What have you been wanting to accomplish in your business for a really long time? Perhaps you’ve been needing to raise your prices. Maybe you want to hire an assistant or another team member but haven’t gotten around to it. Or maybe you want to work less and focus more on your personal time, but you haven’t taken action for one reason or another.
Ask yourself what project you’ve been thinking about a while but haven’t taken action on. We all have a wish list. The question is, why are we waiting?
What causes us to put these important, yet inconvenient or uncomfortable items on the back burner? Here are three questions you can ask yourself if you would like to get unstuck and move forward with your list of items.
- What’s it costing me to delay this decision? In six months, will I be better off, the same, or worse off having done nothing? This helps you bring a sense of urgency to an item.
- Am I getting stuck because I don’t feel like I have the skills or is it a mind-set issue? Making the distinction between the need to build skills and the need to work on your mind-set can help you determine the next logical step to take. Often, however, it can be both, and in that case, start by parsing out the skills you feel like you need. When you do that, often the mind-set will take care of itself.
- Do I simply need to give myself permission? It’s surprising how this simple revelation can create the shift you need to gain momentum. Going deeper, this can be a deservability issue, i.e., do I deserve to charge a higher fee? If that’s the case, working on your confidence is something that will help you get unstuck.
By habit, we wait for other people’s approval–we’ve done this all our lives. We’re used to getting the approvals of teachers, parents, professors, bosses, spouses, and relatives, but when we’re in business for ourselves, we don’t need to ask anyone! We give ourselves permission.
Is there something you’ve been delaying that you need to give yourself permission for? Do you want or need to give your business or yourself one of the following?
- Starting a long-awaited project
- Hiring someone or making a staffing change?
- Launching a new product?
- Raising prices?
- Making a large purchase?
- Working less?
- Taking your business to the next level?
If there is, ask yourself what you’re waiting for. The power of permission might just set you free.
If you need help getting unstuck, we have business planning experts who can help you make a feasible and realistic plan- and stick to it!
