Last Updated on March 3, 2023
After years of working hard as an entrepreneur and dealing with all the ups and downs that are part of the job, it’s common for many people to experience a dip in their passion and commitment. After all, creating and building a business takes a huge amount of time, energy, drive, focus, persistence, and resilience, and even the most motivated person in the world will run low on “fuel” sometimes.
If you happen to find yourself in this position, don’t despair. There are plenty of simple yet effective things you can do to bring the energy and passion back into your business. Read on for some tips you can implement today.
Take Some Time Off to Recharge
If you’re like most business owners, you really live your venture and rarely take time off to properly recharge away from work. If so, one of the best things you can do to help you feel more inspired and passionate on the job is to have a break.
Depending on how burnt out you are, this could involve simply taking an afternoon off, or else setting new rules for yourself about the amount of hours you’ll work every week (e.g. that you’ll leave work at a certain time each day and not look at emails the rest of the night, or that you’ll take the weekends off from work completely). You might also need to schedule a long-overdue holiday of at least three weeks or more – this is typically the amount of time it takes for most people to properly unwind and stop thinking about work.
During your time off, give yourself a chance to catch up on sleep, to read, to travel somewhere new, or simply to reconnect with your family or loved ones.
After considerable time spent focusing on your business, you may also need to devote some time to your physical well-being. A recharge can involve getting a check-up, starting a new exercise regime, or eating more healthily. Time off also allows you to see your life from a fresh perspective, and is likely to help you come up with ideas about how to readdress your work days when you’re back in the office.
Learn to Delegate
Many business people end up burnt out and sick of their venture because they simply do too much. It’s important, then, to outsource tasks as soon as you can to your team or to off-site contractors. While it’s understandable that you like to keep a firm grip on all the happenings in your business, and perhaps struggle to hand off tasks, you won’t truly be able to grow your organization or hang onto your passion if you end up doing absolutely everything.
If you hire the right people and surround yourself with a capable team, you should be able to see that not only can others do the jobs you don’t like, or that you shouldn’t be spending time on, but also that they may do them better and/or more quickly than you – after all, you can’t be good at everything! The sooner you give tasks to others to complete (or start training people to do them), the sooner you can let go of every little detail and learn to breathe a bit more.
Freeing up your time will allow you to focus on the things you really enjoy doing, which will help to reinvigorate your passion. Furthermore, it can also allow you to spend your time doing the things that only you can do, and that you do best. Doing this often leads to business growth and increased revenue in turn.
Keep in mind too that you may very well be completing a variety of jobs that really don’t even need to be done. Think about how you spend your time every week (it pays to keep a journal to really measure it properly) and see if you’re wasting time micro-managing your staff, doing things that someone else will do anyway, or completing a task that could be automated or streamlined instead. Generally every business person will find at least five things that they can stop doing straight away.
Find a Mentor
Lastly, another great way to reignite your love for your venture is to interact with interesting people who are full of passion for their own endeavors and for business in general. To do this, you might like to consider finding an entrepreneurial mentor you can work with who has already “been there and done that,” and who you really look up to.
Hiring a business coach or personal mentor can help you to get unstuck, to recognize why you’re struggling with motivation or interest at the moment, and really fire you up to do more great things with your venture in the future.
