By Jerry Mooney
If you are like most business owners, you probably find yourself constantly worrying about the business. This is too easily done. After all, in many respects a business is like your child. It can be all too easy to find yourself worrying about it unduly. However, this is not necessarily the healthiest approach to have. Nor is it likely to lead to the best business decisions or the wisest moves. If you want your business to succeed in the long term, you need to learn how to keep a check on your anxieties. If you manage to achieve that, then it is likely that your business will prosper greatly from it. In this article, we will take a look at some of the key ways you can reduce stress and worry when it comes to doing business. Take these on board, and both your business life and your personal life will quickly improve.
Draw Up A Detailed Plan
As a general rule, the more stressed we are, the less we know. In other words, it is when you are uncertain about the future that you find yourself becoming overly worried. The best way to minimise this particular kind of stress is to plan ahead as much as you can. Nobody knows what the future will bring, and it is worth bearing that in mind at all times. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to plan for it at least a little. You should, especially at the beginning of the business’ life. Draw up a plan which details as well as you can what you intend to do with your business in the long run. Ultimately, it doesn’t even matter too much if it doesn’t go to plan at any point. Just having a plan in place is likely to hugely reduce your anxieties about the whole business. This, in turn, will allow you to be in a better place to actually enact your plan. This is how you start a virtuous cycle.
Protect Your Business
One of the major sources of stress in business is never quite knowing if your business will survive. The sad fact of the matter is that there is a lot that can go wrong, even overnight. This means that there is the constant fear in the back of your mind that you might lose everything that you have built up. To allay this fear as best as you can, it helps to keep your business as protected as possible. In order to do this, you need to ensure that you are aware of all of the various ways that your business can be under attack or in danger. There are plenty of potential issues of this kind, so it is worth thinking about all of them. For example, you need to make sure that you are successfully protecting your business’ premises from any kind of attack. A computerised system such as centralized vision is probably your best bet here. Beyond that, you should also put practices in place which ensure that your business is protected in the marketplace. Using trademark law to protect your intellectual property is a sound idea, as is keeping ideas for future projects under wraps.
Start Small
Most business owners get into this world because they want to create great things and go places with their ideas. If that sounds like you, then that is great. However, if you try to do too much too fast, you might end up causing yourself unnecessary stress. Often, a lot of the worry that comes with having a business is related to this. If you are too keen for your business to be extraordinarily good, then you might be disappointed early on. This in turn will mean that you are less determined to carry on, and before you know it the business is failing.To avoid this, start smal. Take it a day at a time. By all means have goals for your business, but ensure that they are relatively modest. It might feel that going for the highest pursuit is the best way to go, but in actuality it rarely is. Start small, makes lots of consistent efforts, and build on it from there.
Put Co-operation Above Competition
You have probably heard a great deal in the past about the competitive nature of business. It is true that this is a world which relies upon competition in many respects. Yet, being too bogged down in that side of things can lead to you feeling as though it isn’t worth it. Instead, try focusing more on the co-operative elements of business - of which there are plenty. One powerful way to illustrate this is to partner up with other businesses. Becoming a partner with someone is a great way of making the most of both of your resources and efforts. In this way, you can help each other to improve and grow together. Working in this way is likely to stop you worrying so much about whether or not your business is competing properly in the marketplace. Chances are, you will be much happier.
Let Your Colleagues Help
We have all known bosses and managers who tried to do everything themselves. This rarely leads to a positive working environment for anyone. If you want to really minimise the amount of worrying you do over your business, bear this in mind. In fact, you will do so much better in business if you simply let your colleagues help as much as possible. It is likely that your employees have a lot of great ideas to improve the business. However, if you never listen to them, you will never hear those ideas. To that end, it is a wise move to allow your colleagues to help as much as possible. Doing so also makes them feel a lot more trusted. And trusted employees are ones who will likely carry your business to greater places in the future. Do yourself, your business and your employees a favour and let them have a little more responsibility. Everyone will be much better off for it.
Jerry Mooney is co-founder and managing editor of Zenruption and the author of History Yoghurt and the Moon. He studied at the University of Munich and Lewis and Clark College where he received his BA in International Affairs and West European Studies. He has recently taught Language and Communications at a small, private college and owned various businesses, including an investment company. Jerry is committed to zenrupting the forces that block social, political and economic justice. He can also be found on Twitter @JerryMooney