By Aimee Woodley

Do you love your business? As a small business owner, your relationship with your business can go through ups and downs, just like a real-life romance.

There are many reasons why we took the plunge into owning our own business. Entrepreneurship means managing your own income, controlling your schedule, and being your own boss. And while we enjoy these benefits of business ownership, we also wrestle with a fair amount of stress. Running a business requires self-motivation and a healthy level of risk. When you are the boss and the only employee, you know that if you don’t get the job done, no one else will. It’s easy to allow that constant pressure to rob you of your first love for what you started. So how can you work through the tough times to make sure you stay in love with your business?

An excellent first step is to remember why you started your own business in the first place.

What was the driving passion that made you want to take that big leap to go out on your own? Do you still have that passion for what you began? If not, why? Think about ways that you might be able to refocus your business to bring back that spark; or ways to center it differently around what you care about now.

Let’s say you are totally and absolutely still passionate about the core of your business, but some things just drive you crazy. For a lot of small business owners, it’s the mundane, everyday tasks that they loathe- stuff like paperwork, inventory, and accounting. Why not outsource these tasks? Focusing on your strengths doesn’t make you any less of an impressive business owner. Maybe even consider hiring an assistant to answer the phone and do some filing a few days a week. Lifting some of these less-favorable tasks off your plate may free you up to dig deeper into the areas that excite you more.

Already liking every single bit of your business but going through a time of less zest for it? Consider giving back.

Go out into the community and see how you and your business can serve the people around you. Sponsor a little league team or offer your parking lot for car washes. You could go even farther. If your business addresses life skills or other essential knowledge, see if local schools or organizations might be interested in having you come to speak to their members. Loving your community can be the key to reigniting the spark that leads you back to loving your business.