Do You Feel Like You’re Failing As a Business Startup?

By: Danielle Isaac

If you’ve been striving for financial success and it’s just not happening as you planned, I have an important perspective for you.

Chasing after success is something I’ve done my entire adult life, so I totally get it if that’s what you’re after too. When I started my business, I decided success was making the same annual salary I made in corporate (I find that’s a common benchmark for my clients too).

No matter what else was going on in my business, whether it was getting my books written and published or speaking to more audiences or doing work that was more fulfilling, I never felt good about what I had accomplished. It was never good enough.

[Related: Look Within to Conquer the Need for “More”]

Consequently, my self-esteem took a major blow as I was constantly berating myself for failing. I constantly tore myself down, telling myself I wasn’t doing enough, or I wasn’t good enough at being an entrepreneur.

After a couple of years of this (at least), I decided to take a closer look at what I considered success. I realized my definition of success only included how much money I was making. My whole world revolved around this one number I had chosen.

But then I realized, money wasn’t the only reason I started my business. One of the main reasons was so that I could spend more time with my daughter. I also was needing to bring better balance in my life.

As a workaholic, things were way out of whack. I spent little time on taking care of my health and well-being. I made little time for family and friends. I was snappy and irritable to my husband and daughter. And I felt completely exhausted and overwhelmed (let’s not mention the state of my house).

[Related: Five Big Lies That Block Your Progress and How to Conquer Them]

Once I realized this, I began to see how much I had improved in my life while starting my business. I had created MUCH better balance. I was taking way better care of myself, I was spending time with my daughter (even homeschooling her), I was in a much happier mood, I was much more patient with my husband and daughter. I had a wonderful group of friends who were positive and supportive (it goes both ways of course). I had much more energy to do things. My house was getting cleaner and more organized. Everything was progressing. That’s when I realized I was actually on track with aligning my life to what mattered to me most — FINALLY!

In that moment it dawned on me that how we define success is critically important. It’s vital that we take a broader look of what’s important to us and include those things in our definition. Otherwise, we run the risk of narrowly pursuing only one thing at a time or we berate ourselves for failing when we’re really doing a lot of things right.

As far as I’m concerned, any progress in the direction of what’s most important to us is success. Even small steps will add up to big changes. I have seen my clients achieve more in one year than they ever thought possible, and it was done by taking one step at a time.

So, all this is to say that if you’ve been striving for success and it’s not happening as you planned — yay for you! That’s the universe telling you to take another look. Ask yourself, “What matters to me most?”

This is your opportunity to decide what’s most important and align your life to those things. By doing this, you can build your business and life with clear intention and make sure it’s something that allows the balance and flexibility you need to achieve all your important goals.

[Related: Six Tools to Transform the Pressure to Excel]

—

Danielle Isaac is a business startup and mindset coach. She helps people turn their passion into profit by teaching business strategies to launch their businesses with less stress and greater ease. She believes the reason all her clients launch successfully is because she walks each of them step-by-step and customizes her approach for each client’s needs. She also incorporates mindset strategies and life skills to help overwhelmed, stressed out, and exhausted clients create more balance and joy while building their businesses.

Originally published at https://www.ellevatenetwork.com.