You’ve struggled for years to get your small business off the ground. You planned, marketed, sold, schmoozed. You spent long hours with little rest. Then suddenly it comes: Success!

Do you have a PLAN for success?

Success brings with it another set of problems. Too much paperwork, too many client wanting products and services quickly, too many prospective clients tugging at your sleeves. Never enough time to sit back and create a strategy or direction for the future. But as your business grows and you become successful, if you don’t have a strategy for how to manage success, you’ll lose all the momentum you’ve built.

Whether you’re already successful, or moving towards success, here are some tips for managing your success wisely:

1. Celebrate your success. Big or small, each success must be celebrated. It doesn’t matter if you shout out a little “Whoopie!” or if you call your best friend to share the news. Just take time to celebrate each success which will help build the momentum for more success to come.

2. Don’t choke. Choking is an emotional reaction to success. It’s a subconscious sabotaging of your success because you believe at some level you don’t deserve the success. Instead, express gratitude for each small success and admit that the success came because YOU stepped into the arena, not because of luck.

3. Don’t become complacent. Just because you’ve had one small success doesn’t mean you can sit back on your laurels. (The same holds true if you just got that million dollar contract!) Stick to your plan for growth and the dream of business and lifestyle you’ve always wanted. Take time to learn new things about your industry, or learn new business skills that will take you into the future.

4. Learn from your success. Just like we’re all told to learn from our failure, take time out to learn from your successes. What did you do right that got you where you are today? Which pieces of the success brought you the most fulfillment and happiness?

5. Decide if you want to stay at the present level or grow your business further. Once you’ve had a big success it’s time to decide if you’re finally at the level where you’ve always wanted to be, or if there’s still another goal you want to go after. Sometimes we just pile success upon success without realizing that we created the life we wanted 5 years ago and the rest has just been “busy work.”

6. Take stock of the balance between your personal life and your business life. Often success come with a lot of personal sacrifice. Take time now to see where your whole life might be out of balance and make a commitment to have a whole, complete, successful LIFE, not just a successful business.

7. Choose only the real opportunities that come across your desk, and avoid the “good ideas” that won’t help your maintain or grow your business. With a high level of success, the panic that you’ll never have enough tends to recede into the distance. Once this fear subsides, you can take a look at the offers that come to you and decide if they are a “true opportunity” that will take you forward in your business, or just a “good idea” that doesn’t need to be acted upon by you.

8. Share your success lessons with others. Take time to share your story with others so that they can learn from your successes and failures. Give back to the community and to the people who are just getting started as a way to share your wisdom and belief about abundance.

9. Take a look at how your office runs. Is there any process that should change? Is there anything that can be automated? Now is the time to put some energy into the administrative side of your business so that it can continue to run smoothly into the future.

10. Create a new business plan and 5-year goal. What’s next for you and your business? Is it time to grow some more? Move in a different direction? Offer new products and services to diversify your revenue source? Stop selling products and services that are underperforming?

11. Watch out for saboteurs. Some people in your life will not be happy about your success because they feel threatened or jealous of it. Pay attention to how people react to your success and surround yourself with people who are truly happy for you and what you’re creating in your life.

Sometime handling success is harder than handling failure. By taking time to celebrate your success and pay attention to the lessons it offers, success can be more deeply meaningful and fulfilling than you can ever expected.

© 2005 Karyn Greenstreet

Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to create and grow their businesses, stay focused and motivated, and perform at their peak. Visit her website at http://www.PassionForBusiness.com

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