There are days when I sit down at my desk, I look at my workload, and I just want to quit early and go do something else because I don’t feel inspired right now.

When creativity is flowing, it is so easy for me to work. I feel like my heart and soul and mind are all working together, and that I’m accessing a part of myself that makes me Creative and Awesome and Unstoppable. I love that feeling!

But when the flow stops, whether it’s because I’m tired, or I’m having an off day, or for a reason I haven’t figured out yet, it’s SO hard to get going on anything. It took me a long time to recognize when this was happening, and to learn to work with myself to get things done on days when it feels like the only thing I really want to do is take a nap.

Accept what you are feeling right now.

It’s okay to feel this way. It’s not your fault that your brain isn’t in constant Awesome Mode.

This lack of inspiration, the feeling that you’re stuck or that your creative well is dry, happens to all of us.

Would you expect anyone else you care about to be perfect all the time? Of course not! (Although if you do, that’s a whole separate kind of problem.) Why would you expect yourself to be perfect all the time?

Accept what you are feeling, accept how you are feeling, and tell yourself it’s okay. This would be a good time to take a few deep breaths.

You can still have a successful day, but it will be a lot harder if you’re standing over your own shoulder making sarcastic remarks the whole time.

Let go of all your distractions.

Turn off your music, turn off the television, and log out of chat. Shut down your email for now. Close the door or draw your curtains.

You need to send a signal to your subconscious that you’re serious about this, and that you are willing to focus.

Now is not the time for multi-tasking.

Make a list.

Before you start, take a few minutes and write down all the steps you need to take to accomplish the work you need to do. Break it down into small, doable tasks.

Don’t make this kind of list:

1. Write five emails
2. Create new widget
3. Comment on twelve blogs

Do make this kind of list:

1. Email Sally about her favorite widget
2. Email Bib about great new widget research
3. Brainstorm widget ideas

The key to a good list is how specific it is. This can, obviously, lead to some ridiculously long lists.

A good rule of thumb to use for lists is that they should be for either a specific thing or a specific time frame. Since you are sitting down right now to work on something, just list the things you mean to do right now.

Start doing it.

Pick something off your list and just start working. No excuses, no but-I-don’t-feel-like-it attitude. You’ve worked through how you are feeling, and you’ve accepted that you aren’t perfect. Your distractions are gone and you have a working list of things you can do.

So DO IT.

Is it really that simple?

Yes, it really is!

And when you’re done, don’t forget to reward yourself with something nice, like getting up and walking away for the rest of the day, or maybe that nap. You earned it.

I don’t pretend to know a lot about how to “do business,” but like most people, I have heard the phrase it’s not personal, it’s just business more than once.

Being a sensitive, creative, energetic, and loyal type of person, I have never really understood how to separate what is business from what is personal. Not only that, but if those things SHOULD be separated, how do you separate them?

I’m a very personal businessperson

I have been doing my best to learn marketing and generally good business practices from the likes of Naomi Dunford and Dave Navarro, with great results so far (or at least I think so!). The more I learn from them about how to approach people, how to value relationships, and how to create mutually beneficial partnerships, the more I understand just how personal business really is.

How not to get your feelings (too) hurt

If you are the kind of person who takes business very personally, that means that your failures in business – just like failures in life – are going to seriously bring you down. You are going to feel sad. You might even dive into a pan of brownies for a while (if that’s your thing). So how do you get past this kind of connection to your work? How do you cope if you take business personally?

Short answer: you don’t get past it.

Long answer: you don’t get past it, but you can shape your way of communicating and understanding so that it doesn’t actively hurt your feelings when things don’t work out, when there’s a misunderstanding, or when personalities or expectations just don’t mesh.

That sounds an awful lot like RELATIONSHIP ADVICE to me!

That’s because it is relationship advice – because every business relationship, just like every personal relationship, is based on people. Not on faceless entities, not on two or three websites hitting it off and becoming internet BFFs.

Business is personal because it’s about people. It’s about connections. It’s about relationships.

So go ahead – be vulnerable. Take that risk. Your business will be better for it.