Frustration
It all boiled over. They were not really mad to each other, but one night it all came to a head.
When I talked to Bob the next day he was exhausted. They had talked – and sometimes shouted – into the wee hours of the morning, but it wasn’t tired due to lack of sleep. He was drained emotionally.
Bob and his wife had spent the last two years trying to start an internet business. They spent a couple hours each day on web design, blogging, etc…They read ebooks and watched videos. They bought books and attended seminars. Month after month they poured their heart and soul into their business, but it was for nothing. They had made no money to date and felt lost.
As we talked he revealed how much it had taken out of them, and that they felt lost. They were trying thing after thing, applying the advice from a dozen gurus, and it was pulling them in too many directions.
But they could only see their biggest problem when they looked in the mirror. After quite a bit of soul searching, Bob started to accept that he was the problem. He was sabotaging the business in hundreds of little ways. It was never conscious, and there wasn’t any one thing you could put your finger on.
A problem facing just about everyone
Bob isn’t the only person with this challenge. Heck, it’s been one of my biggest issues. There are many reasons we get in the way of our success, but they can usually be distilled down to three main categories:
- Fear: This is probably the main reason, and often the fear is so subtle that we don’t consciously see it.
- Failure: this is pretty self explanatory. You put a lot at risk when you try to start a business. This can be everything from your life’s savings to friendships to your professional reputation.
- Success: why would succeeding be scary? Because we are worried about what others will think. Will my friends no longer want to spend time with me? Will my neighbors think I’m getting pretentious? Will my family start to expect me to support them financially and become their private welfare system or bank?
- Uncertainty: no one knows what will happen. This uncertainty can be frightening in an of itself. I know I’ve lost sleep stressing over two possible outcomes-and both were good for me!
- Embarrassment: what will the neighbors think? Will my family ridicule me? Will my friends stop hanging out with me? If I fall flat on my face what will everyone else say?
- DIY syndrome: most fledgling entrepreneurs are good workers. We get to this point in our life by standing on our own. This very trait makes it hard to outsource or delegate. Add to this the fact that we are usually pretty good at (and enjoy) all the minute tasks, and it makes it hard to let someone else take them over. The problem is that we become buried in the minutia instead of focusing on our high value tasks. As a result we never focus on the truly important, we spend all our time on the trivial, and our business flounders.
- Lack of confidence: many of our setbacks in life can trace back to a lack of confidence. If we don’t think we are capable or deserving, it makes us tentative and unwilling to try.
So what can I do?
Over the years I’ve learned a basic five step process to overcome this:
- Recognize the issue: knowing you have a problem is the first step. Without this you don’t know what needs fixed and what to do next. Just acknowledging your fears and roadblocks is a major part of the solution.
- Know what you want to accomplish. I’m talking about your major life’s purpose. Not having a purpose is like leaving Atlanta without knowing your destination. You wouldn’t be that stupid, so why do most people run their lives (and businesses) that way? Without a destination you are aimless and drift wherever life blows you.
- What do you stand for and what do you want out of life?
- How does your business fit into this?
- Why are you in business?
- What do you want your business to look like in the next few years?
- List all your fears and write down the worst case scenario. It’s amazing what we are afraid of, and how improbable these doomsday visions are. Often you will find that your fears are minor and unlikely. If they are real, then you need to take steps to ensure they won’t happen and to minimize their impact on your life.
- Write down the main jobs in your business and rank them by their value to your business. Focus 80% of your time on the high value jobs (usually sales, marketing, product development, and leadership). Outsource or delegate the remainder.
- Work on improving your self confidence. There are a lot of tools out there to help, from books to tape series to seminars. And since confidence is built on our successes, you need to start succeeding. Go ahead and start small. Set a goal to get up at a certain time and do it. Pick up the phone and make that call you’ve been dreading. Take the first item on your task list and make it happen.