Entrepreneurship: Feel like quitting your business

?You have been feeling like you want to quit your business. Things haven’t been working out, and you want to close your business and walk away. You feel like your small business is killing you, you feel sick of running the business, and you are wondering when should you just quit and throw in the towel on your entrepreneurship dreams

In my time as an online coach, course creator, and in general professional service provider, I have seen people come and go in the industry.

Every day my social media timeline is littered with announcements of individuals quitting their businesses & going back to a 9-5

This is sad. This article is of course to dissuade you from throwing in the towel.

Also though in this article I speak from the online business perspective, this discussion is valid for any other industry

And by no means am I condemning anyone. If having a business is really eating at your mental health, by all means, consider stepping away temporarily first to recalibrate, and take a genuine look at what exactly is giving you anxieties.

Is this really what you were meant to be doing? Or did you start your business for the sole purpose of making money? In a recent podcast episode, I shared that you cannot start a business for only monetary reasons and expect to be fulfilled by it. This is why a temporary break can first help you identify the why.

Many aspiring coaches & course creators flood the industry after drinking the Kool-Aid of the laptop lifestyle, on the beach, and working 4 hours a week. They then get hit with a torrential wave on their imagined, proverbial, tropical beach.

Getting clients seems like an ever-ending episode of Tom and Jerry, with them being cast as Tom and clients as Jerry. We all know how that ended up all the time, don't we?

And recently while having a catch-up session with a previous client, she asked me an interesting question

?"What made you stay when you felt the chips were down?"

And when we say the chips were down, it means nothing seemed to work.

?I had pivoted from offering copywriting, course designing, and funnel building done for you services, to pursuing what felt more in alignment with me which was teaching and coaching.

But I was faced with a bitter reality. No clients, even when the prices were heavily discounted ( In retrospect, this was also the reason for my predicament as my rates didn't evoke trust)

In my podcast episode on building a 6 figures coaching business, I shared the story of a girl with deeply rooted issues of self-worth and of a young woman who had to do a lot of work on her mindset to create a different reality for herself

When my client asked me this question, It took me back to a conversation I had with my Dad a while ago when I started out online.

The memory he shared with me I had completely forgotten

One summer holiday, out of sheer boredom, I rallied the boys and girls from my neighborhood, and I sold them a paper we were going to create on our perspective of being teenagers in Africa

?I had just finished reading a book, this would be my first foray into a novel, after primarily reading comics and colored image books, and you probably would know the book " Anne of Green Gables"

Anne the orphan, was bright with an imagination that could create an entire world. We could say that the girl in those pages gave me the writer's bug.

As a young girl, books were my happy place.

I still remember asking my Dad to take me to St Paul's library IN Lemba, Kinshasa.

My eyes glazed with happiness at the sight of the lines of books and the smell of the paper

I probably wished my Dad was a millionaire then so he could buy the entire library

But let's get back into our story for the day, this story ties in beautifully with my point as to why you should not quit on your business

After we all wrote our articles, I started a campaign to get our parents to get this published. And when I say I was relentless, I mean exactly that. I hounded my Dad, day in and day out. Morning and night.

Did you submit the articles? Was the first question he got when he got back from work

Will you submit it today? Was my request every morning before he left for work

?One day he asked where the heck he was to get it published. I volunteered that he should approach UNESCO in Kinshasa.

I think for peace to reign, and because he saw what it meant to me, he submitted it to UNESCO

In hindsight, I don't even know how he achieved that. But in my young girl's eyes, he knew everyone there was to know in the world.

I was happy and forgot about it. Mission. Accomplished, and I went on with my summer. Months later, our articles would get published in a magazine for UNESCO. We were ecstatic!!! A summer project that saw the light!

Now, there are numerous other Campaigns I would come up with, but today isn't the day to regal you with it.

But here is my point. That young girl pursued her goal with single-mindedness

The NOs I got rolled off my mind. It was as if it was a minor setback. In my head, it was we try again tomorrow

That is how I held on when I was in the thick of it

?Mindset affects everything—from the business and investment decisions you make to your stress levels and overall happiness and fulfillment. Life isn't about how you perform when things are going well. It's more about how you perform when things are bad.

It's important to learn how to protect your internal sanctuary. Expecting things to come right exactly when we want them and at our convenience is delusional and spells entitlement.

The reason why so many quit is because the business, the world, isn't operating at their level of convenience and comfort

This was supposed to be pure ease and joy.

The feedback they are receiving from the market is something they do not want to hear. Instead of approaching the problems with the energy of trying to solve them as you would piece together a puzzle, it's "I give up because it's not doing what I want it to"

?If you create a business with instant gratification as the goal, then I promise you that you won't stay around for a long time.

Entrepreneurship is about playing the long game. Because things are going to go super well, and there will be days when you will be putting out fires left, right, and center.

And when things go wrong, which they will, you need to have the fortitude to pull through unfazed

Anyone can watch a motivational YouTube video, feel good, and work hard for a day or a week, but what often happens is that people drift back into their normal routine, only to feel as though they’ve made no progress at all. The difference between those people that engineer entrepreneurship success in the long run and the people who quit in the middle of the race is mindset, perspective, and belief

Don’t allow yourself to fall into the infinite cycle where so many entrepreneurs find themselves— ?where they feel as though they’re making progress because things are going as planned and it feels good, but throw their toys out when they feel some resistance

?You must commit

Starting a business is a marriage between your vision and you. You got to stop making having an out an option.

When you get married to your partner, you can't be throwing around the D-word every time you have a disagreement.

And even when things are difficult, you know that you are committed to finding a resolution. Those are the marriages that survive a lifetime, and the same principles apply to entrepreneurship.

So, if you have been thinking of quitting before you do, I want to ask you to take the time and do some introspection.

Ask yourself, how and why did you start your business? You were not born to just make money and pay bills. What is the mission behind your business?

Is this really what calls to your soul? Are you walking in the vision and purpose of your life??

What is the real reason there is resistance? Could it mean that you need to take a look at your value proposition, tweak your offer, and rework your marketing message and strategy?

You will need to be honest with yourself when you answer these because there lies the key to unlocking the true reason for your dissatisfaction.??

Now, if you are thinking, "Tanya I may need a partner to help me stay the course of building this business", and you recognize the role of a coach to assist you in creating a vision of victory, & assist you to fulfill your potential in order to turn that vision into a reality.

As your coaching partner, we train you to develop a strategic plan to enhance your skills so you can leverage your competitive advantage. This is why we delve deeply into mindset, business principles,& strategies when we work together because we understand how all 3 will help you

I encourage & hold you accountable for your performance, so you can stay the course of your vision. Then I invite you to book a consultation here, so we can discuss how we may best support you.