Hi there, if you’ve been following along then you will know that I’ve been taking part in the 30 Day Blogging Challenge with Sarah Arrow (for the 2nd time) and combining it with a content challenge that was running in July in Jenn Scalia’s Little Black Business Book membership group.
In this post, I’m going to be talking about how patience is key when running a business, and I’ll also be sharing a useful little tool for reflecting on your progress in your business.
Listen using the player below. Prefer to read? Scroll down for the full transcript.
Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:
A few years ago I decided I wanted to have a vegetable garden. I’m not very green fingered, in fact in terms of indoor plants the only one that’s survived is my Peace Lily, well thank goodness for that! I was told that a vegetable garden would be really easy so with my purse in hand off I went to the garden centre and bought lots of different seed packets, I had lettuce, carrots, garlic, some herbs, all sorts of different things.
Don’t ask why but I was excited by the carrots, I thought they would be the thing that I would be really good at. I tended to them each and every day and slowly over time little shoots started to pop up. I continued to care for them and then I thought that it was time to pull them. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong, the poor little carrots were growing but they weren’t even the size of my little finger! I was so disappointed that I gave up. How could something take soooo long to grow. Surely, I should be pulling them to serve with my lovely Sunday roast dinner by now. Nope! It wasn’t just the carrots, the others weren’t that hot either!
Now I’m sure you have probably already made the connection with the veggies and your business but if you haven’t let me share how this scenario got me thinking.
When we start a business we sow seeds & expect those seeds we’ve sown to blossom into something over night
Like a child doing a little plant experiment for school, we keep watching and waiting for something fabulous to happen, for those shoots to turn into beautiful big plants.
Things take time, there are lots of different things that make up the right conditions for plants to grow. They need soil, the right temperature, the sun, water etc. (Can you tell I know very little about plants and that I really need to move over and let the experts tell you all about this bit?!) Anyway, my point is that it’s not just one thing that’s working in the process, it’s many things.
It’s the same in business – you need more than one strategy to grow it
While you think nothing is happening, there is life going on underneath that metaphorical soil. You can’t see anything happening, but you can trust that it is. We want things to be instant. What we don’t realize is that if we wait just a bit longer and keep doing all we’ve been doing then the success comes, whether that’s the right size carrots or the success in your business that you dream of.
The other thing I realised I did wrong was to focus on far too many vegetables all at once. I knew I wasn’t green fingered so why did I think I would all of a sudden turn into Alan Titchmarsh overnight – it was never going to happen! When we focus on too many things at once we are not giving any one thing our time and attention.
As we know where our focus goes that’s where the magic happens and we get progress. This brings me to good old niching again. You knew I’d get it in somewhere, didn’t you?! When you really focus on your ideal clients and your area of expertise then you will get to the point where things will start to change, those shoots will start to grow. Sometimes slowly, yes, but you need to keep going, keep tending, keep doing all of the things you need to do to grow those seeds.
We need patience with our offerings too. I know when I started my online coaching programmes I’d write one and then be ready to move onto the next one and the next one, not giving them chance to build or flourish. What I learnt is that It’s not always about creating the next thing and the next but about nurturing those things that we already have, maybe packaging them up differently or offering them to a different group of people. We can grow them and free up a bit of time in the process.
Sometimes the patience is in taking the time to really figure out what’s working and what’s not
I love the little acronym – PDCA – Plan-Do-Check-Act – It’s used as a problem-solving tool, but it works really well as a reflection tool in business.
Firstly you plan out what it is that you want to do, then you do it, then you check it to find out what’s working/not working and then you take action based on what came up. The most successful entrepreneurs are those that know when to stop doing something as much as start doing it. If something isn’t working and you’ve decided tweaking it isn’t making any difference then don’t keep going with it. It’s not a sign of failure but a skill in knowing when to stop something that isn’t working, which can result in saving time, money and effort.
The patience bit might be in that you need to make those tweaks in order for it all to happen so it slows up the process or it might be that you need to be patient with yourself, allowing yourself to take the time it needs to build your business and let those seeds grow and do their thang.
Remember, that carrot you want might well be just about to turn into a giant one! Keep going!
Action for the week: Sit down with a pen and paper and figure out what you need to be nurturing in your business.
If you want some help figuring it out, book a Crack It Session with me – we can work on it together in one of my laser-focused 20- minute coaching/mentoring sessions.
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