You’ve spent months — maybe years — building your idea into an actual business. From the ground up, you’ve laid the foundation for your operations, trademarked the company name, hired contractors to build your website and perfect your product or service. Once you formally launch, it’s the most exciting day of your career.
And then what? Unfortunately, what comes next for many entrepreneurs is a feeling of being let down. Stagnation and boredom are bound to creep into the lives of anyone in the working world at some point or another. Still, they can be particularly isolating for entrepreneurs, who typically work on their own. If this is the case for you, don’t panic. You aren’t the first to feel this way, and you won’t be the last. Consider these tips for dealing with your feelings of stagnation.
Create a New Challenge/Goal
When you first came up with the idea for your business, you probably put everything you had into bringing that idea to life. You pushed all other responsibilities and goals aside to achieve it, and now that it’s arrived, you may not know what to do next.
You should set a new challenge or goal to get past this period. Building a business is a massive undertaking, and if you did that, then it won’t be hard to reach yet another milestone. Perhaps you’ve got enough clients to keep you busy in the short term, but you can create a new challenge, such as growing by a certain percentage within a specific time period so you can expand. If you aren’t sure where to start when it comes to setting future goals, work with a CFO or other professional who can look at your numbers and show you exactly where you can be in a certain time period, and also share the steps you can take to get there.
Forge Partnerships
Perhaps you’re feeling bored because you’re knee-deep in responsibilities that you never expected to take on, such as handling sales tax forms or spending time on the phone with IT to fix computer issues. Identify the areas where you feel bogged down and forge partnerships that will allow others to take on those responsibilities so you can get back to growing your business. Consider working with contractors, outsourced firms, freelancers or part-time employees who can specialize in the areas that have taken away your zest for your business. You can also maximize your use of productivity tools so you aren’t spending endless amounts of time on things that could be automated, like managing your calendar.
If you were initially making your products by hand on your own, consider hiring a third-party manufacturing firm to produce them so you can establish new sales outlets or hire additional staff members. By reaching out to others, you’ll ensure that you’re working on things you love, allowing your business to grow and thrive.
Seek Balance
It’s possible that you’ve grown bored with your business because it’s the only thing you’ve spent any time doing in the past year or more. Once you’ve successfully launched, it’s okay to take breaks away from your company and find the balance you need. Rediscover your hobbies and the activities that relax you. Take walks, schedule time at the gym or meditate — whatever it is that helped you stay centered before you became an entrepreneur is likely to work once again, provided you make time for it.
You can also find that balance by just sitting down to chat with other entrepreneurs. If you hear about their initial feelings of stress upon launching their businesses, you can ask how they worked to mitigate those feelings. Sometimes just hearing that you aren’t alone can be helpful.
Launching a business is exhilarating but can also be exhausting — take care of yourself to ensure that you’re feeling your best.
