A friend of mine fell out of love recently.
Not with a person.
He fell out of love with a place …
The city he had lived in his whole life, and loved with as much dedication as a parent does a child …
He had fallen out of love with London.
For years, he was THE advocate of that city.
“You want culture? Go to London!”
“World’s best restaurants? They’re in London!”
“Live music? Just try and find a city that beats London!”
The size … the diversity … the opportunities.
The chaos. The BUZZ! He loved it ALL.
But then something changed ... For some reason he started to hate it.
There were too many people. Everywhere was so BUSY! And everyone seemed so miserable!
It took too long to get anywhere. It was too expensive. It was just … too exhausting.
But it was HIS city. It was his first love.
“It was just a phase,” he told himself. He’d learn to love it again.
It was a phase that affected him though …
He started refusing invites. He wanted to see his friends, but couldn’t face the busyness, the chaos, the cost that came with it.
And when he did go out, he felt stressed.
The moment he stepped into the underground, his mood would plummet. The second someone jostled him along a busy pavement, his temper would flare.
He felt tired. Moody. Stressed. Short-tempered.
It affected his relationship. His relationships with his friends too…
And, inevitably … it affected his work.
It seemed to be affecting everything around him, his self, and his health.
All because of this crazy city.
He’d fallen out of love with London. And hard!
On a visit to a friend in rural countryside he came to a realisation.
He didn’t HATE London ... he just didn’t want to live there anymore!
He wanted peace now. And space.
He wanted to live somewhere where he knew his neighbours. Where there was no traffic … no noise … no chaos.
He wanted to live in the country.
Better still … he didn’t NEED to live in London any more.
He was self-employed. He handled his own schedule. He could work from anywhere, and just go when he NEEDED to.
So he moved. He moved to Sussex.
He moved to a village, where the local pub always had a table free, and where he could always park outside his house.
Yet he could also still get to London easily.
“Night at the theatre? Sure, the train only takes an hour!”
“Client meeting? No problem!”
“New must-see exhibition? Great! Lets make a day of it!”
And suddenly, just a few short months after he moved … he realised.
He was BACK IN LOVE with London.
He was enjoying all the best bits of London, without the stress he had felt from being there 24/7.
And he also realised … it was never London that was the problem.
It was him.
London hadn’t changed … HE had.
He had needed to find a new balance. And he’d had to leave London to achieve it. And having made that change?
Life was GOOD again …
He was happy, and healthy, and himself again. And he was able to love that city again.
The same happens to most of us with our businesses … at some point or another.
We all start out self-employed because we have a passion.
A LOVE for what we do.
But maybe we haven’t figured out the perfect structure to our business ... Never have enough clients, or a regular enough income to be secure.
Or too many clients and not enough time … and we’re heading fast into burnout.
Maybe it just feels like we’re always running the wrong way on a treadmill … which, let’s face it, is going to make us pretty fed-up, pretty fast.
Or maybe the business has been a great success, but suddenly we’re just not enjoying it anymore.
Something has changed … and suddenly it all feels like a CHORE.
Suddenly we’re begrudging the time we have to spend on it. Or the tasks we have to do.
Either way, what we once loved … now we don’t.
And we’re starting to resent it.
We’ve fallen out of love with our business. But, as with Alex … my mate from London…
It’s not the business that is the problem.
It’s you.
In the nicest way possible, of course. But it’s you…
YOU need to identify the biggest problem.
What is the REASON you don’t love your business any more?
Maybe it’s a big issue. Maybe it will require a big change.
Maybe you’ll need to change your entire strategy ... Or your entire business model.
And maybe you’ll need help figuring that out. Or maybe it will be a small change.
Maybe you’ve realised you just REALLLYYY hate the bookkeeping. Or managing your social media. Or something else, unrelated to what YOU DO BEST.
Something that you can easily outsource …
And ta-da! Problem solved. No more bookkeeping getting you down!
Maybe you’ll need help figuring it all out ... Maybe you can on your own.
But one thing is certain …
If you loved it once … you can love it again.
You just need to find your balance ...