Swim Out of the Business Rip Current

Being in business for yourself can be really tough.

You give your business everything you've got. You work long hours and pour all of your emotions - and maybe even your life savings - into making your dreams come true.

As a budding entrepreneur, you know why you do it. You love the challenge of it all. You can't escape that voice in the back of your mind that keeps telling you, "You can do it. You can do it."

And, when you do it, it's the best feeling in the world.

But, sometimes, it doesn't all go according to plan.

You've got expenses that mount up, and suddenly the bills start coming in faster than the checks. You're constantly worried about living up to the expectations your clients and customers have of you, but they don't live up to you. New ventures don't amount to everything you thought they might be, or projects take painfully long to materialize at a moment when you don't have long to wait.

To put it simply, your business feels like it's getting sucked out to sea by a powerful rip current - and that's one of the scariest feelings in the world when you're trying to stay afloat.

Business rip currents can be very dangerous, especially in challenging economic times like these. And, as we all know, rip currents can get the best of even the most powerful swimmers.

But you're a survivor. So, how do you survive?

It would be great if someone would just throw you a life preserver, but like everything else in your business, it's probably up to you to save yourself.

Let's start off by talking about what you shouldn't do.

You can't just sit there and tread water. If you spend too much time treading water, you'll eventually get too tired to move on and your business will drown.

Likewise, now is not the time to panic. If you panic, you are likely to just frustrate yourself as you swim against the tide, and you'll never make it back to shore.

As everyone knows, the way to escape a rip current is to calmly swim out of it into safer waters.

When it comes to your business, that means several things.

First, stay calm - even if things seem desperate. Take stock of your current situation and try to figure out exactly what's going on. You need to know everything you can about why certain things are working and why other things are not.

Second, make sure you know exactly where you need to go to make your business secure again. If you don't know what direction to swim in, how can you expect to get there?

Finally, take action. Just take a deep breath, put your head down and swim out of the rip.

Sound simple? Well, it is. But it's not always self-evident when you find yourself in trouble.

The good news is that you can do it. You can totally do it. All you have to do it try.