Four things entrepreneurs should be doing over the New Year period

December is often a month of extremes in startups.

You are either incredibly busy or incredibly quiet; burning with enthusiasm or burning out. Even the extremes can change week-to-week.

So how do you find inspiration, reignite your passion and keep your motivation up as you head into another year?

1. Switch off

While it is great to do business development and planning over the break with distractions at a minimum, it’s also important to take some time to switch off completely.

Amazing things happen when you put distance between you and your business. Perspective changes, passion reignites, and problems are often more easily solved.

Not to mention all of the ideas you were too busy to listen too before will come rushing in like a flood.

2. Go back to your roots

Remember why you started your business in the first place.

What need did you aim to fill? What impact did you want to make? What outcome did you want to have?

So often we lose track of our mission when we are stuck in business as usual. Going back to your business roots will help you to remember why you do what you do and give you the opportunity to realign your day-to-day activities with what you want to achieve.

3. Go where your customer is

When we start out in business, we wear multiple hats. We talk to our customers, develop and market our products, manage our finances and run our businesses.

But often as we grow, we start to delegate or outsource many of these tasks to save time. As time goes on, we can often become further and further removed from our customers.

The trouble is our customers are our greatest source of learning and inspiration. When we become disconnected from them, we lose focus, relevance and direction. It is through them that we see needs, find patterns and identify opportunities to innovate so get back in touch.

4. Get out of the ‘in’

Once you’ve switched off, got big picture focus and have reconnected with your customers, it’s time to start working on your business and putting those big ideas into action.

As entrepreneurs, it is often the big picture activities and innovation plans that get us more fired up. They also just so happen to generate the most results, so make sure working on your business has a regular place and priority in your schedule.

The New Year break is a great time to make new working habits – think about what changes you can make to your schedule to spark passion and boost motivation.

Amanda Jesnoewski is the owner of Velocity Media + Communications and a copywriter, marketing strategist and publicist.

Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.