There are many different niches and areas of specialization in the business world, though there’s one constant, regardless of your specific area of expertise: if you want to be, and remain, successful in the long term, you’ve got to prime yourself for continuous personal, professional growth.
While any entrepreneurial venture of yours may ultimately sink or swim, you’ll always be able to orient yourself according to your positioning along the growth-spectrum.
Do your behaviors and surroundings push and pull you ever higher, or do they merely leave you at your current level indefinitely, fighting the same battle ad infinitum?
Here are a few things you need to do to ensure you’re always primed for growth.
Maintain Positive Tension
For there to be growth in any situation, there needs to be the right kind of tension. Tension is, by definition, uncomfortable, but if nurtured in the right manner it should ultimately serve as motivation rather than anguish.
Simply put, if your current professional environment doesn’t make any pressing demands of you, if you find that you spend most of your time on cruise control, rarely have to exert yourself, and feel just comfortable enough not to change anything, you’re likely going nowhere fast.
A major element in ensuring that you’re somewhere better tomorrow than you were yesterday, is fostering the kind of professional environment which demands just a bit more of you than you’re comfortable with.
It’s this sort of positive tension – neither debilitating nor enfeebling – that will keep you growth-oriented.
Take on clients and projects which require you to stretch yourself and your resources. Set goals and targets which will take a bit of sweat and fast thinking to execute successfully.
Take Complete Responsibility For Everything In Your Life
If there’s one skill which any entrepreneur needs to succeed, it’s the ability to take complete responsibility for everything in his or her life, whether good or bad. In any given moment, it could be debated whether you really are responsible for every event in your life, in an objective sense. The truth is that it doesn’t really matter.
Only by assuming responsibility for everything in your life can you guarantee that you remain completely proactive at all times and in all circumstances. The human mind is good at finding reasons to avoid doing difficult work or making difficult decisions, and everyone has a natural tendency towards self-pity if they let themselves go down that path.
It is exactly that attitude of accountability and proactive mindset that shapes a growth-oriented personality type. If you’re constantly taking stock of the situation you find yourself in, analyzing it, reflecting on how your actions could have been altered to lead to a better outcome (or how they did lead to a current positive outcome), then you’re perpetually refining yourself and streamlining the processes you employ.
We call that growth.
Take Time To Reflect
The best-laid plans can go awry, and the most streamlined systems can present a wrinkle every once in a while. If you’re a busy person, handling a lot of data and tasks during the course of the average day, it’s inevitable that you’ll get caught up in the flow of things and sometimes lose track of the bigger picture, as well as some of the finer mechanisms of your operation.
This is why it’s essential to regularly take time to reflect. David Allen, author of the seminal work “Getting Things Done” (an essential book for anyone who wants to increase their efficiency and improve task management) is a big proponent of weekly and monthly reviews as a way of taking stock, patching up any cracks that have started to appear, and refocusing.
These reviews can be as complex or as simple as you’d like, but should leave you with a clear and renewed vision of your direction going forward, as well as a sense of clarity and satisfaction at the state of your planner for the week up ahead.
Whether on a Friday afternoon or a Sunday night, lock yourself away for a few hours and ask yourself the following questions:
• What went well in the last week?
• What went wrong in the last week?
• What could be improved on going into next week?
• What is my ultimate goal and am I on course to meet it?
• Am I engaging in the most productive activities?
• Are there time-consuming activities I could reasonably cut out? (see the 80-20 rule)
Seek Out Continuous Professional Training & Development
In any industry, those on the cutting edge have to work to stay there, and this never happens by accident.
In addition to continually pushing the envelope in your own professional sphere, you must make a point of seeking out training and further professional development wherever it seems expedient, throughout your business life. Many examples of professional training bodies exist as well.
If a new technology has emerged which has the potential to revolutionize your industry, attend seminars on its use. If you notice that your competition all seem to be benefiting from a particular managerial or organizational system, book yourself in for a training course.
If your clients respond favorably to a particular side-service, investigate the logistics of implementing it into your business model.
Practice Self-Affirmation
This may sound like a new-age point, but you simply cannot expect to achieve significant growth or success if you’re unable to see the value in yourself which you’re presumably trying to sell to your clients. It’s nothing other than common sense.
For the entrepreneur, self-criticism comes easily, sometimes too easily. It’s all a part of taking complete ownership of yourself and your actions. The other side of that coin, however, is taking complete credit for all your successes and bright moments, and reveling in those.
Even – and perhaps, especially – if you have yet to have any runaway success in your business venture, it’s essential that you look inwards on a regular basis and find things to praise yourself for. It’s imperative that you condition yourself to face external challenges with the attitude of “I can manage this no problem. If any can do it, it’s me.”
By affirming your own value and worth, you’ll not only feel far more daring, energized, and happy in your day-to-day business life, but your sense of self-worth will be projected to your clients in turn.
I hope you enjoyed this article about how to stay primed for professional growth throughout your career and overall life.
Interested in more articles about self-improvement?
Read My Posts:
- How To Improve Your Work-Life Balance
- 7 Simple Suggestions For Success
Published by Michael J Schiemer
Owner of Bootstrap Business
Money - Marketing - Motivation
Digital Marketing | SEO | Social Media
Mike Schiemer Builds Better Business
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