Always move forward. Going straight will get you nowhere.”
Billie Joe Armstrong
Did you start your business with lofty aspirations of success or did you start your business to slowly watch it die or have it stuck in the status quo? I feel confident that you started your business so you can succeed and enjoy the fruits of your labor as your business grows. But it doesn’t just happen on its own. Sometimes people are excited to start a business, they attend a few meetings and give out a few business cards and believe things are just going to take off like a freight train. I have to admit, I certainly did when I first started my business. I had a few business owners tell me to leave some cards with them so they could put them out for me. I literally worried that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with phone calls. The joke was on me because that’s just not how it works. You’ve got to put in the work and you’ve got to do it over and over and over again. And you have to fail and fall down and keep getting up and trying again. And no one is going to do the work for you.
- No one is going to write your book with knowledge that only you have.
- No one else is going to come up with your unique, creative ideas.
- No one else is going to create your business goals for you.
It’s up to you to make things happen. That doesn’t mean you can’t hire someone to help you or utilize someone’s skills who you can delegate things to. It doesn’t mean you can’t have people to lean into or hold you accountable. But it does mean you have to be ready to put in the work that it takes to see your business succeed. Those business cards can’t do the selling on their own.
The first step to success is to create your vision and the goals required to see your vision come to fruition. When it comes to goals you need to be crystal clear and include details instead of creating general goals.
Let’s make organizing an example. When I’m working with clients and I see them for their initial consultation, I don’t just walk away from the appoinment with, “I want to organize my house.” We go room by room, I take notes that include breaking down the spaces, I help my clients prioritize their projects and then I type up a plan and send links to any resources and organizing products I believe will help them reach their organizing goals. They basically have a complete plan that they can implement on their own or together working side-by-side with me. The goals are broken down into manageable parts and pieces that can be tracked for success. Get clear with your goals by writing them down and mapping out the steps that need to happpen to reach your goals. You need a map to your goals just like you would use a map to get to your vacation destination on a road trip.
When you’re solid on your goals and how you are going to proceed, you will probably find you will need some motivation along the way. It’s easy to be excited and motivated when you first start working on something, but if the goal is going to take you a while to reach, you may find yourself running out of steam along the way. Find ways to get and stay motivated:
- Talk about what you want to accomplish with your accountability partner.
- Join a Facebook Group that is based around goals and aspirations that are similar to yours.
- Share your goals on social media with 1000 of your closest friends and ask for their support.
- Create a deadline so there’s some urgency in meeting your goals and not to just be reached “someday.”
- Read a book or listen to an audio book about the same things you’re learning or working on.
- Listen to music while you’re working on steps for your goals.
- Write in a journal and include positive thoughts, positive aspirations and quotes.
Stop Thinking and Start Doing
- What if all Thomas Edison did was think about the possibility of a light bulb but didn’t move forward to patent one? Would we all be sitting in the dark right now?
- What if John Hopps only thought about how to help the heart, but didn’t move forward to create the pacemaker? How many lives would have been lost?
- Maybe your goals won’t change the course of history, but I can pretty much guarantee that they have the potential to affect lives.
- What if you were more confident as a business owner because you were moving forward in your business by trying new things and reaching your goals?
- What if your product made someone else’s tasks simpler?
- What if your service made someone else’s life better?
- What if you had a significant impact on others?
You are actually be creating a disservice to others by not moving forward and just doing it. Go for it!
Wrap Up:
Think about what you are holding back from the world by not moving forward. Are you holding back an amazing product or service? Write down what you can do today and take the first step.
“You’ve already decided what you’re going to do and all that’s left is to set the wheels in motion. I mean, it’s your life. Basically, you gotta go with what you think is right.”
Haruki Murakami
