There are lots of places I could go with this article. After all, the Small Business Administration states that 63% of all small businesses fail in the first 5 years.
It’s also said that 95% of all online businesses fail in the first 4 years.
And there are lots of reasons for the above:
- From a lack of systems to
- Bright shiny objects to
- No consistency
- . . .and much more.
While I’ve discussed and presented on each of the above topics, we’re not talking about them today. Today we’re talking about a lack of congruency.
Being congruent is simply a fancy way of saying that things agree, they’re in harmony.
Many business owners say they want:
- Financial freedom
- To do what they want when they want
- To be recognized as THE expert in their industry
on one hand and then, in the next breath, state they:
- Want to work part time
- Want to work with private clients and host live group programs/events
- Don’t have time to XXX (write newsletter, follow-up with clients, network, social media, fill-in-the-blank for your business)
and often forget the intermediary steps. While both sets of goals are totally achievable, there’s an order to things. In order to achieve financial freedom, be recognized as THE expert, etc., first the work must come.
We can’t start by working “as if” we’ve achieved the goals without putting the time and effort in.
And then there’s the goals themselves. . .doing “what we want when we want” may not be congruent with lots of “private clients and hosting live group programs/events”. After all, if we’re on the phone/hosting events, we’re committing our time and attention for the program/event itself and the marketing necessary to fill the programs/events.
Not exactly doing “what we want when we want”.
My Request to You
Ask yourself “WHY” am I in business? What do I want from my business? What do I want my business to look like when successful?
Write the answers to these questions down.
Now, ask yourself “What am I willing to do to make this happen?”
- Acknowledging that working part-time will exponentially extend how long things take.
- Acknowledging that you likely can’t do it all by yourself and really shouldn’t even if you can.
- Acknowledging that you don’t have all the answers and that’s okay, you can get them.
- Acknowledging that you may have to do things you don’t love in order to get where you want to be.
Are you willing to do what it takes to achieve your goals?
Do your desired goals and what you’re willing to do make sense when looked at as a whole? Are they congruent with each other?