Edition 309 – Slogging Away
We’re a month into the New Year. Most of us have been back at work for three weeks now. It’s enough time to have returned to the rhythm of what we do, every day in our family businesses. It’s also enough time to have commenced making the changes in our businesses in 2022 that we committed to whilst we were sitting by the beach over the Christmas break.
Most of us won’t have made any changes.
Most of us will be slogging away at what we were slogging away at in the mad rush to Christmas.
Most of us will endure the pain of what it is about our businesses that we don’t like, or would prefer to run away from (but ridiculously, continue to put up with), than persevere through the challenge of trying something new and different in our business.
Already this year, I’ve had a number of conversations with both clients and colleagues and almost all of them are “slogging away” at it in 2022. Gee, even one colleague remarked to me recently, “I said on Day 1 back in the office that I’d be positive about 2022…..only to go full mental when something went pear shaped in the first hour.” We both laughed….but we also both knew that something wasn’t right.
Today, there are still 11 months of this calendar year to go. That’s a lot of time to start making the changes in your business and in your life to actually generate a different result by New Year’s Eve 2022.
To make that change, you have to ask yourself these five questions:
- What are we doing just to get things done, without really understanding whether or not we’re making forward progress?
- Are we slogging away at work we don’t like?
- Are we working on projects or with clients that generate little return?
- Are we going through the motions with relationships that no longer are of benefit to both parties?
- Whilst we’re slogging away, what are we missing out on?
It seems that a great majority of the population get to a point where they’re genuinely scared to make dramatic change in their life or their business. Even when they do, it’s usually as a result of a major life event – health crisis, death of a partner or the loss of a major client. Very few change because they’re truly invested in creating a better life or a better business for themselves.
If you’ve had at least the skerrick of a thought since your return from the Christmas holidays that there are things that you’re slogging away at in business that you’d rather not, then why not answer these five questions – then commit to a plan for change.
This Week’s Tip
“What changes can you make in your life and family business that will create a lasting impact,
yet not blow up what you currently have once you’re on the journey?”