It’s almost the end of the year, where are you at?
Right now I am working a lot with clients to do some planning, and when we do planning we go through and we talk about where you are in your goals, what you have accomplished, and what you’ve learned so far. Just kind of assess the situation:
- Where are we?
- What worked?
- What didn’t work?
- What did you learn?
Often times we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of trying to achieve things and get stuff done, especially at the end of the year. This is a really busy time for my clients because we are getting into the holiday season. And when we get caught up in our own stories, that is when a lot of fear and limited beliefs come out, but also a lot of excuses as to why we can’t get everything done. If you’re feeling this way right now, like you are overwhelmed and just don’t have enough time, you are not alone.
We all get distracted with the busy, day-to-day things we need to do and we forget about the goals that we’ve set and even the progress we’ve already made throughout the year. We tend only to focus on what our current circumstances are. Last week alone I heard excuses beginning to come out when meeting with my clients, particularly in one planning meeting that I was having. They were having problems with staff or business functions and the excuses started flowing. “I don’t have enough time” or “I can’t focus on just one thing. I have to try and focus on multiple things at one time and I am already overwhelmed” and “I know how important planning is but I just can’t focus.” We had just last week discussed the expectations of the entire management team, how to guide the staff to constantly talk about the business and the difference they were making and what each person’s purpose is in the vision. We just had that conversation about expectations and what needed to happen from now until the end of the year to be as successful as possible and put their best foot forward. But here was the leader of the business telling me they can’t focus on one thing. They have to multitask, they are so overwhelmed, it’s so hard running this business, it’s so complicated and difficult. I was hearing excuse after excuse after excuse as to why they couldn’t do it, yet expecting everybody else to.
If you put your intention out there, that you want to have a successful business and you want all of your managers or staff to be a certain way, that’s one thing. But if your actions don’t match your intentions, your business will fall out of alignment. You are sending mixed messages out to the universe saying you want one thing but are showing up as another.
In that moment I said to them: You are, number one, believing your business is complicated. Number two, believing you can’t focus on just one thing. These are going to be your biggest limitations. You can’t lead people to a place that you want them to go if you have not first led yourself there. You can’t expect people to show up as these amazing leaders when you aren’t showing up that way as well. It’s easy for us to go back into our comfort zone and fall into our fears and excuses of why we can’t get done what needs to get done because it’s easier than taking responsibility for ourselves and what we are doing or not doing. You can’t lead people to a place you are not willing to go ourselves.
When problems arise in our businesses, it’s easier to ask “Why is this happening TO us?” rather than to say “This is happening FOR our us, to help us to grow and improve and become better leaders.” One thing that I found in situations like that, when we have adversity, we have experiences we can learn from. If we choose to stand in those adverse situations, we can either choose to let our excuses dictate and move us from our current circumstances, or we can choose to look at that adversity, find the lesson in it, and let it take us towards innovation. If we stay in that place of frustration, of expecting everybody else to show up but we don’t have to, your business will continue to frustrate you.
If you have found yourself in situations like these, where you’re struggling in your business and things may not be going the way that you want them to go, whether it be staff quitting or a customer leaving a bad review, the first thing I want you to do is:
- Be aware of the situation. Be aware of how you are currently showing up every day as a leader.
- Be fearless in processing the situation. A lot of people get wrapped up in the train of thought that if the business is facing a problem, I must be a bad leader. The truth is simply not so. We don’t have control over everything, but we do have control over how we show up and take responsibility for the problems we face.
- Let go. Let go of whatever problem or conflict it is that is holding you back from being the best you can be. The sooner you do, the sooner you can move forward.
When we do these things, we are taking action to move the business to where we want it to go. When we make excuses for ourselves, we are giving ourselves permission to not take action out of fear of failure. Recognizing that fear and failure are all parts of being human will only help you to learn from these adversities and to better yourself and your business. If we show up for ourselves and are willing to go to that place that we want others to meet us at, we create a community and culture in our business that lead to the results we seek.
Going back to my planning meetings, there are three questions I always ask when helping people to plan their goals:
- What does your successful business look like?
- How would you act differently? How would you be as a leader in interacting with your staff?
- What do you need to do now to get there?
Ask yourself these questions and say what can I do now through the rest of the year to show up the way I need to for myself, so I can show up for the rest of the world. The only person that can take that initial action is you and the rest will follow.
