Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as 7 Ways to Choose Success in Your Business by Ruby McGuire
When you run your own business you have to make lots of choices, every day. And if you’re someone who chooses to create their success, then you’re more likely to succeed.
A good business owner creates lots of opportunities. It may take a while to get results, but you take action anyway. Even small changes can create excellent results—you just never know where those opportunities might lead…
For example, many years ago, I wanted to do speaking engagements. I could have waited around for people to approach me, but instead, when I saw someone asking for a speaker, I would offer my services. Over the years, that led to people approaching me to speak—and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t chosen to put myself forward in those early days.
We also need to be flexible. It’s easy to get stuck when things in your business don’t go to plan. But when things go awry, this isn’t the time to beat yourself up. Instead it’s a time to consider what you might be doing wrong and then learning to adapt or pivot in a different direction. Knowledge empowers, and enables, us to make changes.
So, below are seven things you can do to create (choose) success for yourself and your business (with an action for each one to get started!).
Here are 7 Things to Create Your Success
1. Get comfortable with “failing”
When you move out of a problem-focused mindset into a solution-focused mindset, you can overcome any obstacles and challenges that come your way. “Failures” are just opportunities for learning and growing. If a problem comes up again, you’ll have tools in your toolbox to move past it quickly.
In NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) we say: There is no failure, only feedback. So when something goes wrong, you’re just learning how not to do it!
I also love the idea that “Everything is a lesson or a blessing”. When something goes wrong, it might feel awful at the time. But often when you look back, you realize it was a lucky escape. Think of these “failures” as lessons on growing your business and how you can grow as a person because they happened.
Action: Make a list of things that didn’t work out as you expected—but ended up being the best outcome for you in the long run.
2. Actively learn
When you’re a coach, it’s almost a given that you’re on a lifelong journey of learning. Your learning doesn’t just stop because you qualified as a coach. Next you need to learn how to be a business owner. After that, you might choose to go through various accreditation levels to improve your skills.
So if you want to become the expert or go-to guy or gal, you need to build on your skills and knowledge constantly.
For example, I’m an absolute book addict, so this is my first port of call for learning. I’m not sure who said this, but I read once that you will have learned most of what you need to know if you read five books from experts on a topic. As if I needed any encouragement to buy more books!
This constant learning also builds your confidence in your abilities. The more you grow, the more credible you become, and potential ‘dreamie’ clients will feel more confident in paying for your services.
Action: Make a list of what you could actively learn this month to grow as a coach.
3. Make mistakes
Mistakes are fundamental. Every time you make a mistake, you’ll learn something new. You can review how you have done something and then adapt to ensure that mistake doesn’t happen again. You can quickly get stuck in a rumination loop (I should know—I’m terrible for it!). How I overcome it is to remind myself that if I had done that task perfectly in the first place, I might not have learned incredible lessons that I can use going forward.
Action: Write a list of 3 past mistakes and specifically how they helped you grow.
4. Work on you
Self-belief enables you to push through your comfort zones and take action to move towards your goals. To be successful in business, you need to believe in yourself, which means doing the inner work to build a strong mindset.
When you believe in yourself, not only do you feel more confident, but you instill confidence in those who want to work with you. So aim to move away from external validation, i.e. needing people to tell you how amazing you are. Instead, validate yourself by keeping a note of your achievements and celebrating them.
Another great way to build self-belief is to acknowledge and recognize your strengths. Sadly we tend to play down our strengths, thinking everyone can do what we do. This is rarely the case. You have a unique combination of strengths, knowledge and expertise, and being fully aware of them builds that strong mindset.
Action: Write a strengths list to identify areas in which you excel. Not sure where to start? Ask three good friends what they think you make look easy. You might be surprised by their responses!
5. Be consistent
It can be easy to get sucked into writing an enormous action plan for your business—when actually, consistency is what you need.
For example, I like to reach out to one person every day to make connections. This consistent practice doesn’t feel like an uphill task; it feels light and easy.
Often we overcomplicate our business. We try something new and give up before it’s taken root.
For example, when I planted my first carrot seeds I saw some green leaves above the soil after a few weeks. So I thought I’d pull them up, only to find the teeniest-tiniest carrot in the world. I was so disappointed. I expected to be able to eat carrots within a short space of time. But many things were needed to help my little seedlings grow—sun, water, shade, soil nutrients (and time/patience on my part!).
The lesson here: Don’t expect overnight miracles in your business—or your carrots!
Action: Make a list of a few simple activities you can do consistently—for example, every day or once a week—that will lead to positive results over time.
6. Help other people
Helping others is a powerful way to build relationships—and learn and grow!
You can help people one-to-one if you have time, but there are always easier ways if you’re busy.
For example, when people subscribe to my email list, I invite them to email me and let me know what they’re struggling with. Then I share tips with them. Usually, I’ll share a helpful blog post or article I’ve already written that helps them take a small action to get them started. Over the years, I’ve written so much that I almost always have something I can send to help them!
Action: Think about how you could help others, pop a note in your diary or daytimer, and then make it happen.
7. Take responsibility and ownership
Don’t blame others for mistakes you’ve made, or if you’re not successful (yet!). Instead, take responsibility for all the actions you’ve taken (and not taken) in your business. And remember that you’ve always done the best you can with the tools and resources you had available to you at that time. Blaming others doesn’t improve your situation.
From this point on, choose to take full ownership of your life and business. Decide what you’d like to create in your business and then go out there and do it.
Action: Take a few minutes to write down where you might be blaming others, forgive yourself, then choose to take back control instead of giving your power away to others.
Wrap-up
To be successful, I dare myself to take a deep breath, get brave and do what needs to be done. Then I reward myself with a cappuccino! What will you do?
Here’s a quick recap of the seven steps:
- Get comfortable with “failing”.
- Actively learn.
- Make mistakes.
- Work on you.
- Be consistent.
- Help other people.
- Take responsibility and ownership.
What’s your biggest takeaway from reading this article? Share in the comments below.
