Ready for success? Sounds like a silly question, doesn’t it? And yet the road to success is littered with people whose dreams have crashed and burned just as they reach their goals.
Why is that? And more importantly, what can we do about it? It’s about preparation.
Here’s one scenario: Joan and John came up with a brilliant idea for a new retail product, and sunk nearly everything they had into the new venture – big storefront (with the big rent to go along with it); new fixtures, paint job and company vehicles; big social media marketing campaign; and plenty of elbow grease.
Hours and hours, days upon days, of elbow grease.
When elbow grease isn’t enough
The couple’s store is open 10 hours a day, seven days a week. They have nearly a dozen employees, most of them part time, and finally – after three years – business is starting to pick up. Finally, the income is bigger than the outgo.
And right about now, they want to kill each other.
The stress of nonstop working and their increasingly frantic – and sometimes futile – attempts to meet growing customer demand is taking a toll on their health and their relationship with one another. Constant sniping between the two of them is having an impact on their employees, too, creating an unpleasant and inefficient work environment.
If they don’t do something soon, they will join the other burned-out husks alongside the road to success.
Here’s another example:
Marian has been overweight her entire life, and when she hit 40, she decided she was going to do something about it – once and for all.
She went to her doctor, got a diet plan, started exercising – doing all the right things to help her reach weight goal.
At first, she was thrilled with the results. It was hard work, but she saw the fruits of her labor reflected in the mirror, in her loosened clothing and in the admiring comments and looks she got from friends, family and even complete strangers.
And then something weird happened…
Marian found herself “too tired” to go the gym, and those goodies at the grocery store were oh-so tempting. What could it hurt to miss one workout? As for the donuts – well, she deserved a reward for doing so well, didn’t she?
One missed workout led to another, and pretty soon the sweets and high-fat items were crowding out the healthful choices in her grocery cart.
She was within spitting distance of reaching her goal when it all came crashing down.
What’s the common thread? None of them planned for success.
Oh, they knew what success looked like. Joan and John had a revenue target they were working toward, and Marian knew what she ultimately wanted to weigh. But none of them had planned for their success.
So how do you plan for success in business or in life? You have to see not just your end result, but what has to happen along the way.
Project what your business will need when sales increase by 10%, 20% and so on. How will this impact staffing? Will you need to make changes in your pricing structure? How will job responsibilities shift? Go ahead and create as many “if-then” scenarios as necessary to get an idea what needs to happen every step of the way.
One of the biggest issues that all entrepreneurs have is that they spend too much time working in their business, instead of on it. They ignore – at their peril – the need to focus on doing those things only they can do, and delegate (or outsource) the rest.
Marian, who has struggled with her weight for many years, knows that at some point she will become her own worst enemy. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be making this pledge…for the umpteenth time. For her, planning for success in life is looking at her past patterns of behavior and devising ways to change them.
She may know, for example, that too much attention makes her feel uncomfortable and causes her to overeat again. So what’s the plan for when she finds herself sabotaging herself? Perhaps she needs to consult a therapist to help her come to terms with the causes of this.
How can she deal with her fondness for sweets? It could be as simple as avoiding those aisles in the grocery store, or setting out on a brief walk whenever the urge to overindulge sweeps over her, or calling someone to talk her down off the sugar ledge.
Don’t have a plan for success? It’s never too late to create one!