The Winding Road to Success
It’s Never a Straight Road
If you are an entrepreneur like me, you will know that the path to success is never a straight one. The road to success will start out straight, but then takes a left turn out of nowhere. You try to course correct so that you are continuing in the same direction, but struggle with that. Once you are able to course correct, then you will get thrown in another direction and have to recover from that.
Sometimes it feels like you are spinning your wheels in mud and going nowhere. Sometimes it feels like you are speeding as fast as you can. Sometimes it feels like you are plodding along at a very slow walking pace. Other times it feels like you need to strap on a couple of rocket engines to keep up.
These are all common feelings. I have experienced them. Other entrepreneurs have experienced this as well. You are not alone with these feelings. I want to present to you some ways of being able to overcome this. These are ways that have helped me to be consistent and move forward.
Your Mindset Matters
In Sarah Turner’s Write Your Way to Freedom course, she talks about working on your mindset. As a new business owner, it can often be difficult to keep sight of the fact that you are a business owner. You might still be thinking from the previous mindset of an employee. You need to change your mindset to remind yourself that you are the business owner.
One of the examples of this is where you feel that you need to discount your products or services to make the sale and keep up with the competition. This comes from a scarcity mindset, a mindset which feels like you have to make the sale at all costs to get money coming in. The change in the mindset is to have an abundance mindset. In this mindset you recognize your value or the value of what you are selling. You also realize that the right client will pay the price that you set for your goods or services. Clients or customers that do not realize that value might not be clients or customers that you want buying from you.
Setting Goals
Another part of mindset work is setting goals. Goal setting can provide you with the path that you need to be able to get to where you want to go. You should look at developing long term goals and short term goals. For long term goals, you want to think about what you want your business to look like from one to ten years from now. Short term goals are the things that you need to do daily, weekly and monthly to be able to achieve that goal. Think that the long term goals are the road map, while the short term goals are what vehicle you are going to use to get to the destination, and the streets that you are going to use to get there. An example of a long term goal would be that you would like 30 new customers and 100K in new sales by next year. Your short term goals to support this would be 3 new customers per month and at least 10K in sales per month. Weekly goals might look something like 1 new customer per week and 2.5K in sales per week. Daily goals might look something like reaching out to 10 potential customers each day.
One thing about mindset and goal setting, it is not a do it once and forget about it process. You should be constantly looking at these to remind yourself of your mindset and reset your goals to keep moving forward.
Small Steps
Lao-Tzu stated that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” As a business owner, you can become overwhelmed with what is needed to keep going. There are always so many details that need your attention. All these details keep piling up until you are overwhelmed and can’t do anything. When your business is overwhelming like this, sometimes it is best to take a step back, take a breath, and look at what is the one thing or the one task that you can do and complete. Pick the smallest task and get it done. Then pick the next smallest task. Make sure that you are not just doing busy work, but make sure that the work you do will help you accomplish your goals. One small step at a time. They add up.
Forward Progress
When I watch football games, you always hear the announcers talk about forward progress. When the offense moves the ball, they are trying to move the ball forward to get to the next goal (the next first down). The steps that you take in your business, no matter how small, they are helping you to be able to move forward. Keep taking the steps that you need to do to get your clients and customers to buy from you. As long as you keep making forward progress, you will reach the goal line. Touchdown for your business win!
Reward Yourself
Don’t be afraid to reward yourself after reaching goals or milestones. Use small rewards to reward yourself after reaching small goals. Use bigger rewards to reward yourself after reaching the bigger goals. Using the examples that I used in the Setting Goals Section, some rewards might be rewarding yourself with your favorite coffee drink, donut, or burger after contacting your 100 potential customers in a week. Maybe you get a massage or pedicure after reaching your monthly goal. After you hit your yearly goal of 30 new customers and 100k in new sales, maybe you buy the new car or the expensive jewelry that you have been looking at. Make it something that you will like and enjoy. Maybe state in your goals that if you reach this goal, this is what you will get. Have pictures available to remind yourself what reward you are working towards.
Marathon, Not a Sprint
In conclusion, remember that your business success is a marathon and not a sprint. You need to look at the long term picture and be able to keep focused on the long term goals. Develop your mindset. Set your goals. Take the small steps if you need to. Make sure that you are making progress with your business. Don’t forget to reward yourself when you achieve these goals.
If you would like to know ways that I can help your business, please visit my website D Battson Enterprises, or email me at doug@dbattsonenterprises.com
