Hopefully you are enjoying being in business. Hopefully the sun is shining and you are making hay.  

In which case this article may not relate to you, but it is not uncommon for small business owners to experience stress, upset and get worn down.

As Michael Gerber pointed out so elegantly in the E-Myth, a business is often started in a moment of high excitement and optimism only for that optimism to dissipate and be replaced by a sort of gruelling self sacrifice where the business owner is too pig headed to admit defeat or even sometimes too ashamed to admit there is a problem.

We assert at Co- that this capacity for suffering is something that holds back small business owners more than anything. Why? Because it prolongs unproductive situations and behaviour.

It is also in direct opposition to the mindset that allows a business owner to make money. Business is an investment and investment is about putting something in with a more than reasonable chance of seeing a reward. Nobody minds hard work, dealing with things that go wrong and even mind numbing drudge tasks as long as the reward at the end remains clearly in sight. Suffering only creeps in once that reward no longer looks like happening, when in your heart you know the pay out is not coming.

The point is that the business mindset says that once there is no reward in sight, you cut your losses. You cut your losses and start looking for a new way you can get a reward. Why? Because you are not in it for anything else but the pay-off.

With this in mind we invite anyone presently suffering in their business, whether that suffering is great or small, to draw a line in the sand and end suffering. As simple as that. No more suffering. I am either getting something out of this or I am ditching it and finding something new where I will.

That something new, maybe a whole new business, or it could be a new way to do the business you are in.

It is important not to discount the idea of ditching your business altogether because some markets are simply not rewarding to be in. Hopefully though, there is a way to take what you have and turn it into something that makes money.

When you start to have this attitude something really great happens, which is that you start to make positive and important changes to your business. Putting your fulfilment at the top of the list ensures that you engage in your most important function as a small business owner - that of chief executive, shaping and building a profitable business. Often this starts with a plan but continues with executing that plan.

You become re-engaged and re-inspired because you can see the reward. As time goes on your learn to shorten the time delay between starting to suffer and refocusing your plan on a reward and again this has a positive effect on your business.

But the most important thing of all is to start with the line in the sand. The End of Suffering. Today. Now!