How Self-Accountability and Consistency Lead to Business Success
The Self-Imposed Barrier
The Hard Truth: It's You
At the heart of Amy’s message is the blunt but truthful revelation: you might be the biggest obstacle to your success. Even with clear goals and a burning desire for success, unresolved subconscious beliefs and failure to implement the right actions can stall your progress. This challenge isn’t unique; Amy candidly shares her experience of dealing with this self-imposed barrier. She emphasizes that recognizing this hurdle is the first step to overcoming it.
Procrastiplanning: Busy, Not Productive
The Illusion of Productivity
Amy introduces the term "procrastiplanning," a practice familiar to many entrepreneurs. It involves creating elaborate to-do lists and meticulously checking off tasks that ultimately do little to advance your business goals. The satisfaction of staying busy often eclipses the need for productive actions that genuinely move the needle forward.
The key to breaking free from procrastiplanning lies in shifting your focus from busywork to actions that drive progress. Amy recommends diligently evaluating your daily tasks: Are they merely keeping you occupied, or are they productive steps toward your objectives?
The Crucial Role of Self-Accountability
From 9-to-5 to Solopreneurship
Transitioning from a structured corporate job to solopreneurship can be challenging, mainly because there’s no one to hold you accountable. In a traditional job, supervisors and colleagues keep you on track. As a solopreneur, you are responsible for setting your performance benchmarks and holding yourself accountable.
The CEO Review: A Self-Appraisal Tool
Amy highlights the importance of regularly conducting a CEO review—much like a performance appraisal you’d receive at a corporate job. This self-assessment enables you to track your progress, evaluate what's working, and identify areas needing improvement. Embracing this practice converts your business from a hobby to a disciplined enterprise.
Consistency and Discipline: The Backbone of Business Success
Showing Up When It’s Hard
One of the biggest differences between treating your business as a hobby versus a serious enterprise is the discipline to show up even when you don’t feel like it. Amy believes that consistent effort, especially on tough days, builds the foundation for long-term success.
Leveraging the Long Game
Building a sustainable and profitable business is a long game, involving constant testing and revising of strategies. In a world conditioned for instant gratification, it's easy to lose patience. Amy encourages entrepreneurs to embrace the process and stay adaptable to changes in consumer behavior, marketing trends, and economic shifts.
Pausing, Not Stopping: The Strategic Reset
Taking a Strategic Pause
Amy differentiates between a strategic pause and a complete stop in business activities. Pausing allows for introspection and alignment of efforts. It’s crucial to differentiate between trivial distractions and actions that contribute to your business goals.
An effective pause involves evaluating if your actions are aligned with your intentions and are strategically aimed at achieving your business goals. Misaligned actions lead to wasted efforts and delayed success.
The Analytical Approach: Numbers Don't Lie
Questioning the Romance of Entrepreneurship
Amy cautions against the romanticized view of entrepreneurship often portrayed on social media. She urges entrepreneurs to question impressive-sounding revenue claims by probing into net profits, overhead costs, and true profit margins. This analytical approach grounds expectations and provides a realistic perspective on business achievements.
Data-driven decision-making is paramount for adjusting business strategies. Reviewing KPIs, understanding consumer behaviors, and leveraging insights can guide necessary adjustments to achieve desired outcomes.
The Path Forward: Action Creates Momentum
Fostering Curiosity and Growth
In a closing note of encouragement, Amy reminds listeners that acknowledging where you stand is the first step. Curiosity and analytical thinking help identify what works and what doesn’t. This fosters growth and propels your business forward.
Staying the Course
Building a business is hard work, but it’s incredibly rewarding. By staying consistent and taking strategic, aligned actions, entrepreneurs can generate momentum that leads to impressive results. Amy leaves her audience with a motivational reminder: action creates momentum, and momentum creates results.
Episode Links
🙋♀️ DM: Drop in my DM’s over on Instagram @amytraugh and say hi! Yes, it’s actually me responding!
📕 GET MY BOOK: The CEO Method: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Success is an Amazon bestseller. Grab a copy on Amazon!!
☕ CONNECT: Join our FREE online networking event for like minded entrepreneurs. Click here for details.
▶️ WATCH: We’re on YouTube! Check out our channel here.
Transcript for Episode 324. The ONE Thing Between You and Success
Amy [00:00:03]:
There is one thing, literally one thing, that is standing in between you and the success that you desire and this thing. It's very, very simple. What is it, my friend? It is you. Are you the one thing that is standing between the success that you desire and where you are right now? If you're getting a little bit of a gut check right now, I want to assure you, I was you. I was you for such a long time. I wanted success on my terms so badly that I could taste it. But there was something in the way, and that was myself. My lack of implementation of the right actions that I knew would move me forward in my business because of unresolved subconscious beliefs.
Amy [00:01:14]:
So I would end up doing what I call procrastiplanning. Where are my fellow list makers out there? I know some of you are. I am like the queen of making a good to do list. Like, for me, it lights me up. I just love checking things off the list. But what ended up happening is I was busy, I wasn't productive. I was checking things off the list just for the heck of checking them off. But it wasn't actually the needle moving activities.
Amy [00:01:46]:
It wasn't the things like showing up consistently, providing value, stretching myself outside of my comfort zone. Because at the end of the day, that's what it takes to move the needle forward. Because in order to get different results, we have to do things differently. We can't be complacent and do the same things. Yes, we need to build the business and do those foundational steps over and over and over. But if we're not getting the results that we desire, we need to take that step back, zoom out, and analyze exactly why. What are my daily actions, and are they getting me closer to my goal, or am I just being busy? And this is something I really dove into in episode 265 of the podcast. So be sure to go give that a listen, because that was such a game changer when I got honest with myself and I realized, you know what? I'm not being productive.
Amy [00:02:42]:
I am being busy. And let's shift gears a little bit. You know, a lot of us come from a nine to five corporate job. I came from a career in healthcare, 16 years. I would wake up, go to work, work 40 hours a week, come home, repeat over and over and over. Now, when we're working as an employee for someone, we always have people above us. Unless you are C suite, and even then, you still have people, the board, and all of your peers to answer to. But who is holding you as a solopreneur? Accountable.
Amy [00:03:21]:
Who is holding you accountable every single day? So this is why it's so important to do the CEO review as well, because this is like your self performance appraisal. No one is coming to save you but you. So it is essential that you take the time to assess. What am I doing? How are things going in the business? Start treating your business like a business because there will be days when you don't feel like showing up. I get it. I still have days like that from time to time where I just don't feel motivated to do the gosh darn thing. This week has been so crazy busy, so fun, so nice outside that the last thing, full disclosure that I wanted to be doing right now was recording this podcast episode. But I have the discipline because I know that this is a part of my business.
Amy [00:04:21]:
My podcast is a huge piece of the puzzle. It is the piece of the puzzle that allows me to not have to spend hours on end on social media. This is a major part of the business. So I need to show up for myself, show up for the business on the days that I don't feel like it. That is the difference between running your business like a business and running it like a hobby. Is having that discipline, being consistent, doing those basic foundational elements of business over and over and over, taking the time to assess the data, to assess your KPI's, your numbers, your metrics, and really to get honest with yourself of what is actually working and what is not working. This takes the emotion out. Pausing is necessary.
Amy [00:05:18]:
But I say this with a caveat, a huge caveat. It is a pause. It is not a full on stop. You need to take the time to pause. But don't sit here. Don't stay in the pause. Because action creates momentum and momentum creates results. But you need to know that your actions are aligned, that they are aligned and very intentional, very strategic.
Amy [00:05:51]:
Building a business is a long game. It is a lot of testing and revising your strategy. As consumer buying behaviors change, as marketing trends change, as the world and economy change, we need to evolve with it. What got you here may not necessarily get you there, but like I said, it's a long game. And in society, we've become such just consumers, right? We are consumers to everything going on in the world, all of the noise. And we become conditioned to think that, okay, I get it now. We're living in a very on demand society. Think about Amazon.
Amy [00:06:37]:
You order something, it comes to your door within two days. You can order groceries, have them delivered within an hour. We're living in this era where if we want information, we just open up our phone and google it. No longer do we have to go to the library and look things up and do our research or wait until the newspaper comes the next day to figure out what's going on. No, we're living in an era where everything is on demand. So we've become conditioned to think that this is the reality of business. But the reality of business is that in the beginning, especially until you really get that strategy really focused in, it's a lot of testing and revising, showing up on the days that you don't want to, having the self awareness to realize, you know what? I'm reverting back to those comfortable behaviors. I'm reverting back to what's comfortable.
Amy [00:07:39]:
Scrolling instead of creating content, being a passive consumer instead of a creator. Doing all of these things to make ourselves feel busy, because busy makes us feel like we're important. And I know that's a hard pill to swallow. I get it. I get it because I was there. I was there. Busy makes us all feel important. It's why we feel like we have to check our phones non stop to see who needs us, who wants something, because it makes us feel important.
Amy [00:08:15]:
It gives us that hit of dopamine, and it triggers our brains into thinking, okay, this is normal. And so you build and ingrain that habit loop over and over and over. So you're just addicted to the hustle. You're not addicted to doing those challenging tasks that require more brain power. But because your brain power has been exhausted with all of these trivial little tasks, you forget. You forget that you need to take action. So what I really encourage you to do is to pause. Not to stop, but to pause and really get honest with yourself.
Amy [00:08:58]:
If you are not seeing the results that you hope for, pause and ask yourself, why. Why am I not getting the results? And how am I spending my time? Am I spending my time in doing the things that will grow my business? Am I getting in the rooms with the people that I need to align myself with that can potentially introduce me to someone else? Am I doing the scary things, the non fun things in my business, like looking at my numbers? Am I consistently doing this over and over and over? This curiosity is a game changer with everything in your business. Become curious. If something is not working, ask yourself, why. Why is this not working? And what could I do in order to make it work? When you go on social media, entrepreneurship, it's very romanticized, isn't it? We see entrepreneurs boasting about their hundred k launches and their 20k months. Their ten k months. Heck, if you're not making ten k a month, you're made to feel less than. But I always, this is the analytical part of my brain, so I see these numbers and I always question it.
Amy [00:10:29]:
Okay, yes. You had a hundred thousand dollar launch. Sure. That's amazing. Like, great for you. What did you actually net from that launch? How much went into paid ads? How much went into extra support staff to design the emails, the templates, the graphics, all of this stuff on the back end? How much was your profit margin? What did you actually make off of this launch? And that is something that I really encourage you to do. If you're finding yourself in the online space scrolling going, I'm not doing as well as I thought I would be, just know that it's okay, it's okay. And the fact that you acknowledge that is step one.
Amy [00:11:17]:
Because once you are aware, then you can acknowledge, then you can accept, like, okay, this is right where I'm at. And then you can take action. Because the action, that's what gives you numbers, that's what gives you data. That is what will help you to make those small little adjustments to get the results that you desire. It's not easy. Building a business is hard, but it is so worth it. It is so worth it. So if you are struggling right now, please know you are not alone.
Amy [00:12:01]:
There is nothing wrong with you. I am here for you. I am here for you because I have been in your shoes. It's a rollercoaster. But stay consistent because remember, action creates momentum and momentum creates results. Until next time, I am cheering for you. Cheers to making the money you want so that you can create the impact you desire.
Comments