Breaking It Down Before You Have a Break Down

We’ve been hearing many “Big Name” online marketers talking lately about ALL the different things you can do to build your business, ALL the different strategies you use, ALL the different tactics you can implement.

How “you can’t create a successful business without video or Facebook or a blog or making 100 calls a week or continuity program or orange poster-board… you get the idea.

There seems to be this attitude of “Go, Go, Go!”into the next “latest and greatest best thing ever.”

But as you look closely at the next thing they’re telling you to do in your business, it’s related to what the next thing they are offering, not necessarily what you need to build your business now.

And what this “culture of needing to do more, more, more” creates is a feeling of not being able to ever do enough. A sense of never being able to get on top of it all. And the very real possibility of never creating and building a solid foundation for your business growth.

And for those of us who are “seekers” (Paige and I are guilty as charged), it can be really easy to get hooked on the “info” crack that permeates personal and business development, and really be searching for the next thing to learn, as opposed to actually taking the action that will actually bring in clients and create the business and lifestyle you desire.

In fact, just the other day we had to put a new client on an info-diet.She was spending so much time going to calls, learning and amassing knowledge, that she was slipping into overwhelm, and even paralysis… which meant she was not taking the important and key steps she needed to move her business forward.

And it’s not just around marketing and business development that we can get into overwhelm.It can be with your schedule, follow up calls, networking, taking care of the family. This week, each one of these has come up on our private client calls.

So what to do? Well, I like to use the analogy of a being on a diet… you know you’ve been on it for a couple of days (or hours) and you just need something crunchy, you try a carrot to no avail, so you look in the cupboard and to your relief there’s a bag of potato chips hiding behind that box of cereal.

You cautiously open the bag,and tell yourself, “Just one.”

You grab one chip and slowly put it in your mouth, you savor the crunchy, salty goodness… You grab another one telling yourself, “just one more”… you look down a minute later at the bag and it’s empty….

So what happens next?Well, if you’re anything like a majority of the dieting adults surveyed, you use the “bag incident” as a reason to put the diet on hold for the day (or for the week). And you begin to eat everything else you’ve been avoiding, telling yourself “Why bother, I already ate the whole bag of potato chips”.

That single chip opens the doorway to doubt about even doing the diet at alland you give up (if even for a few hours). The single chip causes a breakdown in everything you’ve been doing to bring a healthier lifestyle and eating habit into your life.

The same thing can happen in your business,we set a huge goal for ourselves, like 100 follow up calls in a week, 10 new clients in our program by tomorrow, going to 5 networking events this week, or our entire website (copy written, designed and online) in a weekend.

Are all these possible? Absolutely!Just like staying on a diet is possible. It’s just harder with a bag of chips in the house.

As we share with our clients, the trick is to break it down, so your Ego can’t get to the place of “why bother” and send you into a breakdown tailspin that stops you in your tracks.

To help prevent this from happening, we need to break down the goal or intention into smaller pieces.

So instead of 50 follow-up calls (that you are doing zero of – ouch!),how about starting out with having 1 conversation a day. Imagine if you go from 0 calls to having 20 in a month… how much do you think your business and life will change?

Instead of 10 new clients in your program by tomorrow, you focus on bringing in 1 for now. *See note above about following up :-)

Instead of going to 5 networking events this week and going to none, how about you pick 1 to go to and actually go?

Instead of creating your entire website in a weekend, how about you focus on creating your splash page so your message is online and then add a page at a time without being in overwhelm?

Much like beginning to eat and take better care of ourselves, it’s slight shifts that create lasting impacts. It’s better to consistently do a little than it is to do nothing at all.

You will find that with persistence, comes the way through any breakdown to your breakthrough.

Call to Action

Look at your business and ask yourself … “What’s my bag of potato chips?”

What is going to make you stop?

What’s the goal that’s too big and makes you say “why bother” the moment you even begin to miss the mark?

Really look at that goal and begin to break it down into smaller, doable pieces and begin taking persistent and consistent action towards it. That’s how you begin to build your foundation for success.

And that’s how you have just a handful of chips without feeling guilty