So often I hear stories about would-be business owners who simply gave up too soon. They all began with visions of success in their minds, many with great ideas, others with a needed improvement on a product or service that would really make a difference, but soon enough, they abandon their dreams.
This usually happens at the first sign of trouble. Maybe they run into an obstacle that seems insurmountable to them. Maybe they run out of money. Or maybe they have been listening to those around them that simply didn’t see the vision and eventually dissuaded them from following their dreams.
It’s happened to me. It happens to the people I coach. It happens to the vast majority of business owners.
But… what if it didn’t have to end this way?
Let me explain.
Imagine if it were easy to build a successful business. I mean all you needed were a few business cards and an idea and you’d be successful. Wouldn’t everybody jump on that train?
Of course they would. And everybody would be wealthy, successful, and living their dreams.
When you look around, it’s pretty clear that this is NOT reality. What you see is that only a scant few of the 7 Billion plus people in this world ever achieve success and get to live their dreams.
The reason is mostly a matter of how you use the gray matter between your ears.
Those who achieve great success think differently than the rest of us.
They see challenges as something to be figured out, to be solved, to be conquered while most everybody else stops dead in their tracks in the face of the very first challenge they face.
Successful people see life more as a game to be won while the rest of us take things way too seriously
and that leads to increased stress, which is the result of feeling fearful about what might go wrong.
Read that last sentence a few more times because it’s a massive key to turning things around in your life.
Imagine yourself playing a game. Are you happy? Are you laughing? Are you having fun? Usually, that’s what happens when you play most any kind of game, with the possible exception of “Russian Roulette!”
When you are happy, you actually have more power at your disposal than you do when you are feeling fearful. In your moments of happiness while you’re enjoying yourself, you’re more likely to say “YES!” to life. When faced with a challenge, you’re also more likely to be able to see yourself overcoming that challenge too.
When you are living in fear and feeling stressed, you don’t have access to the best of you and will often see even the smallest challenges as being impossible to overcome.
I’ve lived on both sides of this equation and I can tell you it’s like being two different people! One who will stop at nothing and one will stop at everything.
The good news is that you have a choice in every moment of every day about how you are going to react to the things that happen in your life.
You see, while you can’t control the circumstances of your life, you can always control your reaction to those circumstances and it begins by adding more fun to your everyday life.
I had gotten into a situation where I was nose-down and working way too hard for far too long and wondered why I just wasn’t seeing the level of success I had experienced in previous years. Instead of my business growing each year, it was actually getting smaller and it was getting much harder.
When I stepped back and took a vacation, I realized that I had not added enough fun into my daily routine. Life became almost all work and not a whole lot of fun. I found I was less excited about what I was doing and over the course of a few short years, I began hating the work I was doing.
Listen, you cannot ever become successful if you don’t love the work you’re doing! I proved that to be true.
So, I began adding things to my daily routine that were fun for me. I asked myself what would make me happy and made a list of things that I really enjoyed. Some of the things on my list were work items, some were not.
Eventually, I learned to hand off the parts of running my business I didn’t love so that I could more of the things I loved most.
I took more time away from the business to do things that made me happy. I started to spend more time away from the computer and around actual people.
In no time, I was signing up new clients for my coaching programs. I was able to much easier overcome obstacles that I faced, and I was loving life a whole lot more too!
Of course, this made me a lot more fun to be around too.
Oh, and as an added bonus: fewer health issues.
So how do you turn things around? It’s not about a new web site. It’s about how you manage your day and what you choose to do with your time.
When you hear successful people speak about having fun, what you’re hearing is the secret to their success, and you can apply that to your life anytime you want.
Having fun does NOT need to cost money – a good thing if you don’t have any money – but it’s got to be an element of your day, every single day.
It was never meant to be easy, but nobody said you can’t have fun along the way!
Now, go out there and put something fun on your calendar right now!
Be outstanding!
Robert Imbriale
Your eCoach
http://www.RobertImbriale.com
