I love living in the Central Valley of California!
I love the beautiful & moderate weather that we experience throughout the year. I love the size of my city and that I can get anywhere I need to in 15 minutes or less – with no traffic. I love the trees, foliage & flowers that grace the residential neighborhood I live in. I love the cool and comfortable evenings taking walks with my husband after enjoying a delicious date night dinner. I love that I can hop in the car with the kids and be at the beach enjoying the sand & surf or in the mountains camping or snow skiing in a short two hour drive. I love my church that I have attended faithfully for almost 25 years. I love the dear friends that I have made here. I love my home. I love the beautiful downtown waterfront. I love that I can see Starbucks from my front yard! I could go on & on about the things I love about living in Stockton. But even with all the things I love, I have to tell you that for 6 weeks every year – I am miserable! I sometimes even find myself loathing it! You see by living in Stockton, California I can’t escape from the allergies that seem to affect many of our residents. Before coming here as a college freshman I never had ANY allergies. Then I experienced my first spring in the Central Valley and now I find myself every year sneezing, gagging, itching, and with watery eyes, a runny nose & a scratchy throat. The only thing that gets me through is a daily dose (or two) of medicine and the knowledge that “this too shall pass.”
Recently as I was going through another box of kleenex I thought – “this is just how it is with our home based businesses”. We all love them – the products, the mission, the friends we’ve made, the income opportunity, the trips, the prizes, the recognition, the tax write offs, the conventions. We could all come up with a long list of things that we love about our businesses. And yet often, just like the winds of spring blow in pollens, peat dust & allergens that make me miserable, we get “stuck” on the things that make us miserable about our businesses. We find ourselves dwelling on the things that are hard or the aspects of our business that we flat out don’t like. We sometimes even think that because these aspects of business that we should just pack up & move on!
How crazy is that? Yet even as I type this many of you are considering “throwing in the towel” because…..
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you don’t like making phone calls
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you are uncomfortable with sales or recruiting
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you can’t stand doing the paperwork
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you are sick of cancellations
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you have a fear of rejection or coming across as being pushy
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or put your own frustration in here______________________
Wouldn’t it truly be crazy for me to pack up my family & move from the place we call home & the people we have grown to love simply because of six short weeks? Yes…it would! You know why? Because no matter where I went in the world there would be things I disliked, things that were uncomfortable, things that were not “just right” and things that made me miserable.
And the same is true with your business. It would be crazy for you to quit something that you love simply because of a few hardships, obstacles or discouragements. No matter what you do in life, there will be things that cause you grief.
The better answer is:
1. List all the things you love about your business or life, review it often and be thankful for the things it has blessed you with. (just writing here all the things that love about the place I live has helped me get through each sneeze)
2. Take your medicine every day – what is the antidote to your personal business allergy? The best medicine for most business “allergies” is a healthy dose of positive thinking. Are you filling your heart & mind with positive, uplifting & encouraging things? Are you surrounding yourselves with positive, uplifting & encouraging people? I challenge you to spend 30 minutes everyday reading a motivational book or listening to a CD. I can guarantee it will do more to bolster your immune system to business “allergies” than any single other thing you can do.
3. Remember that “this too shall pass”. Things never seem as bad once we have gotten through them. In fact, I know that by mid June I will hardly even remember how miserable I am today. What you are struggling with right now in your business, the things that are making you miserable will eventually pass. You will survive them if only you don’t quit. You will come up with great ways to overcome obstacles, or you will learn to deal with the hardships or you will simply hang in there (perhaps even suffering a bit) until you make it through the trials & move on to the triumphs!
And as we say after each sneeze – “God bless you” – every step of the way.
Inspire Ministries 
Beth –
we have never met, but as you know in this business (CM) you always manage to find someone who says something that makes you think they were talking directly to you when they said it or wrote it. The timing was perfect, thanks for the motivation this morning to search my heart for some positive thinking. Have a good day.
Kelli
Hi Beth,
I saw you speak at a CM Detroit Regional Convention several years ago and have always enjoyed your Monday Motivations. I am a remote consultant in the UP of Michigan and almost deactivated last summer. I will celebrate my 10 year anniversary as a CM consultant this July. I’m glad I didn’t give up. Thanks for a little more motivation to keep going…in my business as well as through allergy season. I live at the Straits of Mackinac where Lake Michigan & Lake Huron come together. It is beautiful, but as you say, there are always those times when you are miserable, but you get through it.
Thanks!
Beth,
Thank you so much for sharing your heart and your love with all of us… this was a GREAT encouragement to me today in my CM business as I sit here after oral surgery going through email addresses, trying to get updated on customer contacts and service… I will celebrate 12 years in June – and I needed this little boost today! 🙂