The energy, enthusiasm and vision are the fuel for owning your own business are also the essential ingredients for having a successful small business. Yet, much like the fuel that runs our vehicles you must continually refill the tank of your small business with the ingredients that will fuel your success.

When you drive a car, if you are continually starting and stopping, your fuel economy goes down. It takes more fuel to reach your destination. If you apply the brakes hard all the time they wear out quicker. This makes it more costly to operate your car. And, if to get to the destination you desire becomes too costly, then you will quit and never make it. You will have failed.

The same car analogy can be used when looking at small business and the possibility of failure. You need to run your business efficiently to operate cost effectively. You must run it with minimal breakdowns that drain enthusiasm causing a loss of forward momentum.

And, to increase the odds of reaching a higher level of success you must keep focused on your future vision of success. Too often business owners can start focusing on the past and its mistakes. That's like driving your car using the rear view mirror.

Without a sharp focus on the present, the future and your ultimate destination you can easily get detoured in the present. When you get detoured too often you will fail in reaching your destination. In owning your own business, very often the reason for not reaching your destination is drift.

What is drift? Drift in its simplest form is loss of direction and forward momentum. It is a loss of direction and forward momentum caused by many small errors in judgment. Small errors repeated every day over a period of time.

When this happens the cumulative effect is failure. Failure usually is not one grand event. It is a series of mistakes that lead up to one big event. To grow small business you must remained focused. You must remain on course. You have to minimize the distractions. You only can drift for a short period of time.

The longer you drift or wander the longer the road is to get back on course. Avoid the pain of failure. Keep your energy, enthusiasm and most importantly your vision. When you have a clear destination in your future you are less likely to drift and to fail.