2020 takes a toll on small businesses, but creates a stir among creatives and rising entrepreneurs
This year has taken a toll on many businesses. With Coronavirus looming at every turn and the numbers of those infected rising daily, many companies have had to search for other means of survival in a declining economy.
"The pandemic has birthed creatives and entrepreneurs."
Restaurants, movie theatres, and most corporate companies restricted their employees to work-from-home social distancing and some furloughed their staff and forced them into unemployment.
Birthing Creatives and Entrepreneurs
During this pandemic, many stay-at-home mothers had no choice but to get creative and pursue another stream of income through entrepreneurship. Perhaps you were already a small business entrepreneur and your business has suffered greatly during this pandemic. If your small business is suffering and you were not able to get financial relief through government grants - you are not alone. The year 2020 has taken a toll on us all.
Here is an exercise to help you deal with stress and worry in your business. This will help you keep what’s most important in perspective.
A Stress & Worry Free Exercise
Take a blank piece of paper or open a new document file and write down everything that is causing you stress or worry right now. Don’t stop writing until you’ve captured as many things as you can possibly think of. You may fill up the page, but that’s okay. Get it out of your head and put it down on paper.
Now go back through the list and put a line through everything that can be ignored, at least for now. Yes, cross it off. Before you leave something on the list, make certain that it is something that has to be dealt with now, and has to be dealt with by you. Ask yourself, “What would happen if I ignored this particular stressor for the time being?” There is a very good chance that the answer is either “Nothing” or “It might just go away” or “Someone else will deal with it who is just as able to do so as I am.”
Questions to Ask Yourself
For those things that are left on your list, answer the following questions:
1. What is this stressor/setback TEACHING YOU that you could someday teach someone else and/or that is helpful to your development as a leader of this business?
2. What is this setback MAKING POSSIBLE FOR YOU NOW? What opportunities is it creating? For example:
3. If you lost a customer, how could you take the resources—time, money, and personnel—that would have gone toward serving this customer and put those toward something else that will help your business?
4. If a valuable employee quit, what growth opportunities might this provide for another employee who would like to “step up” into that employee’s role? What weakness did the departed employee have that a new employee whom you hire into the role might not? Once you have completed this exercise, you will find that you have freed up the energy you would have spent worrying about these stressors so you can do something more productive with it.
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