The Mental Beatdown - the economy and your business

I've been thinking a lot lately about how people give up on their business when they meet with challenges. As gas prices rise and people worry about the economy, we can tend to think negatively, a "well, why even bother..." type of attitude seeps in to our mentality.

When we give up, we have stopped trying. When we stop trying, other people stop caring - because, why should they care if we don't care?!? If we stop marketing and selling, of course our businesses will fail. We can blame it on the economy all we want, but more of the blame is our own actions -- or rather, our choice of inaction. If you are having trouble getting your own financial needs met, then take action! Learn about how to save money so you will have more money to put toward your business expenses and so you will have less to worry about.

When we get mentally beaten down by negative self talk "of why even bother," we have doomed our business to failure.

I would like to leave you with some words of wisdom from Dr. Heartsill Wilson, who said in some of his speeches that the Great Depression was worsened not by people's inability to buy, but by sales peoples' inability to sell.

"This is the beginning of a new day.
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it--or use it for good, but what
I do today is important, because I am exchanging
a day of my life for it! When tomorrow comes,
this day will be gone forever, leaving in its
place something that I have traded for it.
I want it to be gain, and not loss; good,
and not evil, success, and not failure;
in order that I shall not regret the
price that I have paid for it."

Saving Some for Later

I got some business advice from a very wise person today. You see, I have been spending all of my time lately working for paid writing jobs, which is wonderful. However, I have spend very little of my time since the first of the year working on my blogs. That may not sound like a big deal since I get paid a living wage for my articles,and slave wages for my blogs. However, blogging does eventually pay off, and neglecting to work for them is the same as neglecting to put any money away for the future.

With my writing business paying off well, I have been busy focusing on now, and not my future income. If this continues, in five years, I will still be writing for six to eight hours a day or more, and making the same amount of money. If I cut back just two hours a day on my paid writing, and worked more time on my blogs, then in five years, I will be writing only two or three hours a day, and very possibly making alot more money.

Now I realize that not everyone's business works the same way I do, but in theory, anyone who owns a small business needs to spend a certain amount of time in active work, and also a portion of their time in planning, and marketing to bring in future business.

So here's where you talk back. What do you do, how much time to you spend on making income for now,and how much time do you spend working toward future income?