How To Stay Positive About Your Business (Even When You’re Down) | 082

Do you sometimes feel a bit down about your business?

Me too.

Running a business can feel hard, so how can you remain positive

even when you're feeling down?

Well, I've got a few tips to help you in this episode of Architecture

Business Club, the weekly podcast for small firm founders who want to build

their dream business in architecture and enjoyable freedom, flexibility,

and fulfillment in what they do.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

Having spent over 20 years working in architecture, I know how hard it can

be to explain your services so people truly understand and value what you do.

Many firms struggle with this, but by sharing your stories on podcasts,

you can become the trusted voice in your market, grow your brand,

and attract much better clients.

We can help you with everything from podcast strategy and launch

production and management, podcast hosting and guesting through to

promoting and growing your show.

If you'd like to discover how podcasting could benefit your business, click the

link in the show notes to book a no obligation chat about working with me.

Or if you're interested in being a guest on this show, email, John.

That's JO n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

Now, let's explore how you can stay positive.

I.

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me today.

Today I'm gonna be talking about how to stay positive about your business,

even when you might be feeling down.

So if you feel down about your business sometimes that's okay.

It is totally normal.

If entrepreneurship was easy, everyone would be doing it right?

So don't sweat it.

If you've landed on hard times, as Yas would say, the only way is up.

Sorry, I couldn't resist that cheesy gag that chances are most

businesses will go through a difficult season or two at some point if you

stay in business for long enough.

I certainly have absolutely experienced this many, many times.

The number of times that I've thought about.

Oh, why am I doing, why do I do what I do?

You know, maybe I should just go and get a job.

It, it's completely normal to feel that way, so don't beat yourself up about it.

And usually that feeling doesn't last forever.

And it's often a case of just looking at things from a

different perspective, active.

Maybe you're feeling like other people are just doing it better than you,

but I would ask you to consider what are you comparing your business to,

or who are you comparing yourself to?

Despite all of the success stories that you might see or hear online,

lots of other businesses and business owners struggle too.

But most will only share the success stories online, making it look like that.

Absolutely killing it.

This may just not be the case.

And remember, like you could be comparing.

Apples and pears, like you could be on your fifth step and somebody else could

be on their 50th, their 500th or their 5000th step on their business journey.

And they may have made dozens of mistakes and had lots of setbacks

along the way to get to that point.

So you are not alone.

Whatever it is that you're going through.

Someone else is going through the same thing as you or others will have faced

and overcome whatever the current challenges that you're facing and if

they've overcome it, well, you could overcome that challenge too, right?

I.

I attended a in-person event recently called Create A Day Down

in Pool in Dorsett, and there was a number of talks at this event.

One of them was from a previous guest on the show, Mark Franklin and.

When I came to plan out this episode, Mark's talk stuck out in my mind.

Mark was talking about the different versions of the stories we tell ourselves.

That's the factual version and the emotional version and

feelings are not always reliable.

So I would ask you, which version of the story are you listening to?

The factual version of what actually has happened or is happening to you or your

business right now, or the emotional version based on how you are feeling and

the stories that you're telling yourself.

So Mark, he talked about this recently at that event, and he shared a

personal experience that at the time for him he'd seen as a huge failure

when it really was a massive success.

And it just struck me that

that point of view that you have, that the stories that we, we tell

ourselves, they're not always true.

You can get more mindset tips from Mark on episode 73 where

Mark talked about overcoming the four fears of business ownership.

If you've not listened to that yet, go ahead and check it out.

Another question I have for you to consider is, do you know exactly

what it is that's making you feel down about your business?

Are you too busy?

Are you wearing too many hats?

Do you not have enough clients?

Maybe it's cashflow that's worrying you.

The good news is that once you know there is usually something

that you can do about it.

Help is usually far closer at hand than you realize.

So focus on the things that you can actually do to overcome the problem,

which segues nicely onto a useful coaching exercise that business coach

Mike Cole showed me some time ago.

Mike was also a, a previous guest on the show a little while back.

Um, Mike.

Taught me about the, the circle of control.

So the circle of controls, it's a coaching exercise.

Uh, if you, a lot of business coaches will use this with their clients, and

there's three different sections to this.

So there's the circle of concern.

So these are the things that you can't control.

Things like the weather, people's health, war, politics, climate change.

Violence, that sort of thing.

And you've got the circle of influence.

So these are things that you can influence.

So these might be your, your family, work, relationships,

friendships, people that you know.

I. And then you've got the circle of control.

So these are the things that you personally can actually control.

So this could be things like your self care practices, your personal goals,

your boundaries, priorities, what food you eat, what books you read,

what media you, you consume, how you respond to others, your thoughts.

Many people spend far too much time worrying about the things that are outside

of their control rather than focusing on the things that are within our control.

So, quick worked.

Example, let's say you don't have enough clients, maybe money's tight and you're

getting in a bit of a tailspin about it.

You can't control the behavior of prospective clients who don't yet know

you, who haven't yet got in touch.

So those would be in your circle of concern.

You can influence those that do get in touch to work with you

by improving your offers or your sales and onboarding processes.

So that would fall into the circle of influence.

You get to decide what activities you work on.

So for example, putting together a new offer.

Reaching out to warm leads or maybe you've put a fee proposal together for

some projects and you haven't heard back, you could contact those people.

Those things are all within your circle of control and can help you

solve that problem of cash flow and not having enough clients.

You could ask friends, family connections if they know anyone

who might need your help.

So these are all things that are within.

Your control to be able to do something about.

As I mentioned, you can listen to Mike Cole talking on episode 16

of the show where we talked about embracing your neurodivergent quirks.

One of my go-to hacks when I'm feeling outta sorts is to change my environment.

Uh, a change is as good as a rest or so they say.

So why not try working from a local coffee shop or coworking space?

If you have a swanky hotel near where you live, they'll often have a lobby or

bar that non-residents can still use.

So for the price of a coffee or a pot of tea, you could be working on

your business In luxury surroundings.

Many even have free wifi, so imagine how much better you'd feel about

your business then, or get outdoors.

Get out of the office or the home office, go for a walk, uh, in the Woodlands.

One of the things I like to do is kayaking.

Like these things always make me feel better, like however bad I'm

feeling about things that if I go and do those things, that will

really pep me up and it really works.

So give it a try.

And the other thing I find is that.

Some of my best ideas happen when I have the time and space to think.

So going for that woodland walk or kayaking, that sort of thing.

It can help you sort through all of the stuff that's in your head.

So it, it's not, it's not a waste of time, like particularly if you are

feeling overwhelmed with work, if that's the thing that's getting you down.

I don't believe that just cramming more hours in is the answer.

So sometimes just taking a break and having some space from it can help

you see things much differently.

The other thing that I think helps if I'm feeling down with

business is meeting people.

So this could be through networking, could be co-working, could

be through other communities.

Now I am definitely not an extrovert, but I do start to feel a bit weird if I spend

too much time in the home office if I don't spend enough time with other people.

Do you feel that way too sometimes?

It's quite common, especially if you're a home worker or a hybrid

worker, uh, working from home.

It's got lots of advantages, but you do miss out on those water cooler

moments catching up with colleagues.

So perhaps a local networking event that you could attend if you were

just a little bit sick in your mouth when I suggested going networking.

Honestly, networking isn't as bad as you think.

You might even enjoy it.

You might even love it.

I talked more about the importance of networking in episode 37,

so go and check that out.

Coworking.

That was another one of the things that I mentioned.

Great way to go meet people.

There's co-working offices all over the place.

You take something to work on.

If it's a pop-up co-working event, you might just be meeting for an hour or two,

either online or even better in person.

But there are co-working offices where you can rent a desk for a day.

You can go and take some work with you, take your laptop, take

your notepad, and you can get some work done on your business.

And you can also get to hang out with some real people too.

So that's a great thing to do.

I love to do that sometimes.

The other thing that I mentioned was, uh, communities.

So why not join a, join a group, be part of something bigger?

This could be a community group, it could be online, but ideally

in person I think is best.

This could be work related or not work related.

Could be that you start attending some events that are run by your

professional body, like RIBA or CIAT, or it could be an independent

business community like Architecture business club, or being freelance.

I talked more about the power of community back in episode 66, so if

that sounds appealing to you, go and check that out or just talk to somebody.

Start with your friends, family, or.

Past and present work, colleagues wouldn't be embarrassed about it.

A problem shared is a problem halved, right?

Sometimes.

All you might need is a sounding board, somebody to talk to, to say it out loud.

The solutions can come to you without even having any input from other

people just by saying it out loud.

And if you'd rather not talk about your business struggles with them, then try

and find somebody independent to talk to.

Take a look at your existing network.

I bet there are people in there who'd be happy to meet you for a coffee

or a Zoom to talk things through.

If you are a member of a professional institute, they can usually give advice

and support on certain matters, as can local business growth hubs that often

offer free business advice and mentoring.

And if it's something that you'd rather not discuss with anybody

right now, then why not try something like bullet journaling?

I've been bullet journaling for, oh, maybe about 10 months now, and I

find it such a useful exercise to do.

It's a great way to get thoughts out of your head and to start, make sense of.

What you've been thinking, you could really start to see some patterns

once you start putting it in a notepad that you can then refer back to.

I suggest going and checking out Ryder Carroll's YouTube channel.

Ryder is the the creator of the bullet journaling concept.

Go and check that out.

There's some great content on that so you can learn more about that.

And if you don't like writing, you could try recording voice notes on your phone.

Maybe when nobody's looking, they might think you're a

little bit strange otherwise.

Uh, just one or two Last things I wanted to share was regarding to-do lists.

Now sometimes when you've got an overwhelming amount of things to

do and you've got a huge to-do list, you can start to feel down.

You really can, you look at the to-do list and it is never ending

and it's so easy to focus on all of the things that haven't been done.

So why not consider keeping a done list?

So have a list that you keep or maybe you keep track of throughout the day.

If you've bullet journal, you can, you can keep a track of the

things that you get done in there.

This is a separate list.

This is a list of the things that you did that day.

So you can look back and you can see all of the things that you got done.

Focus on those things rather than the things that you didn't manage to get done.

You will never, ever get to the end of your to-do list.

It's an ongoing thing in entrepreneurship.

You're never gonna get to the end of that list, so don't beat yourself up about it.

Often we've.

Very unrealistic about how many things we can actually get done in a day.

Yeah, that would be, uh, my suggestion for you.

And just to kind of wrap things up, I would say celebrate your

successes however small I.

So I hope this episode has been helpful for you.

If you've learned something new or it's helped you uncover something

about you or your business, then I'd love to hear from you.

You can email John, that's JO n@architecturebusinessclub.com, or

you can connect with me on LinkedIn via the link in the show notes.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of architecture business club.

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Remember.

Running your architecture business.

Doesn't have to be hard and you don't need to do it alone.

This is architecture business club.