Can we talk about your habits? Well, how about the ones that affect your business then? We all do things habitually, for better or worse, and those things have a direct bearing on the success (or not) of our businesses. Here’s a handful of them to watch out for.
• Indecisiveness. You know this one, it’s where you stall out on decision making. Perhaps you let the day to day small tasks of your business keep your attention away from the decisions you know you need to make, and so you just don’t make them. Or perhaps you wait (and wait and wait) for the one key piece of information you need. And you put off making a decision that will make a big difference for your business. And you do it repeatedly.
• Being penny-wise. In other words, cheaping out and saving small amounts of money when a wiser spending decision would bring a far richer return on investment. Businesses cost money to run and to grow. Naturally you shouldn’t run around wasting money left and right, but the opposite of this is hanging on to every nickel at the expense of strategic spending decisions.
• Allowing day to day chaos and noise to distract you from what’s strategically important. Also known as “putting out fires” all day long, this habit solves the urgent and immediate but doesn’t help you lay out long-term plans and direction. This is also known as being held hostage to the “tyranny of the urgent.”
• Waiting for the ideal time before doing something. Unfortunately there usually isn’t a perfect time for things. If this is a good, or good enough, time to make something happen…then seize it and make good on it. This habit of waiting is a cousin to the habit of indecisiveness. Also known as spinning your wheels, it doesn’t move you forward. If I offered to give you a million dollars if you made a decision about something in the next half hour, I’ll bet you could do it, right? And that means you don’t have a problem making a decision, you have a problem choosing to make a decision.
Be honest with yourself about some of this stuff and how it’s affecting your business. What small changes can you make right now in your habits that will benefit your business a good deal in the future?
