Why a New Business Venture is Like a New Romance

New love affairs are so exciting. Your energy levels peak, you spend most of your time thinking about your new partner and hate being separated from them. It is all roses and sunshine: you don’t see flaws in your partner, and you just know it is going to work. Life is perfect.

Starting a new business is similar. In the beginning you are full of energy and optimism. You spend days and nights thinking about the business, and you spend as much time as possible working on your business. It can’t fail, right?

However just like a romance, the rose coloured glasses soon come off. You start to realise that it requires a lot more work than you originally thought, and it isn’t as exciting as it was in the beginning. Instant success isn’t happening and you begin to doubt whether it is really worth your while. You get despondent and start to notice the obstacles originally overlooked. For both a love affair and a new business venture, this is the point at which you either truly commit to making it work or you throw in the towel.

To avoid being another start-up statistic there are a few measures you can take.

1. Be passionate and realistic

Before throwing in your day job to start up your own business, ensure that you are passionate about the service or product you want to offer. If making money is the only reason for starting your own business then it will be extremely hard to keep going when times get tough. Passion about what you do will help motivate you during the rough patches.

Of course you need to be realistic as well. Weigh up the pros and cons of starting the business venture, assess the alternatives and ensure that the project is really viable. Do a health check on your finances. Do you have sufficient funds to keep you going for a while? After all, success is rarely achieved overnight and being constantly worried about your income will increase your stress levels tenfold. The chances are you will lose sight of why you started your business and it will actually become a burden and not the pleasant experience you originally set out to have.

2. Set achievable goals

Jumping into a business without proper planning is risky. Make sure that you have a detailed business plan in place covering all your bases from finance to marketing, to target demographics. Create a mission statement that clearly states your objectives.

Break your overall business objective into achievable, measureable goals and set milestone dates for achieving these goals. These should contain the detailed tasks that you need to complete in order to turn your business into a success. Make sure that you analyse your goals in detail, for instance how are you going to achieve them, what resources do you require, what obstacles could prevent you from achieving them and how can you overcome these obstacles?

3. Reward success

It is important to celebrate every success you achieve, even your minor goals. This does mean throwing a party every time you hit a milestone. Just take time to pat yourself on the back for a job well done, buy yourself a chocolate bar as reward or take your family out for dinner. To take time out to reward yourself gives you a chance to review what you have achieved and keeps you in a positive frame of mind. It provides an incentive to carry on, even if you aren’t pulling in the big bucks yet.

4. Surround yourself with supportive people

Going it alone can be daunting; there are going to be times when you feel it is just too hard and you will want to quit. Having supportive people around you, whether they are family, friends or a business coach, will help motivate you and give you the encouragement to carry on. They can also help you navigate obstacles, give you impartial advice, and support when you are in a negative space. Support makes you realise that you aren’t alone and that others genuinely want you to be a success. It can propel you forwards.

5. Don’t let obstacles stop you

Everyone who has ever tried something new has faced obstacles and challenges. Don’t view them as negatives. Obstacles and challenges are vital to your learning experience, they help to get you on the right path, and they make you think outside the box. View every negative experience as an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to explore avenues you previously would not have considered. Remember that it is just a bump in the road and that if you are really committed to achieving success you will find a way to overcome it.

Just like a budding new romance, a business venture will have its ups and downs. There will be times when you feel so positive and enthusiastic about your future, and there will be times when it feels like it is just too much hard work. If you really want to make it a success you have to be truly committed to the idea, to bringing it to fruition. You will need to persevere and always remember why you started the business in the first place. You need to keep your passion for your business alive.