A stat that is repeatedly quoted by many is that up to 80% of start ups fail but not many talk about reasons behind this stat.
Ever wondered why?
There could be a lot of reasons but this post is an attempt to explain one of the common reasons and in my mind the biggest.
Guess what:
That one reason revolves around nothing but humans and human mind. In other words self improvement.
Let me start with a bang and say:
If you have a business and is failing, there is no point trying to rescue it unless you as a business owner have become capable of handling your business.
Business is easy, the difficult bit is taking control of self.
The best thing I heard all year in 2018 is below statement.
Intentions + Behaviours = Results
When I first heard this, it was a mere statement and I didn’t associate any meaning to it.
However, when shit hits the fan in your life, be it personal or business you do become that monk with little lot of enlightenment. You go through that bit of discovery of yourself leading to your self improvement.
No surprises:
I went through the same journey.
Everyone may have their own interpretations of how they see above statement and so do I.
In my mind, a deeper analysis of this fixes lots of issues that frustrates individuals at both personal and business fronts.
Here is the deal:
I will explain this one statement surrounding Intentions, Behaviours and Results as 4 scenarios.
Scenario 1: The Ideal State
When a person starts a business or a new challenge on the personal front, they start with very high intentions and goals. Its natural to do so since we as humans have high expectations of results from what we do.
The momentum resulting from being able to start something new propels your mind towards those high results.
Thats great!!
Then what is the problem?
Issue is, one does not achieve those great results unless they put the high amount of effort that it demands or show consistency in doing that work.
I call this phase the ideal state, where intentions of a person are high and so are the behaviours matching those high intentions.
This only means the results are also going to be high.
But often this isn’t the case, isn’t it?
It is all good to have high intentions and show high behaviours or in other words take lots of action.
However:
That high energy doesn’t last long and you will be out of your depth because you aren’t ready for such high results just yet.
You aren’t ready mentally, physically, emotionally to achieve such high results.
Result: Failure within short span of setting up your business or a challenge for yourself.
Scenario 2: Low Intentions and High Behaviours
When you set yourself limited goals and have low intentions but you keep on taking lots of action i.e. show high behaviours you will achieve your goals.
But:
This only means that you haven’t really set your goals right and you get used to limited targets and limit your potential to just achieving the meagre goals you set.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. – Michelangelo
You see this behaviour when business owners end up doing a lot of admin work and stay in the illusion that they are doing the work and are running a successful business.
Result: Limited outlook into identifying your full potential and getting used to your comfort zone.
Scenario 3: High Intentions and Low Behaviours
Imagine a case where a person has high intentions or goals but takes limited action or show limited behaviours to achieve those intentions.
Targets can’t be achieved given the action being taken to achieve those goals are low. This eventually leads to frustration and looking out for what others are doing and what you can replicate to go behind success.
Just because something worked for someone else does not mean it will work for you, simply because both of your situations are different.
One starts looking at what others are doing and lose themselves and their business in this process. You lose your identity in this process of trying to copy others.
Result: Frustration due to loss of identity and lack of confidence in what a business owner is set out to do.
Must Read: The Ultimate Guide To Find Your Core Values And Hence Your Identity
Scenario 4: The Incremental Growth (Self Improvement)
Before we discuss this scenario, it would be great to be aware of the transition between stage 2 and stage 3 when you start or running with a challenge to achieve your goals.
Because:
That transition and awareness of whats happening on intentions/behaviours/results is the root of realising scenario 4 i.e. this scenario.
The secret sauce to success then only points to one thing and that is “Incremental Growth”.
Here is the deal:
You may set high intentions and goals but break those goals down.
Take the first incremental intention and go about showing behaviours to achieve that incremental intention.
In essence, start small…..
Follow the next incremental intention and then go for the next level of behaviours to achieve that intention.
The cycle continues.
With such incremental cycles you reach a point which matches scenario 1 (ideal state) but with ability to sustain on long run.
Like what we planned for this blog:
The goal is to make this blog revenue generating at the back of achieving a traction of at least 10,000 hits each month and purely with quality content.
However, if i don’t create the blog and understand the audience pulse, understand the marketing strategy or the analytics to measure the traffic, understand the revenue channels, I have slim chance of achieving that.
That only leads to the fact that I need to focus on the work first before i think of revenues for at least next one year, given this is just second week from launch at the time of writing this post.
Must Read: How We Grew Our Property Portfolio From Zero To 12 Properties In 14 Months
Doing those increments, you slowly become the person capable of handling each intention at a time and reach a point where high intentions and high behaviours become your second nature to achieve high results.
Your understanding of each incremental state is solid and when you grow across each increment, you remain capable of running your business.
Here is the another positive flip as well:
You fail at some point in your journey or business then you are not sky rocketing to the bottom, but most likely will just fall to the last incremental state.
Most importantly you know how to get back to where you belong even if you fall.
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