Agility is important in any small business, especially ones like ours at End Grain Industries. When we launched this business we defined our core offerings, wrote the business plan, did the research, hit the streets, all that good stuff. We also gave ourselves the ability to adapt to the ebb and flow of demand and, ultimately, what we want to do with our time.
If you’ve written a business plan you understand that it can be a gruelling process, full of corporate-y jargon and hard lines in the sand. If you’ve ever then taken your business plan and tried to run your business on it, you may have experienced a feeling of being trapped in a glass case of emotion. We think business plans are insanely valuable in the experience of creating it, not the experience of using it. Being pigeon holed into what you defined early on feels limiting, and it doesn’t have to.
In an upcoming series related to building an successful business in 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, we will go deeper into focusing your time on high-value items when you have competing priorities like family, managing a home or sleeping. In this post, I’d like to kick us off by giving you the freedom to do what you want, if what you want can also support your life.
As an entrepreneur, you’ve given yourself a valuable gift (high five); the gift of freedom. Freedom to:
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do work you’re really good at
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choose how/when/with whom you work
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deliberately remove the barriers to your own success (as defined by you)
To harness the true power of this gift you have to remember to use it. This is especially true for those of you who have come from the land of corporate establishments. Remember that you don’t have a boss to approve a project, or a change in direction or your vacation schedule. You can decide to go where the wind takes you, you aren’t forced to stay on the straight and narrow by some invisible bureaucracy. You own the vision and the many different forms it takes, so own it and shape it the way you want!
You might be thinking, okay lady, this all sounds fine and dandy but you don’t work in my world. And fair enough, I don’t. But I’m here to offer some advice for when you’re feeling trapped by your own business:
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you make the rules
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you can change course at any time
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you’re smart and you’ll figure it out
You became an entrepreneur to feel empowered. Maybe along the way you lost that a bit and feel like a slave to the machine. Well, it’s time to take your power back, put your stake in the sand and make your claim. Leave the pigeon holes to the pigeons. Adapt your business to suit you instead of adapting yourself to suit your business. The only person who’s going to stop you is you, and the pigeons.