Five Sure-Fire Ways to Experience Success

I talk with a
lot of entrepreneurs every week, and I have discovered some common themes that
make them successful. Combining these with my own experiences, I’ve uncovered
five main ways to keep you on track for success.

Follow Your
Passion

It is not enough to want your own business. You
must find the business that you are passionate about! Your business must be in
alignment with your personal goals, values and passion. When I was growing up, I
was heavily involved in theatre and dancing. I toyed with the idea of obtaining
a degree in musical theatre and moving to New York to pursue a career on
Broadway. However, I was cautioned not to do this unless I was wildly passionate
about it because the rejection was so incredible and the industry was so
competitive. Do these obstacles sound familiar? They are very similar to those
experienced by entrepreneurs. However, when you do something that you are truly
passionate about, it’s easy to get out of bed and feel excited and energized by
your work! In addition, it is much easier to find ways to stand out in a
competitive market and to do great work for your clients.

Have a
Vision

In business, it is critical to pay attention to
the right details. Planning is crucial to success. It’s a well-known axiom that
if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, and yet I regularly hear from
entrepreneurs who do not plan! Without a plan in place, it is too easy to get
distracted by whatever happens to come your way. If the opportunities (seminars,
speaking engagements, networking opportunities, article requests, etc) are not
in alignment with your vision, they will take you off course, and you may not
meet your end goal and your vision will become, well… blurred! Think about
this before you say “yes” to the next thing that comes your way. If it is not
going to help support your goals for this year, month, or week, your decision
should be very easy. Just say no.

Find a Way to Be
Held Accountable

Many of us go into business to be able
to flex our creative muscle. We like coming up with wonderful ideas, but
implementing them is not as fun as the big-picture thinking! Our new idea sounds
great, and the potential revenue is exciting, but the tasks we need to do to get
there are overwhelming and we can’t seem to make any headway on the project! So
we procrastinate and find other things to occupy our time, until we eventually
take the wonderful creative idea off our “to do” list because we don’t want to
or know how to do the work to get us there. This is a waste of your creative
spirit! Successful entrepreneurs find ways to be held accountable, whether it’s
through membership in a round table or mastermind group, forming an advisory
board, entering a formal partnership or hiring a coach to keep them on track.

Spend Your Time on
High-Payoff Tasks

Everyone knows that in order to stay
in business, we must continue to bring in revenue. However, many entrepreneurs
spend too much of their time doing activities that don’t generate income! So
what is an entrepreneur to do? Delegate! By outsourcing all the tasks that don’t
include generating money or building relationships, you will be able to use your
newly found time to make more money! Your time for high-payoff activities
(planning, forecasting, developing your marketing funnel, training, and so
forth) will increase and in turn, your productivity will increase. There are
many virtual professionals who you can hire to do the work you need to outsource
and could include anything from accounting to administration and beyond. Once
you do this the first time, be prepared to be addicted to this concept!

Focus

How many projects do you have going on at any one time? Or worse, how
many businesses are you running at one time? I recently met a woman who has
three businesses, and she was complaining that none of them were doing well.
Gee, I wonder why? Having too many projects at one time, particularly if you do
not have a way of managing each of them properly, means that you’re likely to
become overwhelmed. Pick a project or two and focus on those. You will feel so
great to knock something out and will be motivated to continue onto your next
task. If you are spread too thin, I can guarantee you that you will sabotage
your chances of meeting your goals.

After assessing where you are in
these five lessons, you can start to see what you need to focus on. Whether you
feel confused, struggle with self-confidence or lack tangible results, I suggest
taking action to find out if you’re following your passion and determine your
measuring stick for success. If you are easily distracted or overwhelmed, I
suggest finding a coach who can help you align your goals, priorities and values
to create the life and business you desire. By paying attention to these key
areas, you can start to shift to creating a business that fits your lifestyle,
not one that dictates it, which is one of my personal measures of success.

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