Small Business Owners are the backbone of the economy!
They step out every single day taking risks to revolutionize their industries and provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of individuals. And for that, Small Business Owners deserve to thrive personally and professionally: to have a business that takes care of both them and the people working inside it, so that everyone can enjoy and love their lives.
But there are a few habits that I’ve noticed tend to get in the way, in my life and in the lives of my fellow business owners. So I’m breaking them down, so you can avoid getting sucked into the whirlpool of unproductivity and depression that these issues bring with them!
#1: Stop Trying to Live Up to Success Stories
I know entrepreneurs do this because I lived this for such a long time!
For the longest time I was constantly beating myself up mentally for not living up to the success stories I’d heard. In particular, I was comparing myself to Michael Dubin who built a billion dollar business in three years. Crazy! Right? But because I was comparing myself to him for so long, I was constantly frustrated and never felt good enough.
I used to think I was alone, but I’ve learned that I’m not the only entrepreneur who does this.
As entrepreneurs, we hear these amazing success stories about people who went from zero to billionaires in weeks. And they’re inspiring, but then we wonder why we’re not having the same success. Sometimes we even compare ourselves to the people just up the street, who never seem to struggle paying bills while we’re sitting here wondering how to make payroll this month.
Here’s the Problem with Comparison…
When we spend all our energy comparing ourselves to others, and beating ourselves up for not being at their level, guess where we’re not spending energy? Yup, on our businesses. All of that energy is spent on self-degradation, and not on building a successful business. There are so many issues with that! But here are my main two...
1: Peak Performance
When you’re constantly funneling energy into beating yourself up, you can’t perform at your peak. Which means that the business which is relying on you can’t grow in the way it has potential to. Self-degradation in business owners destroys business growth.
2: Brain Space
Self-degradation takes up a LOT of brain space! Trust me, I know. I lived it. And the issue with that? Suddenly we have that much less brain space for business growth strategies. And when you’re a small business, you’re either growing or dying. So small business owners really don’t have the space or luxury to be allocating brain space to something that sucks energy out of the business.
Business owners are brilliant! And we need to stop sucking our energy from what we’re brilliant at (growing the business) and funneling it into comparison.
#2: Stop Trying to do it all Yourself
Once again, I’m speaking from experience.
I built my first, second, and third websites. I was doing my own bookkeeping. I was doing my own graphic design, marketing, sales, etc. If it was a part of the business, I was doing it! And granted, that is how it is for most starting entrepreneurs. But that can’t be how it stays if you want to grow. Especially if you want to get to a place where you love doing what you’re doing.
The Issue With Doing it all Yourself is...
Everyone is good at different things. These are our energy advantages: activities that we do well and love doing. And we are performing at our peak efficiency when we are working inside our energy advantage. So if you’re doing everything, you’re spreading yourself beyond your energy advantage and are working on everything from the things you love to the things you hate.
So start delegating and outsourcing!
For Example…
I’m great at marketing strategy! However, I’m not good at graphic design. Not that I don’t have an eye for it. I can tell you if something looks good or not, but I’m not effective or efficient with it. I don’t do it quickly, and I get far too sucked into the minutia. But there are other people on my team who are great at it!
So instead of continuing to try to do it myself, I found those people who find their energy advantage inside of graphic design. And beyond that, I was able to hand the projects over to them entirely by helping them own their outcomes.
I hardly touch the graphics that go out on our social media anymore, because it’s not my energy advantage and it is someone else’s. And it’s amazing!
Moving those projects that aren’t my energy advantage off my plate allowed me to start focusing my energy on the things that are my energy advantage. Things like marketing strategies and project management.
Business owners need to be able to pass things off and delegate, so that we aren’t trying to do every single thing in the business. Only when we do that, can we truly begin growing our businesses.
I know, it