Business is a serious matter and taking the leap and running one’s own home business can feel like the most serious thing in the world! However, taking ourselves too seriously as we go about running our home businesses can be a mistake. After all, how rigid and stern can we be when we could be coming across as relaxed and happy to our prospects, customers and clients? I believe that taking ourselves far too seriously is a surefire way to court frustration in our business operations.
Having a healthy ability to laugh at ourselves and some of the mishaps that happen in an ordinary business can be incredibly helpful. After all, I have found that those people who cannot laugh at themselves tend to appear almost cartoonish and invite laughter from other people. Our customers and clients need to know that we are human, flawed and approachable people—even while we are striving to be as steady in our business operations as possible. This does not mean that we need to be clowns and buffoons and constantly laughing at ourselves, but just lightening up and not taking ourselves SO seriously can help.
Every business decision is not life or death and just because we get called away from our work to play with the kids or take a personal phone call it is not the end of the world. We are just ordinary people doing the best we can—we make mistakes, fumble and bumble and may even say or do things that are occasionally embarrassing. So what? Having the ability to let go and not take ourselves or our businesses so very seriously can be healthy and can help us to stay motivated and focused without putting too much pressure on ourselves. Let go, have a laugh, and don’t feel so compelled to present yourself as such a perfect business person—you may find you get more business when you stop taking everything so seriously.