All small business owners want to be successful. Since childhood, being successful has been ingrained in many of our minds as the great aim of life. This isn’t a bad thing. However, we need to better understand that success varies greatly. Not only in how it is measured, quantified or qualified but also whether it is external or internal. What is an internal success? And can you achieve it? For starters, personal and emotional success, are an integral part of business success. Success is about achieving goals. To do so you should always assess the how and why of your goals first. Plainly put, begin with the end in mind and then begin to understand the person in the mirror who controls the journey to that end. To begin your self-assessment, here are the four secrets that can help you achieve internal success before and during your business.
#1 Be Accountable to Yourself by Setting Goals
It is vital that you set your goals for your personal and professional life, in order to provide a target for you to aim for. List your goals, then write down the steps you are going to take to achieve them. This does not need to be an essay. Simple bullet points with target dates will suffice. Add who or what can help you as a column in your list. Lastly, find an accountability partner, friend, family member, group or coach. If you are looking for a business coach talk to a BVE Success Advisor who can support you.
#2 Remember Your Personal and Professional Lives Are Interdependent
You may think that your career and personal goals are separate. However, they are interdependent. Your career relies on your well-being. Which impacts your family, relationships, health, and happiness. Your happiness influences the quality of your relationships and health all of which will affect your career or business. You are your company culture. If you’re not happy at work or doing a job that you love, it impacts your emotional and physical wellbeing and your personal life.
Focus on one area at a time and the success will bleed into the other areas.
#3 Find Your Passion and Purpose
If your personal and professional lives are interdependent, then to be successful in them you will need to discover your passion and purpose. These internal attributes will require some level of introspection. This may be a great time to meditate. Through introspection, you will feel re-energized to drive determination, enhance your creativity and spark inspiration in your activities. For all the 9 to 5ers thinking about leaving their jobs this will be a great exercise for you. For those with existing businesses, this can help you get realigned personally and professionally.
#4 Don’t Focus on Money. Instead, Focus on Passion and Purpose
I know this may seem like a strange thing to read coming from a business strategist, but it’s true. Chasing money instead of passion and purpose can lead many to find that success is tainted by misery. While people consider amassing wealth to be a sign of success, that should not be your end goal or sole success indicator.
Instead, focus on your mindset, lifestyle, and wellbeing. What will your life look and feel like when you have truly achieved internal success? How will your family, friends, employees, co-workers, strategic partners and others feel? Create a vision board with words, quotes, and pictures showing your life as you want it to be? Our suggestion is to make it an actionable vision board by putting dates of intended achievement on each picture.
When thinking about your professional success consider how you will know you’ve succeeded. What will your position be? How will you be making an impact in your company and in the wider community? What will your working day look like? How will your company change people’s lives? Think about work/life balance and the effect on your family and relationships with friends. How will your new role or business affect your time, health and happiness?
In Conclusion
While success can mean different things to different people, one thing all definitions have in common is that success is measured by achieving goals that make you feel positive emotions and that if measured internally, not by external assets. We believe you will find the greatest success comes when you use your passions to create your goals that will solve real problems and improve the lives that you touch.
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Business Growth Strategist, Clarity Expert, Retired Stockbroker, Speaker, Pitch Judge, VC, Stock Investor, Board Member, Owner of Bold Vision, Co-Founder of Investing Education Academy (IEA), Start-up Consultant, member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.
