In my work with clients, I hear a common thread which may or may not be easily articulated for most business owners. They want peace of mind. This may look different for each person, but the overall goal is to get to a place of less worry and more inner peace.
Time typically flies by quickly and a year or two later, if they have not changed anything strategically, there is just the relentless work of each day. The headaches of managing staff, dealing with customers and solving problems continues.
Without a more concrete definition of what peace of mind means, work can get frustrating. The disillusionment can come from thinking peace of mind means having no problems and few worries. It’s a flawed expectation when it comes to dealing in a world of people.
Much of why you are in business is because you improve something for others. You take on the headaches and ideally create an efficient system for inputs and outputs. To the degree you systematize your business, the more peace of mind you have. Your focus is less towards emergencies and responding with heroics and more towards how your system is performing from a broader perspective.
The rigor shifts from being reactive and working in the urgencies to growing a system. If you have a customer service problem, then study the process of how you handle inquiries. If you have a sales problem, then look at building a virtual pipeline system. It takes a commitment to building something that can push the crises into a system and embracing a different kind of rigor – building systems – rather than merely reacting without end.
If you are tired and can’t get to the important things, how about committing to the new rigor of growing systems and processes that take care of the pain in the first place. It may be a hard habit to break, but you will experience an entirely new peace of mind. It’s the kind which keeps you going on your bigger dreams rather than wears you out each day.
If you could fix one area of your business what would it be?
