the third place’ between home and work.

Long story short, disagreements led to a breakup. Our CEO friend left the company and decided to start his own coffeehouse chain. But guess what? Fate had a surprise twist in store.

Years down the line, he ended up buying back the original company from the founders. And with that, he transformed it into the global coffeehouse giant we know and love today.

The guy’s name is Howard Schultz, and his story is a powerful reminder of what can happen when you rediscover your passion and fall back in love with your business.

5 Ways To Fall Back In Love With Your Business

Harvey Mackay was onto something when he said, “Find something you love to do and you never have to work a day in your life.’

When running a business, it’s really important that you love what you do. Because when this happens, every decision that you make comes from a place of love for your business. It’s like nurturing your own little baby – you’ll do whatever it takes to help it thrive and flourish.

Here are 5 ways that you too, can rekindle that spark between you and your business:

1. Diagnose The Problem and Solve It
2. Remember The Vision
3. Celebrate the Little Wins
4. Take Some Time Away
5. Delegate Tasks

1. Diagnose the Problem and Solve It

Take a moment to think about the minute that you fell out of love with your business. When did things start dwindling, and how did that pan out?

The best way to reignite the spark you had with your business is to first understand the problem.

It could be that you introduced a new product which is taking too long to sell, or that you hardly every have time to work on the aspects you love.

Whatever the case, the first step is always understanding the nature of your problem.

Here are two tips when doing this self-diagnosis

• Be as Honest With Yourself As Possible

When you’re diagnosing the problem, you really have to sit with yourself and be honest. You have to come to terms with the reality of the matter, and don;t shy away from admitting failure.

Remember that at one point or the other, many business owners have felt the same way, and by coming to terms with it, you can quickly cook up some briliant solutions.

• Know that Everything is Salvageable

You know the saying, “It gets better worse before it gets better?”

It would 100% apply here. 

The truth is that being honest with yourself can be an ugly process. It can lead you to the realisation that you have a lot of work to do. The key in accepting the situation and making peace with it.

2. Remember the Vision

Here are a few things that I am sure are true: When you first started your business, you were thrilled and excited. You were happy to finally be doing it, and you were ready to smash those goals. You could easily envision your business succeeding, and it gave you an exhilarating feeling.

If you can tap back into these nostalgic moments, you can easily learn to love your business again.

Why did you go into business? Was it just to make money, or to help a certain set of people? Was it to give you freedom from formal employment?

Rediscover your why, and you’ll fall in love with your business. Here are two ways that you can do this:

• Check your Old Journals/Notebooks

One good way to remember your business vision is by revisiting the stuff that you were recording at the time you were setting it up. If you did it right, you’ll be able to find these records well in store and you can read them to remember your why.

• Go Back to Your Business Plan

A business plan is a good place to start if you want to remember what you initially envisioned for your business. It will detail your vision and possibly mission for the business, helping you to fall back in love with your business.

3. Celebrate the Little Wins

Business owners all deserve a pat on the back for juggling the most amount of balls. And while we’re busy fiddling with all these different pieces and chasing success, we often forget to stop and celebrate our wins.

Naturally, human beings are inclined to dwell on the issues rather than the progress.

Sometimes, a win could be as simple as being more productive than usual. Or, it could be as huge as landing a new client. Whatever the case, here are two ways to make sure that you are celebrating little wins:

• Create Systems in Place

To make sure that ‘no win goes unnoticed,’ you probably need a system in place. At Outside ideas, we have a bell in our virtual workspace ‘Gather Town’ where whenever there’s a win, you get the chance to ring and be celebrated by your co-workers.

You could set reminders on Google Calendars or even automations that make sure to notify you whenever there’s something worth celebrating.

• Be Intentional About It

The reason why we tend to ignore wins is because we are not intentional about them. 

When bad things happen in our businesses, we give them our full attention, so why don’t we pay the same courtesy to the good things?

Intentionality is all about recognising that despite the fact that you have a long way to go, celebrating each win is motivation to chase after all your goals.

4. Take Some Time Away

How many times have you solved a problem by simply walking away from it and coming back to it with a fresh pair of eyes?

Sometimes all it takes is a breather to turn that blurry vision into a crystal-clear masterpiece.

One of my favourite quotes is this: Life is like a kaleidoscope—shift the perspective, and suddenly, everything falls into mesmerizing patterns of beauty.

Here are a few tips on how to put everything aside and take some time away:

• Plan in Advance

With a good plan in place, it’s possible for every business owner to take some time away from their business. I’ll warn you, though, that there is no ‘best time’ to take time off.

The nature of a small business makes it necessary to work more to build it up.

But here’s what I’ll tell you – Planning in advance helps you to cover all your bases, dot your i’s and cross your t’s. It will also give you the confidence to walk away, take a breather, and come back feeling fresh.

Check out our blog on “How to take a successful holiday as a small business owner.”

• Limit Access To Work

Sometimes, we’ve just got to be strict with ourselves. If you foresee having separation anxiety from staying away from your business, there are things you can do to limit access to work.

One of the easiest ways is to temporarily disconnect from all work communication. Leave the Whatsapp group, turn off your email notifications, put your phone on ‘Do not Disturb’ and if you must, set specific times to check your devices.

5. Delegate Tasks

Maybe the reason why you feel a disconnect between you and your business is because you’re handling too many things that you don’t like to do. The best way to handle this is to delegate.

It might be easier said than done because sometimes, other people just won’t do things as well as you do. But, you can always train your team to do things to your standard.

Here are a few tips for delegating your tasks:

• Delegate the Right Tasks

It’s true – Sometimes when you delegate some tasks, you end up compromising the quality of the work. To deal with this, focus on delegating routine, low-priority tasks that don’t necessarily require your unique expertise.

These are the tasks that can easily be trained and measured in terms of progress. They are seemingly ‘mundane’ and can create space for you to do a lot of other useful stuff.

• Set Clear Expectations

If you are going to delegate tasks, you need to do it the right way. And a big part of delegating has to do with good communication. Set clear expectations for the task, what it entails, the deadlines, and desired outcomes.

Encourage open communication where your team feels comfortable asking questions and asking for feedback.

Our Summary – Falling Back in Love With Your Business

Your attitude towards your business is so crucial yet so important. It can be the gap between failure and success of everything that you do. You should therefore put in the time, effort, energy, and money to make sure that when it comes down to it, you love your business and are willing to take risks for it!

As we conclude, I’d like to remind you about the 5 ways to fall back in love with your business:

1. Diagnose the Problem and Solve It
2. Remember the Vision
3. Celebrate the Little Wins
4. Take Some Time Away
5. Delegate Tasks

We’re always up for a chat! If you fancy a conversation about loving your business or anything else about running a business, hit us up! We’re only one call away. Get in touch and book a free 1-2-1 with us here!