Keep Your Priorities in Check
As an entrepreneur, having structure is going to make or break you in both your professional and personal life. This is where you need to learn how to prioritize important tasks, and divide your time so that nothing gets left out. So how do you do that?
Get yourself out of bed early, and G.S.D. (Get Shit Done).
Think about it, the earlier you wake up, the more time you can spend getting your big tasks done, and even more time strengthening your relationships with the people you care most about. You can actually train yourself to get up earlier by moving up your waking time in 15 minute increments, one week at a time.
Second, you should set up a certain block of time where all of your high priority tasks will be completed. This time is what my good friend, Craig Ballantyne, would call “magic time”.
This magic time is your opportunity to do the work that makes you the most money, brings the most joy to your life, and makes the best use of your unique talents.
For me, this often means writing sales copy or recording video messages to pump up my team or my coaching clients.
By scheduling your work time from your personal life, you keep a healthy balance where your relationships and health don’t have to be put on the back burner. I suggest going out and picking up a planner so that you can get a clear visual of what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.
Keep A Positive Mindset
Negative thoughts cloud your productivity—trash them.
If you want to be successful, you need to have a strong visualization of where you want your business to be, and to keep your inner momentum going to achieve it.
When you’re not in the right mindset, you’ll keep pushing your work off until it becomes so overwhelming it takes over your life. Once this happens, your other priorities become nonexistent as you scramble to pick up the pieces of your broken business.
How do you keep yourself from falling off the wagon? Surround yourself with others who will push you to stay motivated. You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. This directly influences your health, your income, and even your happiness. Choose wisely.
Cut Negative People Out of Your Life
There’s these little names I like to give to the negative people in your life who don’t contribute any positivity and growth: the crabs and the energy vampires.
The crabs are the people in your life who drag you down. These are the people who shoot down your big ideas because they themselves are too afraid to dream big, so they protect their fragile egos by keeping everybody else in check.
Like the crabs, the energy vampires are the people in your life who take their negativity and try to infect you with it. These are the people who suck the life force out of you, and cause you to feel unmotivated to strive for greatness. They may not even know they’re doing it, but for some reason you feel sluggish and depressed whenever you spend time with them.
The best thing you can do for yourself and your business is to cut these people out of your life, and replace them with those who want nothing but success for you. Unfortunately, there are cases where you can’t completely eliminate negative people from your life, such as family members.
This is where you need to have what I call edited relationships—these are the superficial interactions you have with those family members. Don’t share your dreams or your passions with them, those should be shared with the people in your life who build you up rather than tear you down.
Don’t Be Afraid To Be A Control Freak
Forget the negative stereotype of being a control freak. Being a control freak can have great benefits in your personal and professional life.
In fact, I like to consider myself not a “control freak” but a “control king.” The fact that I take control allows me to create the outcomes I want to see in the world, help the people I serve, and overall be an effective leader. I take pride in taking control.
Take control of your time, your energy, your health, who you bring into your inner circle, who you hire onto your team, what kind of work environment you want to create, whatever the case may be.
There are so many things that happen in life where we have no control, so take advantage of the opportunities where you do have the power to pick and choose what will improve your life.
When you take control, you envision a clear structure for how you want things done, and you can set the bar for the quality you expect of not only those around you, but also what you expect of yourself.
Learn How To Say “No”
When your business is still relatively new, you may get caught up in the excitement of new offers and opportunities coming your way and say “yes” to all of them.
Or worse, you might even say “yes” to things you know aren’t quite right for you just because you’re desperate to get your foot in the door.
Now, if you’re scooping up opportunities that are aligned with your business vision and you can feel your entrepreneurial muscles stretching, that’s great.
However, when you start to feel stressed and burnt out because you’re being pulled in too many directions at once, that’s when you need to change your habits.
Learning how to say no more often will leave you open to focus on the greater possibilities that will strengthen and enhance your business.
At first, saying no will seem challenging. You’ll probably think to yourself “But if I’m having so many opportunities thrown at me, why would I say no? Shouldn’t I be getting involved in as many ventures as possible to spread the word about my business?”
What you may not realize is, in this case, quality trumps quantity. You can have 100 business deals under your belt, but if they’re not of high quality status or don’t support your vision for your business, then you’ve essentially wasted your time.
You need to chase the opportunities that encourage your business to grow and expand in the way you envision it. Never settle. If you’ve got something great, and you’re passionate about the great service it provides to people, then make sure you’re working with the right people who understand how to take it to the next level.
