When you start a business it’s great: designing your brand, creating your products or defining your service; planning how you’ll approach customers and securing those first few projects. Fun, focus and learning new things every day. You love telling people about your venture, and every new connection or sale you make is exciting. The honeymoon period could last several months, maybe even a few years.
The dip
After a while, you might feel as if you’re stuck in a rut. A dip. Perhaps you’re juggling looking after customers with business development, as well as every admin task. You’re busy, but not confident enough to delegate or relinquish control. You’re not sure how to spend your time. Feelings of doubt creep in and you start to check out other options. Distractions tempt you.
You’re working hard but feel as though you’re not getting anywhere, clambering around on the side of a mountain with no track in sight. You’re solving the same problems you solved at the beginning. You’re not sure where to take your business and you have conflicting priorities. Your focus is waning. Perhaps you feel trapped. The future is unclear, and you might be having second thoughts about your path.
Whether or not business is going well, you still have questions in the back of your mind. What’s next? What do I want?
Coasting is costing your business
Humans act out of desperation or inspiration to move away from pain and towards pleasure. In between both is a comfy middle ground where the pros outweigh the cons and things are just fine. There’s not enough pressure to move either way. Many business owners remain caught in this place and never push on.
It’s easy to coast but doing so might be costing your potential. Comfort can trap you. Hanging out there, you might start to think you’re destined for life in the slow lane. You might accept that this is the way it is. You might wind back, take it easy and start to play golf in the afternoons. Most people, upon hitting this point, plod on, hoping something will be different. Others give up. They get a job, they try something else, or they settle.
There is another way. The Ten Year Career.
My brand new book, Ten Year Career: reimagine business, design your life, fast track your freedom is now published, and you can pick up a copy on Kindle, paperback and audio, on Amazon and everywhere that sells books.
It also has a free companion course so you can apply the framework to your life and business.
