This post is inspired by a post in Facebook group ‘Trends – Sandbox’.
Growth is an exciting word!
Everyone wants it. Be it an individual or an organization.
Having a growth plan is recommended for both, your personal development as well as scaling an organization.
We all get it, right?
Then what is the reason we cannot achieve a consistent growth as expected?
Well, majority of people think growth in tangible terms. Like increase in salary, profit or userbase.
But if you look deeply you will find the people who can grow sustainably focus on intangible improvements in their approach to achieve tangible results.
In reality, growth plan is a powerful yet flexible strategy which keeps pivoting as you find what is working for you by overcoming your biases.
But though you are clear about what you want and ready to walk miles to achieve it, there are times when you feel that something is holding you from growing to the next level.
Imagine a maze with invisible walls. That’s how it feels, right?
The only way to find a way without throwing yourself into these walls again and again is to ask for help from someone who have gone through that part of the maze.
The bottleneck is You!
More specifically, your bias to not trust the experienced person or to stay in your comfort zone and not invent a new way to bypass the blockage.
Either way the issue is your bias and these biases act like blind-spots.
Because of your fixed routine, a set of fixed people you hang out with and the same environment in which you operate, your mind gets fixed on how to do certain things.
Though you can sense that you need to change something but cannot exactly figure out what it is!
Following are some relatable problems
- You don’t have clear plan
- You don’t know how to start working on an idea that you believe in
- You can’t maintain consistency
- Your schedule seems messy
- You get overwhelmed by the uncertainty in your personal life or company
- You don’t know how to delegate tasks to your team
- You don’t have enough time for sales and marketing
Sounds like your life?
It is because during building a business almost everyone goes through these phases sooner or later.
Some founders are quick to test new ideas and attentive to what is working for the company, they grow comparatively faster than those who keep repeating same mistakes while expecting different results.
There can be many reasons for a stagnant company growth but everything comes down to one thing if we zoom out a little bit.
Mindset of decision makers.
It is frightening to hear. Because most people ignore their weaknesses in expectation of feeling powerful or perfect.
In reality, it is the reverse case. Once you accept what you are good at, you can portray yourself better to help other people. And when you accept that ‘I am not good at these things’ you know exactly what help do you need to get from other people.
This clarity activates your growth.
Though it is not easy or one-time process to get the clarity to achieve sustainable growth but here are some practices you should exercise on regular basis to keep your mind free from having hard biases
- Meditate daily
- Consult a mentor
- Get to know 1 person every week
- Have an accountability partner to discipline your mind
- Do side projects with other interesting people over the internet
- Write documentation or SOPs for repetitive tasks and learn to effectively delegate
There are more to this list but I am sure if you exercise some of the tasks regularly you will clearly see the difference in pace of growth.