Grow your Business by growing yourself

Have you ever seen a healthy, fruit-laden tree that has weak and under-developed root system?

Healthy Roots, Healthy Tree

Every aspect of the tree above the ground is determined by what is happening under the ground. The right stuff, hidden in the dirt, deep in the earth is what brings beautiful flowers and sweet fruits above ground. The stronger, deeply penetrated and spread out the roots, the healthier the tree is going to be.

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise go together

Like abundant fruit, strong trunk and branches, and robust root system go together, the Entrepreneur’s resilient emotional health, general well-being, and strength of character have a direct connection with the sustainable growth and success of their ventures.

Taking an idea, creating a business that provides the goods and (or) services to fulfill a need, provide employment for people, pay taxes, and build equity over time is a difficult task.  It requires firm conviction, persistence, resilience, and grit which are provided by the founders and leaders of the business.

Just like a root system has to continue to grow, expand, nourish, and repair itself to keep the tree growing and productive, the leaders of a business have to continue to improve their emotional strength and well-being.

In this blog, I will talk about different areas of personal growth that are important and often crucial for a successful Entrepreneur.  We will talk about how to grow your business by growing yourself.

 

Today’s topic is Procrastination.

All our lives, there are some tasks we endlessly keep putting off.  It is hard to figure out why generally organized, and motivated people put off specific jobs and do not fully understand why they do that.  The usual advice in self-help world is ‘do not procrastinate.’  If it were that simple, we all would not be afflicted with this disease to ‘put off’.

Do you know, Procrastination is a symptom and not the root problem?  There is always some stress, fear, anxiety or a combination of emotional challenges at the root that prevent us from completing what we start.

As entrepreneurs, we have more than our fair share of things that stress and scare us.  The situation gets even more challenging when there is fear, anxiety directly related to the task you are trying to get done.

What to do about this Procrastination problem? 

We all are familiar with short term strategies to combat this problem.  There is no shortage of articles listing ‘Top 5 (or 10) things to do…’  Some often recommended strategies are:

• Work in small spurts.
• Distract yourself with music, TV, audio of a good book, while completing manual work.
• Pick a time and place with the least distractions.
• Practice Stress Management routine to improve focus.

Here we are more interested in exploring long term solutions that help our Inner Self (core/roots) to get stronger and permanently improving our productivity.

1. Stress zaps vital physical, emotional, and mental energy out of our lives. It is also a critical factor in procrastination.  Stress management is essential to improving productivity in all areas of life.  Understanding stress is the first step.  Once understood, work can be done to improve the situation. 

Stress is unfulfilled desires, plans.  It is also a fear of not being able to fulfill desires and meet goals.  Stress management includes increasing physical activity, improving nutrition, having hobbies for a creative outlet outside of work, and keeping in perspective what is important in life. 

Reduction in overall stress helps us stay focused to complete the tasks we start.

2. Emotional Awareness can help identify the root cause(s) leading to procrastination. These could be fears, anxiety, past traumas, or other emotional baggage.  Having emotional baggage is a human condition. 

Sadly, Emotional awareness is not prevalent among Entrepreneurs.  Cultivating this awareness takes patience, persistence, practice, and acceptance.  There are a lot of books, blogs, and podcasts available on this topic.  Key is to find what works for you and continue to seek to learn more and more.

3. Practicing Non-Judgement toward ourselves is the best gift. We say things to ourselves that we would never say to a stranger, let alone someone we care about.  Judging ourselves for procrastinating can only make matters worse.  We have to learn to forgive ourselves for missing deadlines, making imperfect choices, or any other shortcomings real or perceived.  Letting go of the past, after learning the lessons, can help us focus all our energies on the task at hand.  It can help minimize the need to procrastinate.

Stay tuned. We will go in depth with each of the long term strategies in future posts.

Each one of us is different – our stresses, motivators, and patterns are various.  Please take what resonates with you and build upon it to create what fully works for you.

Remember to subscribe so we can notify you of new posts.  I am looking forward to discussing Fear, Anger, Anxiety, and other business growth challenges faced by Entrepreneurs.

Remember, growing yourself will help grow your business!  Happy Growing!