Starting a business is a true labor of love. Some might even argue that becoming an entrepreneur requires a tiny dash of insanity. While it can look positively dreamy from the outside, there’s a lot that goes into starting, building, managing and growing a small business. I’m sure the story varies for most everybody, but for me, I wanted to start a business so I could design my work life. I wanted to have a say in my day-to-day obligations, and I certainly wanted to do more of what makes me happy on a regular basis.

I didn’t go in totally naive. I understood that you have to take the bad with the good. I knew I’d have to face hard days, difficult clients, and boring admin. So I went in armed with a plan to make joy a permanent fixture in my day-to-day business operations.

How to build a joyful business

Know what you want.

Now, this can be a pretty broad statement. To be honest, when I started my first company–my partner and I weren’t 100% clear on what exactly we were going to do. And sometimes I think it’s vitally important to start before you have all of that figured out. You learn a lot from the doing–and we certainly did. And that was the best thing for our company.

But what you can do is start narrowing in on what you want your days to look like. Answer some important questions that will help you design the kind of business you want to run. What kinds of clients do you want to work with? Where do you want to spend your days? Are you at a computer? Are you traveling around for meetings? Are you standing on a stage? You don’t have to pick just one direction, either. The best part of having your own business is you get to decide all the different things you want to do. But in order to do them, you have to know what they are first.

Know your why.

I believe this step is more important than even knowing what it is you want to do. Your why will be the driving force behind everything. And in fact, I’ve seen businesses crash and burn that had everything else figured out to a T, but they didn’t know their why. Your why is what separates you from the rest. It’s the reason people hire you or your company over another. Your why is what causes you to eagerly jump out of bed each day.

Honestly, there are going to be a lot of days where the work just looks like work. Your todo list is going to be a mile long, someone’s going to mess up, and you’ll be on the receiving end of some less-than-stellar emails. But if you keep your why at the forefront of your mind, and at the forefront of your business, it can will be total game changer.

Know what you don’t want.

There are a few ways to narrow in on exactly what you don’t want. And truthfully, you’ll probably find these things out by blending a perfect cocktail of the following:

• Educating yourself. I learned a lot about what I did and didn’t want by listening to podcasts about small businesses. I practically used Being Boss as a mentor when I was first getting started. I didn’t know anything about business ownership back then. So I wouldn’t have had a clue what to expect when it came to the tough stuff. Learning from their mistakes and experiences saved me a lot of time and a lot of headaches.
• Doing the wrong things. Sadly, one of the most valuable ways to learn what you don’t want is to, well, just do the things. Test the waters. While this way is a lot less pleasant, it’s supremely powerful. I’ve learned a lot about the kinds of services I want to offer, the kinds of clients I want to work with, and the way in which I like to work from working with the wrong people in the wrong way.

Share your expertise.

Have you ever watched a person’s face as they’re talking about their expertise? I swear to you it’s the best physical representation of joy. I’m in a networking group of women here in Charlotte, and every Wednesday I get to watch as one of them shares all about what it is that they do. And their faces display pure bliss. Sharing all about what you do, why you do it, and why it’s important doesn’t only attract and educate your clients, it keeps that passion at the forefront of your business.

It’s really, really easy to get bogged down by the day-to-day stuff. It’s easy to become doubtful in your abilities or expertise. But when you are constantly sharing that with people, it can be so reaffirming. I work with clients to help them share their expertise through blog content. Either they’re not strong writers themselves or they just don’t have the time. But always, always they are a wealth of important knowledge. We do this by having monthly meetings where they thought-download their expertise to me in a really organic conversation. I wish I could bottle up the energy from those meetings. The client is often radiating passion, and I am just soaking it up. Bathing in your passion is a really powerful way to keep joy in your business.

Set up boundaries.

Now that you know what you want and what you don’t want, you actually need to do something with that information. In fact, if you don’t do something with all of that information, it’s really easy to end up resenting the very business you’ve worked so hard to build. Laying a foundation that’s protected by boundaries is so important, but undeniably difficult.

You need to have a firm grasp on your process and you need to be able to communicate that clearly to your clients in a way that makes them feel confident in their choice. But here’s the thing, people aren’t always going to want to respect you or the way you work. So while having the boundaries is important, what’s even more important is your ability to implement and defend them.

I believe that if you’re going to put in the effort to build a business, it should only be for joy. Sure, you’re going to experience a myriad of emotions throughout your general experience, but if joy isn’t at its core, you’re doing something wrong. I know I left the traditional workforce in an attempt to leave that miserable-every-day feeling. And i”m sure I’m not the only one. We’re all so obsessed with the hustle and success, that we forget to allow ourselves to enjoy it. And we most certainly forget that we’re allowed to design joyful businesses.

If you need a little help sharing your expertise or implementing the proper boundaries to build your own joyful business, get in touch. I’d love to help you find joy in your business.