The importance of being interested in what you do

To give you some background, my job currently involves writing about public liability insurance and its application to the small business community, so it's pretty integral to the work I do. With this in mind, I feel qualified to say that if you are not at least a little bit interested in the field that your business operates, then you will at best survive, and more likely simply slowly fail, and do so without getting much enjoyment out of life.

One the common reasons why businesses fail is getting into a particular industry for the wrong reasons and doing something purely for the money. Whilst money is an exceptionally good motivator for many people, there is only so long that you can sustain something that you simply don't care about.

It might have been that you once enjoyed what you do but you have become burnt out, or it might be that you never really liked what you do but saw a good business opportunity and went for it anyway. Regardless, you have two significant options open to you:

1) Quit, sell up and get out

Sometimes executing an exit strategy is a prudent move. There's no shame in cutting your losses and getting out whilst your ahead, or at least not so far behind. This might be the best move if you have utterly lost all motivation for your business and just need to do something different.

It might not always be the best idea, but quitting is always an option. You might be able to find a buyer for your company, but failing that you could initiate winding up proceedings and take it from there.

2) Rediscover what it was that drew you there in the first place

More preferable to outright quitting, ask yourself why you got into your industry in the first place. With myself and the insurance industry, I mostly fell into it, much like an explorer would fall into a deep unexpected abyss, only to discover an interesting subterranean world teeming with interesting flora and fauna to keep himself occupied once he landed. Even though my discovery of the insurance industry was accidental, I can still always trace my way back to something I find interesting.

There should be something that either drew you to your field or kept you involved in it and if you can latch onto that, then you can bring that to the centre of the work that you do.

I'm not even saying that you necessarily need a strong belief, faith and concrete resolve in what you do, but interest and a reason to carry on doing it is essential and almost definitely exists for you if you just look hard enough for it.

3) Keep calm and carry on

You could of course just carry on as you are, miserable and bored with your work. From the way I've phrased this, it should be relatively obvious why this might not be a good idea.

Nobody enjoys their work 100% all of the time but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't enjoy it at least some of the time. Hating your job is also something normally reserved for those who don't own their own company, so if you're taking the risks to run your own business, you have absolutely no excuse to not derive some enjoyment out of the venture.

Running your own business should be somewhat of an adventure, not an arduous slog in a quest to generate revenue and revenue alone. Some interest in your field should be mandatory, and if you can't find any of it no matter what you do, you really should consider finding something else to on which you can spend your life working.