Avoid This Crucial Mistake to Ensure the Survival of Your Business—and Your Happiness

In the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship, it pays to set ambitious goals.

In the process, it’s common practice to look around at other people’s inspiring stories of entrepreneurial accomplishment. This helps us push our boundaries in determining our goals and what is truly possible for us. 

It can be a dangerous trap, however, if at first you don’t firmly establish what success really means to you.

If you automatically assume that someone else’s version of success is what you should strive for simply because they are generating a certain amount of money, have a certain amount of followers, or embody any other metric that entrepreneurial culture associates with ‘crushing it’, you can be setting yourself up for unnecessary stress, anxiety, burnout, and failure.

Taking the crucial step to intentionally establish what success means to you and your business will allow you to develop goals that will fill you with passion, ambition, and fulfillment.

So use the following tips to ensure that you are setting yourself up for an incredible journey of growth, happiness, and achievement instead of burnout and frustration.

 

#1 Reconnect With Your ‘Why’

Whenever I coach a new client, the first thing I always have them do is get crystal clear on their ‘why,’ or their true reason for doing what they do.

This is strategically done at the beginning of the coaching process because without firmly establishing the foundational purpose of their business, it becomes tempting to veer off course and waste precious time and energy chasing things that aren’t directly relevant to their growth and success.

When you clearly understand and powerfully embrace your ‘why’, it makes decision making and goal setting much easier and more effective.

Some people’s ‘why’ is to build a financially abundant life doing something they are passionate about.

For others, it’s the desire to share their wisdom and value with others to make their lives better.

And for some, it’s to grow as big as possible while fulfilling all of their potentials.

Whatever your underlying reason for building your business is, get clear on it and connect to it every day. When it comes to goal setting, make sure yours are in direct alignment with your ‘why.’

 

#2 You Are More Than Just a Business

If you are passionate about what you do, it can sometimes feel like your business is who you are.

It’s critical to understand, however, that there are more components to your life than just your business, and ignoring those other areas will leave you feeling stressed, unbalanced, and ultimately less capable of growing the business you love.

When it comes to goal setting, people often create their business goals with no regards to the other areas of their life. It’s fun and exciting to set an ambitious revenue target, but it is dangerous if that goal can only be accomplished at the expense of your physical health, your mental well being and the relationships you have.

At the end of the day, what does your ideal quality of life look like?

Get clear on it and then make sure your goals reflect that.

Yes, aim to grow your business in amazing and exciting ways, but always remember that your business is an extension of you.

So create goals that level up all areas of your life and trust that your business, as well as you as a person, will flourish in the process.

 

#3 Back to the Roots

When you are out there chasing your goals, it’s crucial to remember where they came from.

Are they goals that are true to you?  

Are they representative of your passions and core values?

Or did you adopt them from someone else along the way?

Getting crystal clear on what a successful life looks like will help guide you more closely to achieving the things that you actually care about. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s tempting to look at other people and instantly assume that their version of success should be your goal. But blindly accepting that because someone’s business looks good on paper means they are living a happy, fulfilled and passionate life can lead you on a wild goose chase.

Clearly envision the life and legacy you want to build and relentlessly pursue that. Craft your goals around the success that speaks true for you and you’ll end building a thriving business while having way more fun.

Isn’t that the point, anyway?