Many business owners are blinded by the success of their past that they don’t recognize the signs of a plateau. In this article, we will discuss:
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The Dangers of the Hustle and Grind Mindset
Being a business owner is a really tough journey. It’s filled with trials and errors, ups and downs, failures and setbacks. But once we reach that breakthrough where our business is finally at a successful point, it makes it all worth it.
It’s almost like we can breathe a breath of fresh air. From there we get into routines to maintain the success we have achieved.
But we’re forgetting something.
Yes, we achieved success in our business, but is that the furthest we want to take our business?
Most likely not. We want to grow and expand our business to the point that we can retire, vacation or even sell the business. We don’t want to keep doing the same routines to maintain the business for the next 20 years.
In fact, you likely won’t even make it to 20 years due to burnout. This is because the hustle and grind that is needed when starting a business is not sustainable long-term. This is why ActionCOACH constantly preaches the importance of building a business that will run WITHOUT the owner.
Otherwise the business will plateau because it’s built around the owner’s capacity.
As mentioned previously we can become tempted to sit in contentment once we reach a breakthrough. This is a great accomplishment but sometimes we confuse contentment with gratefulness.
We should feel grateful for any successes in our business, but living in our past failures causes us to be content with the present.
These past failures paralyze us from creating or pursuing higher goals.
What happens when we set new goals is that we are setting a new destination that we want to reach. Once we have set the destination, we’ve created a gap between where we are now and where we’re going. The gap, of course, must be bridged or filled.
But what if, in order to move ahead, we need to learn how to do something new? Or what if the gap is big? A big gap to our destination or the need to learn something new can stop people before they even get started. This is because we don’t have the time or capacity to learn something new or to fill in the gap because we’re stuck in routine work to maintain the business.
The destination suddenly looks unachievable. In addition, setting a big life-changing goal that calls for really big changes all at once, often makes us very uncomfortable and we won’t do what makes us that uncomfortable.
The first thing we must do is overcome our fear of change. Brad Sugars, founder and CEO of ActionCOACH has a formula for change he teaches business owners worldwide to help them adapt and deal with change. The formula is (D x V) + FS > R; Dissatisfaction times Vision + First Steps is greater than Resistance.
So if we want to change where we are in our business, our dissatisfaction with our current situation combined with our vision for the organization must outweigh our resistance,
Once we’ve overcome that fear, the next step is to evaluate what things in our business that we need to stop doing. In this video I address why business owners need to add a “To-Stop” list to their to-do list.
Lastly, we have to educate ourselves on what it looks like to build a scalable business. Register for our monthly seminar where we give an in-depth guide on how to build a business to scale. These complimentary sessions are hosted twice a month around Indianapolis with virtual options for those who cannot commute to those locations. Reserve a spot today to break those old habits.
I am a certified Business Coach, providing business help, business advice, business coaching and mentoring services to successful and emerging business owners. I have a passion for helping businesses like yours grow and become profitable, so you, the business owner can enjoy the lifestyle you deserve.
As your Business Coach and advisor, I will help you deliver the results you desire using proven tools, methodologies and systems, tested and perfected over tens of thousands of businesses worldwide for over more than two decades. I will hold you accountable for your results and just like a sports coach, push you to perform at optimal levels. Let's schedule a complimentary Business Coaching session to get started.