Imagine you’ve been running for an hour. You started running from your home and never stopped. For a full hour. You’re tired, you’re sweating profusely, and your knees have started aching a bit.
If you found out that after this much effort, you’re not a single step away from where you started, how would you feel? Would it drive you crazy if you kept running every day but getting nowhere?
Imagine the same thing, but this time about your business. You’re running hard. Sales, marketing, networking, referrals, product dev. You’re doing everything. You’re not moving ahead any significant distance. Month after month, year after year. It seems like you’re where you started.
Just like in literal running, so it is in your business. If you’re not moving ahead, you have to first stop running. First, take stock of what’s going on, and then take action.
One of the many possible things could be wrong if you aren’t moving ahead:
- You don’t know your destination and so you’re running in circles. Or worse, you reached long back but kept running because you didn’t recognize it as the destination. First, decide where you want to go. Everything comes after that.
- You don’t know which way to run and you don’t have a map either. You’re just hoping to reach your destination. Well, hope is not a plan. Seek help on how to reach where you’re going. There are mentors everywhere.
- You are carrying too much baggage, and it’s slowing you down. Emotional baggage, bad partners, wrong product decisions – any number of things that are holding you back. See if you can dump some unnecessary stuff to move faster.
- You are not strong enough to keep pace with the world. It doesn’t mean you can’t be. It just means you need to work harder on acquiring more mastery over essential skills. Focused education solves most problems.
Long story short, recognize when you aren’t moving ahead. Make achievable forecasts on where you want to be, and ruthlessly cut down on any activities that stop you from reaching that goal. Have monthly, quarterly and yearly reviews of what is going on.
Stop yourself from constantly and only working in the business. Find the time and balance the activities that help you work on the business.
What do your monthly and quarterly review meetings look like? Don’t have one? Ask me, and I’ll help you with planning one.
Yours,
Abhilash Purohit