Success and growth is about many things, what are the things we can do to encourage and bring more success into our lives and business?
When we think about success, we might think about achieving. Hitting milestones and ticking off boxes in a list. However, what is also equally important is learning. It’s almost more important than those other things.
Without learning we won’t be able to knock out those milestones. Once we stop learning we stop growing, and we stop seeking to be better.
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” – Benjamin Franklin
With that I would like to share with you 4 lessons that will help encourage success in your life and hopefully reduce chances of failure.
What’s important, is these things are all in your control. They are lessons you can learn (accept them or don’t) and you can create habits to implement these lessons. We don’t know what the future holds, in terms of success or failure, but we can do our best to master everything that is under our control.
Here are 4 lessons that I would recommend we all learn to become better businesswomen and businesspeople.
Learn to let go (of perfectionism)
This is something I’m really passionate about. People let their inner perfectionist rule their lives for a number of reasons. Sometimes it is because they are scared what will happen if they expose themselves. And other times it is the inner need to control everything sticking its ugly head out.
If you would like to see what I’ve already written about this topic, check out my blog article here.
People who are too concerned with being perfect do not have time to concern themselves with improving themselves or running their business.
It is important to make sure that your work, and the products you are selling are a good quality. However it is almost impossible to aim for perfection.
One of those reasons is that perfection doesn’t come without improvement. You need to release something into the world; a product, a book, a speech, whatever your specialty is. It can’t be perfect. Because you need to collect feedback from your audience and work to integrate that feedback.
In business, there is always some back and forth between you, your team, your investors or bosses, and those people you are trying to sell to. That is how success is reached, through your own effort and through constant improvement.
So, the sooner you defeat your inner perfectionist and put yourself out in the world, the closer you’ll be to success.
Ironically, being a perfectionist will actually keep you away from true perfectionism. Because you can never begin that second step of the journey, which is improvement. If you’d like to read more about the negative cycle that perfectionism can trap people in; check out my article here.
Learn the art of delegation
In business everything has its place. The sooner we learn where everything goes in our business plan the faster we can encourage success.
What do I mean by this?
When we are running a business by ourselves, it’s easy to know what we have to do. The answer is … everything.
However, when you want to grow and increase your income, you will need to grow your team. You will need to call on the help and expertise of others.
Do you think Jeff Bezos would reach his level of success if he was still stuck doing the order and stock lists for Amazon?
No, there comes a point where you need to take charge of your business and the direction it is going. To do that you will need to leave the other tasks that are keeping you busy.
Just because you are busy does not mean that you are making progress. So to achieve success you will need to find the tasks that take time, but don’t contribute to the overall success of your business. Then you can delegate them to someone else.
Good leadership is not about authoritarian control, but rather about being able to delegate and not micromanage. If you want to read more about how to stop micromanaging, check out this blog post here.
A good leader is someone who can see where the expertise of another person can benefit them. If you are not great at writing copy, try and find someone else who can do it, once you have the means. You understand your purpose within the organization, and that purpose is not necessarily doing all the tasks; especially if you are weak at them or if someone can do them better!
The sooner you understand what good leadership is, the sooner you will find success. Here are 6 Reasons Good Leadership Will Lead to Business Success.
Learn to look after yourself
This isn’t something that all social media or marketing gurus will tell you. But you need to look after your health as much as you look after the success of your business.
There are all kinds of wholistic things that we as businesswomen need to look after, that are not strictly business related. However, attending to these will ultimately increase the quality of your life and therefore your ability to contribute to your business.
One of these is looking after your health.
Looking after your health itself is a wide term for self-care that encompasses a lot of elements and interpretations.
- We need to take care of the things we put into our body, making sure we have a clean and balanced diet.
- We should also try and stay active, doing whatever form of physical activity is appropriate for you. That could be weekly sports, regular walks, or just something that you do at home like weights or yoga.
- We also have to make sure that we are getting enough sleep. This will affect us over time and contribute to the generally well operation of the machine that is our bodies.
You are not exchangeable, and you are not expendable. So, learn to take care of yourself. You are no longer under the yoke of a boss or employer, so hopefully you can design your lifestyle to positively balance your work and free time.
Running a business doesn’t mean running yourself down.
Learn to keep learning
Sometimes when you’re in the thick of things, it can be hard to slow down, change gears and do a bit of learning.
When was the last time you attended a class or seminar? What was the last book you read?
We tend to ignore these things, because running a business takes priority. However these are the things that we do in the background, that accumulate, and continue to shape who we are.
It is important to keep encountering new ideas and using them to become a better businesswoman. So we can’t ignore them just because we have our business running.
Once you stop learning you stop growing. Never be too arrogant to learn something new from someone else. You never know how what other people have to say can affect your own philosophy and opinions.
Reading can be both a time to exhale, as well as a time to learn more. In that regard it is helpful for both leading a healthy lifestyle and developing into a better businesswoman.
Books contain the lessons from the failures and successes of those who have gone before us. We should seek these lessons out so we don’t fall into needless mistakes nor waste our time.
Similarly taking time out regularly for a weekend course, or dedicating an hour or so each week to the various education platforms online nowadays, can only be beneficial for us. After all, when it comes to technical stuff, there comes a point where we need to sit and learn just to figure things out.
So don’t ever think that you are above learning new things!
It’s time to learn and succeed!
Education and growth are hard. We’ve suffered enough during our school years, so it’s totally understandable why you’d want to avoid anything that reminds you of it. But taking the time to develop yourself into a better person and better entrepreneur can only be beneficial!
The things you can learn are more expansive than we can even comprehend. You may want to start learning about skills related to your industry or simply learning better habits to become a better person. Regardless, all of these things can lead you to success if you have the right mindset.
So are you ready to succeed?
Is it time you stopped holding back your success?
Dr Raja Yasmin is the founder of the EQBIZ Academy. She has both real life experience running businesses as well as 20 years of teaching experience. Now, Dr Raja Yasmin is ready to help women become empowered through business. If you would like to receive a free marketing resource for your business, sign up here.
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