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How Constant Challenge leads to Success
Comfortable is a great word to describe the living room of your home. It’s a great word to describe the driver’s seat of your car, your bank account or the state of your newborn baby. Comfortable is NOT a great word to describe your business.
If someone asks you how business is going, and you beam and say that its comfortable then you’ve just thrown up a red flag.
A comfortable business is one step away from a flailing business, a floundering one, or one that is in the end of its life cycle. It’s what nurses say about the dying before they die, “we have made them comfortable.”
If you have breath in your lungs and vigor in your eyes, it’s time to embrace a new word—challenging. It’s time to answer that questions differently, that your business is challenging you. Challenge will help your business grow while comfort will not.
According to Ryan Morris, IOL podcast guest and principal consultant at Morris Management Partners, if your day is full of tasks at which you excel, are confident in and find easy, then something isn’t right. This means that you’ve settled into doing things in a way that will soon be outdated. It also means that you have neglected to look for new ways to change. If you stay in this place, your competition will likely blow past you.
How do we shift from being comfortable in our business to being challenged?
- Always be Learning: Morris says, “no one was born knowing how to water ski.” That means that most of the things we do well, we had to learn. That also means that we weren’t great at them when we began. The same is true in business. Most new skills take practice, endurance and discipline. Don’t let the fear of “being bad at it” keep you from starting new things. The joy and accomplishment that comes from learning is greater than the comfort of only doing things that we’re good at. Learning leads to new endeavors which leads to success as the market changes.
- Be Deliberate about Change: Some speak of change as if it is something that happens to us, as if we are passive bystanders in the world of change. That’s not so. We can change with intention. This looks like having a plan and foresight. It means looking at the market, identifying where you want to go, planning how you are going to get there, then taking steps in that direction. Change is inevitable. It’s best to chase it instead of letting it chase you.
- Borrow other people’s ideas: Don’t be afraid to adapt something someone else is doing to fit your business. Nothing is completely original. In fact, most things aren’t. “Get out there,” as Patrick says. Gather ideas with a keen eye and a desire to learn and grow. Attend conferences, join networking groups, read books, hire a coach or consultant and engage people in conversation. Actively seek to glean information that is helpful in making your business grow.
- Don’t finish everything: Give yourself space to “try” things. If you happen to try something that doesn’t seem to be working or fitting, then let it go. Don’t criticize yourself or others for trying. This is not a failure. This is what it looks like to learn.
- Use competition as fuel: Every good story has adversity. Part of your adversity is your competition. You are the hero in your story, let your power be driven by the opposition, at least a little bit. Identify your biggest competitors, figure out how big a player they are, and then use their successes as fuel to continue to push toward success.
Choose the challenge and ditch the comfort. You’ll be surprised how much this bleeds over into all areas of your life as well, awakening you to a world of possibilities. As Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “do one thing every day that scares you.” Put that on your bathroom mirror.
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This post is based on the IOL Podcast episode #149: Keeping Your Business Relevant with Ryan Morris. Check it out.
Written By Ashley Buenger
