When Doing Too Many Things Hurts You and How to Beat It
Is this you?
You started your business and there are so many different things you want to do. You want to write in your blog, you want to be all over social media, you want to coach people, you want to offer paid writing services and you want to start a mastermind group. And you are so excited to get all these things going with success. But you’re confused with where to start or if you’re doing it right.
The truth is, doing too many different things will be the biggest factor in your potential to fail because it will cause a domino effect on other issues. Basically, it sets you up for failure.
Why would you fail if you love doing all those things? Because you will end up putting so much work into all those different things at the same time that you’ll
- never actually get good at any of them
- cause yourself to burnout
- stretch yourself and your dollar too thin, and
- be so worried about being successful in all of them that you’ll miss the small wins in one or a few of them.
With the way the mind works, because you want all of them to be successful at the same time, if anything goes wrong with one of them, you’ll call it quits on all of them.
You will also get so distracted and confused as you try to work through them that you’ll feel discouraged. Think of all those times when you couldn’t find focus. I bet nothing got done. That’s what will happen here. Your to-do list will be quite long. Weeks will end up passing without any of it getting done.
No new clients, you’ll think you’re not worth it.
No new followers, you’ll feel like you need to hire one of those shady services.
No one reading your blog, you’ll wonder why you’re even writing it.
No inquiries, you’ll think you don’t have a chance.
You do not need to tire yourself out, only to give up on yourself.
You deserve the success you want.
This is why I coach my clients to be really clear about their ultimate vision of the life they want to create by doing what they love. This includes what they truly want to become and define the way they want to become that.
Using your vision, here are the 3 things that will help you decide the things you can launch first so that you set yourself up for success.
What do you absolutely love doing?
This is different from what you should be doing. What do you feel really confident about doing? Envision a past version where you were your absolute best self. What were you doing? What will you get lit up about knowing it can help others you really want to help?
I have one client who, before she joined my Brand Boss Business School, had a fire lit inside of her that she wanted to change her life to finally pursue a career that she actually loved waking up to every day. The problem was that she couldn’t figure out what that was.
I asked her to step into a memory of when she felt like her absolute best self.
All of her memories of helping other people came flooding back to her. She attached herself to a vision where people were extremely thankful for her help and for how reliable she was.
She said that kind of feedback from people made her feel so amazing that it would add to her confidence and she would become fired up to do and try even more. She loved that feeling.
So she started to explore entrepreneurs who help other business owners and became blown away at the many opportunities: social media managers, community managers, podcast managers, travel assistants, virtual assistants, etc.
I’ll continue to talk about her journey as you go through each phase below…
Who would you love working with?
As an entrepreneur, you need to work with people. There’s no way around it. If you’re creating content, you need to create it for a certain kind of person. If you provide a service like coaching, it’s for a certain kind of person. If you’re selling products, it’s for a certain kind of person who needs or wants your product.
Simply imagine that if you could make an impact for someone, who would they be?
Think about their personality. The way they were before you helped them, then the way they will become after you’ve helped them. Think about the way they look, their attitudes, who they hang out with, what they love doing, what they hate doing, and what they value most in their life.
When I worked with my client on her Niche and who she would absolutely love working with, she was so raw in saying, I’m not sure who they are but I just want someone to finally value me and what I could do for them.
That was when I had an epiphany myself—the traits she described as her highest-self are what I was actively looking for in a Virtual Assistant. And, I wanted what she wants, I want to be so thankful and get so much value from this person that would help me in my business.
She had no clue what a virtual assistant was. So, I introduced her to the concept and she is now actively pursuing this as her business, starting with me as her first client. And she is lit up seeing how her mission can be about helping female business owners overcome the frustration and overwhelm of running their own business so they could do the parts they love. (Insert super proud brand and business coach hand clap emoji here!)
What is your most immediate goal and why?
Here’s how it can all come together. What is the first thing you can do right now that will put you on the path to doing what you love with the people you really want to work with?
One of the best ideas I want to plant instead of vaguely asking you to figure it out yourself is Research. You can assume you know what your ideal client wants, but why waste your time? Use polls on social media or have conversations with them and simply ask, what are you struggling with? Have a dialogue and you will get heaps of ideas and opportunities, I am certain!
Another goal is to identify a smaller and immediate money goal and ask yourself what is one thing you can stop doing and one thing you can start doing that will help you create that dollar amount?
In my client’s case, she wasn’t sure what was needed from a Virtual Assistant (VA) so this meant she didn’t know what to offer. Instead of being distracted by all the other crafts and hobbies that take up a lot of her time but no real profit, she decided to pour more time into figuring out how to be a VA.
So, we are working together in a way where she is learning new skills like video editing (because I really need help there). She’s learning what parts of assisting me in my daily tasks that she loves and hates. This all means that she is not going to sign up to do parts that she hates. Instead, she’s getting out of her comfort zone and building her aligned life by pursuing a money-making business where she gets to help people in many valuable ways.
She’s just weeks in and she is already creating her package offers to start marketing very soon.
That means before the program ends, she’ll already be hitting her first money goal that is aligned with what she really loves doing while working with people she looks forward to working with.
And that’s it!
There is a HUGE reward in dropping the things that aren’t serving you, focusing on one thing or one path that will get you to the vision you truly want to create for your life.
Stop filling your days with busy work that is a to-do list.
Start pursuing the path that lights you up and that will build your empire.
Tell me in the comments, what is going to be your one focus going forward?
