I believe that you need two guiding lights, or sources of inspiration, in your business. First, you need a really clear goal of what you want to achieve. Second, you need to have a strategy that gets you to that goal. When you have a clear goal plus a strategy to achieve that goal, it services as a litmus test for all of the decisions that you have to make in your business.
Who do you need to be, or what do you need to believe, in order to make yourself successful at these efforts and not succumb to the feelings that lie to you? How do you avoid the imposter syndrome and the scarcity mindset? Where are you tied to your process instead of wanting to provide solutions? And finally, where are you holding onto something so tightly that you are not seeing the opportunities in front of you, so that you are being held back instead of propelled forward?
When it comes to actually putting your plan into place, the idea of who you need to be becomes just as important – if not more important – than what you need to do. Because, if you cannot actually implement the plan, it’s just a to-do list of things you wish you’d done. Fortunately, there are things that you can work on in order to develop the traits you need to create a thriving, successful business.
If being a business owner equals being the Chief Decision Maker, then your success is directly tied to your ability to both make and then act on those decisions. Fortunately, there are ways to improve decision making in your business so you are proactive instead of reactive and your decisions lead to successful growth.
Inspired action, plus positive expectations, equals inevitable results. I tell myself this all the time. It’s written on post-it notes all over my house. So, be aware of how you feel physically and how you feel emotionally when you are making all of the decisions for your business. Are you making them out of inspiration? Or are you making decisions out of fear and scarcity? Because decision making out of fear and scarcity is what leads you astray.
It is not easy to call ourselves out on things we know will help us, but that we are actively avoiding doing. Fortunately, there are ways to break through the fears and the stories that we tell ourselves that stop us, so that we can do the things and take the steps that we know will make a huge difference.
People ask me all the time to share the differences that I see between clients who succeed and clients who have a harder time achieving their goals. They also ask me what it is that I do that keeps me moving forward as quickly as I do. And the answer is this: I do not sit back and wait for things to happen. I do what I need to do to make them happen.
The things you did when you first launched your business may no longer be working for you as you try to grow and scale your business. Not only will the tactics and activities that got you started not get you to your next level, but the mindset that got you started will not take you where you want to go.
There is a book by Goldsmith Marshall titled What Got You Here Won’t Get You There that has been going through my head lately. I have been thinking about this book recently because this same concept applies to business owners. When you relate it to growing and scaling your business, and reaching your next-level goals, you realize that this idea of adjusting and tweaking your behavior and strategies should be front of mind all the time.
Look, it’s not easy telling people no. You don’t want to come across as rude or inconsiderate. And you might think doing that extra task is no big deal. That they will really appreciate it. But, then it becomes another task. And another. Until you’re doing basically everything and anything under the sun when you didn’t sign up for that.
