Following my fabulous post last week on ‘How to love your Inner Boss’, I got lots of feedback from people who were overwhelmed with all the things they had to do.
On person wrote ‘Totally nailed how I’m feeling, I need to be kinder to myself. I just want a crystal ball to look through to see if all the blood, sweat and tears will be worth it.’.
Running a business is a lot of blood, sweat and tears. But it’s also freedom, freedom to choose where you work, who you work with, what you do, the hours you work.
So, if you’re cracking on with a project at 6am, at least it’s your project.
But we can get derailed by all the possible options, by the myriad of ways we can market to people, by the ways we can grow our business, the people we could work with, by the struggle to bring in a decent income.
Creating money seemingly from thin air is magical. It’s also bloody hard.
Whatever stage you are at with your business, 1 year in or 5 years in, I’m not sure the fear that everything will crumble and fall ever really leaves us. The fear might show it’s face less and there, but it’s always there.
So how can you move forward and build your business into a successful empire?
Because…why not!
So here’s the magic recipe, are you ready?
Just focus on one thing.
That’s it.
I’m not saying that your massive to-do list will dissolve and you won’t have many to-do’s. But you literally can’t focus and do many things at once.
Multi-tasking is a bad, bad myth.
Let’s raise the flag for mono-tasking.
So you’ve got your overall vision, you know where you want to go. And if you’re not sure, come and talk to me, it’s the kind of thing I help my clients with all the time!
And you’ve identified all the possible things you need to do to get you there.
You can’t do them all at once. You just can’t. Your brain will explode.
What’s the one thing you can focus on to get you where you need to go?
And there are a few ways you can work with this.
Create 90-day goals.
I love 90-days goals. It makes life more manageable. ‘Where do I want my business to be in 90-days?’ Is a lot easier on the brain than, 'where do I want to be in 2 or 5 years’ time?'. Although having a vague idea is a good idea!
Knowing where you want to be in 90-days, what’s the one thing you can do to get you there?
This was encapsulated fantastically in the interview in Forbes by the fantastic CEO & entrepreneur Mary Baird-Wilcock ‘Set one primary goal per quarter and work your tail off to get there.”
I whooped with joy when I read this – yes I thought!
Break it down
I’d also advise using the one thing rule for your everyday tasks. What’s the one thing you can do today to move your business forward? Or look at your week, what’s the one thing I can do this week?
It might be as simple as creating 3 Pinterest pins, or writing that email you’ve been meaning to do, or writing your first blog.
But whatever it is, focus on your one thing.
Then when you’ve done that one thing, focus on the next one thing, and the next.
But one stage at a time.
Slow little steps end up being a marathon.
And it’s not just me and Mary who advocates this method, there a whole book you can read if this has peaked your interest: The ONE Thing by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan.
And if you want me in your corner, mentoring and coaching you to business success, check out what it's like to work with me, I'm told it's rather good!
