Do you have an idea of what your business goal is (Point B)?

Do you have a starting point (Point A)?

Are you unsure how to get from Pont A to Point B?

Does the journey seem scary to you?

These are often the questions a business leader or owner asks themselves. As the business leader or owner, you usually do not understand what is holding you back and what is getting in your way to reach your business goals. You become scared and full of emotions because you think you need to be further along.  You are thinking this because it feels like everyone around you is succeeding faster than you. You are in the same place or moving backward.  But what if I told you that moving from Point to Point B is hard, and there Five Causes that are keeping you from moving forward.  You may not be able to see these causes even if they are right in front of you.   Sometimes these causes are intangible, and we may or may not be able to quantify them.

Let’s dive into the causes!

1. Perfectionism!

Perfectionism  is a “personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high-performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.”

Often you are comparing yourself to others, especially if they seem to have everything together.   It feels like they are way ahead of you, and you can’t even figure out your next step or where to start.   What if I told you that everything in business is not perfect and everyone else feels just like you?  Perfectionism keeps us from seeing where people are on their journey.  You cannot compare your beginning to someone’s middle or end.  Everyone is on a journey, and we are all in different stages.

Instead of hating your journey, you should embrace it.  The journey is not always about the reward or the destination.  My friend Karyn Ross always reminds me that “How we get there is as (or more important) than where we are going!” Enjoy and embrace the journey because you will have more fun if you do.  The results will come if you enjoy what you are doing and put in the work.

2. Chaos!

Often, you will choose chaos or disorder because we do not know any better. You get stuck in the chaos because you don’t know how to get out of it. It is causing you to lose sight of what matters the most and how to get to your goals.  All of the chaos you are creating is not serving your customers. It is driving them away because you have become reactive instead of proactive. The focus should not be making more money for yourself or your business but on how you make your customers happy. By stopping the chaos and listening to our customers’ wants, we learn how to make them happy. Satisfied customers usually mean you are meeting your customer needs, which in turn makes your business money.

3. No Plan! 

You might say you have a plan, but you genuinely do not have a plan or not an efficient plan.  Instead, you are all over the place within your business.  You start to feel confused and overwhelmed. When you are hit with a crisis (just like COVID-19), you are reactive. Without a plan, you are not efficient, and you are not rapid enough to respond.  Instead, you are stuck in chaos and not seeing any progress.  You are trying a whole lot of different things at once instead of taking it one step at a time. You need to have a well thought out Continuous Improvement plans not just for improvements but for times like we are experiencing right now.  These plans allow you to combat the feelings of being overwhelmed and confused. Having a plan will enable you to move out of a place of stagnation and into a place with great opportunity to improve and move forward.  You can start to climb the mountain again to success and prosperity because things are planned out.

4. Complexity! 

You are making things harder than they need to be.  You are trying all of the new “flashy” things (technology, AI, etc.) only to see that they are not working. By adding complexity to any business situation, you are making things worse.   What if I told you that you do not always need all the tools, technology, and gadgets to be successful. Sometimes all you need to do is start with simple processes that work for you.  You do not always need to add complexity to your business to become efficient and successful.

5.  Not truly understanding your purpose and goals! 

Do you genuinely understand why you are in business? What do you want to achieve? What do your customers honestly want?  The answers to these questions help to define the success of your business.    If you are not able to answer these questions, you may be feeling like you honestly do not know what you are doing.  Not having a real purpose and goal with your business well keep you in this state of confusion and will not allow you to develop a concrete plan that fits you and your business. Not knowing what the real purpose is keeping you from truly from authenticity. By genuinely thinking about your goal, it will help you to make sure your Point B is accurate.  

6. Not starting!

 Have you thought about starting a new plan, but you are afraid to?  You begin to think about what if you fail or if you take the wrong steps. Instead of thinking about failure, think about how succeeding.  You will not fail or take the wrong steps.  A step is either going to work or not work.  If the step works, you are closer to your goal.  If the step did not work, you are still closer to your goal.  You are closer to your goal because you started taking steps instead of just waiting.  You are much closer to your Point B once you start!

Where you able to relate to these reasons? Are you ready to see why you are having such a hard time moving from Point A to Point B? You may not experience all of these reasons, but if you are just experiencing one of them, it’s keeping you from moving forward.  If you can just eliminate one of these reasons, this will help you to start moving forward.  You will get to your Point B so much faster. I have faith that you can move forward and reach your Point B. 

What is keeping you from moving forward?

If you would like to learn more about these six reasons, let’s set up some time chat.