Image credit: birdieguy
Starting an online business can be a lonely and frustrating journey. You don’t know where to start, which strategies to follow, feel overwhelmed, couldn’t stay focused, feel embarrassed and way behind the successful marketers. At times you just feel like banging your head against the wall.
If you’re still reading, you have probably decided that building an online business or starting a blog is what you want. But it takes a lot of faith to keep going when things are going rough.
I’d like to dedicate this post to those who are going through a tough time right now. I hope I can offer a little support in your journey, because I’ve been through these periods myself. I think it’s useful to share what I’ve learned during my journey.
6 tips to going through the challenging times in your online business:
1. Relax - I think this is the first thing that you need to do right now. I used to push myself too much. I would set publishing schedules, linkbuilding schedules, etc. to make sure that I achieved something everyday. While there’s nothing wrong with this but I was giving myself too much pressure that I didn’t enjoy what I was doing.
Not enjoying what you do can lead to procrastination and even failure. So you really need to relax and give yourself space to take breaks every now and then. Take some time to do things that make you relax. Like spending some time each day in silence, just sitting there doing and thinking of nothing for 10 minutes, taking some deep breaths for a couple minutes – anything that nourishes your mind and soul.
2. Do not worry - Learning to let go of your worries is key to achieving what you want in life, including your business. It’s terrible to be constantly worrying: that you may fail, or not making any progress, or spending too much money buying courses and still not making enough.
I know it’s easier said than done because worrying stems from fear. And as human we all have fears. But realize this: worrying won’t help you achieve anything in any way. To stop worrying, you have to first acknowledge your worries. Don’t resist every time you find yourself worrying. Then focus on your goal, think about what can help to improve the situation, take action and lastly let go of the outcome.
3. Acknowledge your efforts – Sometimes it’s not only about winning the game, but it’s the effort that counts. Give credit to yourself, realize that you have done your best, although you haven’t seen significant results, yet.
By acknowledging yourself you’re loving yourself. Why is that important for your success? Here’s quote:
“Love yourself first and everything falls into line.”
- Lucille Ball (American radio and motion-picture actress and comedy star, 1911-1989)
4. Acknowledge your fears - This is a big one but once you learn how to acknowledge your fears, there effect on you becomes less intense and eventually fades away.
Like when you’re facing your worries, don’t resist your fears. Accept them. Stop struggling. Don’t try to “conquer” your fears either because it will create resistance.
All you have to do is be aware of your fears, them face them, acknowledge them, accept them, and finally let go of them.
Once you learn how to do that, you start to calm down and those fears don’t bother you that much anymore. You’d find yourself more motivated, productive, and action-oriented.
5. Know your strength and life goal – Building an online business is not about making money. I used to think it was, myself. But if you think that way, you’re not aligning what you do with your life purpose. That will make you struggle or even fail in what you do.
Let me explain what that means. If you agree, we are all unique in our own ways. Therefore we each have our own strengths and gifts. This is not accidental because our specific strengths are designed to achieve our life goals. Making money is not your life goal, because it’s only a means to achieving it.
So it’s extremely important to find out your strengths and life goals. Working at your strengths makes you powerful, and helps you find your competitive edge in your business. If you use your strengths to accomplish you end goal, you’re more likely to succeed. Because you’re working in line with your inborn talent and ultimate goal in life.
You can read this post about knowing your strength.
6. Practice gratitude - Expressing gratitude is a powerful way to boost your energy level and potential. Feel grateful of who you are, your strengths, talents, achievements, and even the challenges you’re facing. Appreciate the people who’ve helped during your online journey. Be thankful for your existing and future customers, visitors or readers.
When you make it a habit to practice gratitude everyday, you’ll notice that there are more things and people to be grateful of. This will shift your frame of mind completely and make a difference in your current situation and your life.
You can keep a journal and write down a list of what you feel grateful of. Or you can just go through them in your mind. Spend 10 to 15 minutes a day to do this every day.
Those are the 6 tips I learn during the course of my online journey. It’s extremely effective for me and I hope it is for you, too. Try them out, or use it one at a time, I’m sure it will make a difference in your life!
Janus
I admit, sometimes I find it hard to come up with a topic that I think is worth writing. I mean, practically every topic, every angle on anything is being written by so many great bloggers.
I have to admit, getting traffic to my sites had been one of the major challenges I faced trying to build an online business. If you are reading this you can probably relate to it.
