Enemy of Business Growth
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Do you know the Business growth's Enemy #1?
No... Its NOT Business Strategy.
This enemy is responsible for:
> Many Shattered Dreams
> Many Missed Goals
> Compromises
> Lost opportunities
You see... our growth in business, many a time, is defined by our mental strength and our mental barriers.
Our mental strengths helps to get the results in many of the areas,
And our mental barriers, hold us back from achieving even better results.
Unless we tune our minds, we end up being on the losing side of many better and bigger opportunities.
Some of the mental barriers possibly are:
> My Competitor is better than me (Price / Quality / Service / Delivery etc)
> My Customer is a big MNC and I own a small business, (he will probably not even consider me)
> I don't know how to manage / attract / get such big opportunities (Lack of confidence, lack of belief in oneself and low self esteem)
> Negative Past Experience ( Psychological Barriers, doubts and fears from past experiences)
> I Dont have the required capital ( Low Financial Knowledge leading to poor financial calculations and decisions)
> Afraid to Change ( Used-to, to the comfort zone drug)
> Fear of failure ( Afraid of losing money, Afraid of things not working out)
> Lack of hunger and drive (Lack of vision, Survival mindset, Lost interest in business)
If we DON'T destroy our mental barriers, they destroy the growth of our business and we get stuck at the same level (or worse Business de-grows )
Persistence helps us break through many of our mental blocks. ( I shared about persistence in the earlier email)
But there is an enemy of the persistence, that holds us back.
Who's the enemy?
The Resistance
" The negative force that keeps you from fulfilling your goals"
Read this definition of the Resistance again slowly
" The negative force that keeps you from fulfilling your goals"
> The athlete who doesn’t compete.
> The painter who doesn’t paint
> The writer who doesn’t write
> The entrepreneur who doesn’t grow.
Resistance is the thing which is holding them back.
For writers, writing is not the difficult part, sitting down to write is the difficult part and the resistance is what is holding them back.
Have you heard of ghostwriters? – These are the writers who write on behalf of the actual author.
If you think about it, when they are good at writing, why aren’t they publishing their own book? – For many of them, the resistance is what is holding them back
The same goes for the gym – The Hard part is not lifting weights, it’s going to the gym. The resistance is what is holding them back
For Business owners, Growing their business is not the difficult part, shifting their mindset is.
Why? - Because business owners are the ones who face the most resistance in their day-to-day lives. Priming their mindset for success is critically important.
Let's do a quick exercise:
Think about the goal you’re pursuing in your business.
...and now list down all the ways the resistance is fighting you and holding you back from pursuing that goal.
I will wait for you to finish this exercise.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Done?
Now go back and review each of the resistances you have listed. I am sure you can come up with 10 to 20 different reasons.
You have to remember this:
The goal of the resistance is to make you drift. Eventually, you become a drifter person (ref Image 1)
The goal of the persistence is to drive you, to eventually become a driven person. (ref Image 1)
There are 4 types of resistance that often hold us back from going towards our true calling.
1. Procrastination:
Procrastination is very tricky resistance.
Why?
It doesn’t say don’t pursue that goal,
It instead says – You can pursue that goal, that dream, that desire, but not today, do it tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes and then you go on for another tomorrow... and then another tomorrow
Example: I want to lose weight and I will start on Monday.
Whenever you notice this internal voice to do it later, remember that Procrastination resistance is active.
2. Shadow Calling:
Sometimes when we’re terrified of embracing our true calling, we’ll pursue a shadow calling instead.
Steven Pressfield popularised this concept in his book - Turning pro.
Many entrepreneurs get attracted to the idea of becoming their own boss and enjoying the freedom that comes with it. However, many of these entrepreneurs may not be earning as much as they would have if they were working as an employee. Often, many if not all, end up going into debt, shutting down their business, struggling financially, or leading a compromised life in their chase for 'being their own boss'
Another example would be:
Many business owners have a strong fear of failure. That they might lose everything they have built till now. They are afraid to try anything new or do something new in their business. They often don't pivot, expand or start a new business because of their fear of failure.
Since they want growth (Actual calling), they choose only linear growth (Shadow calling) in their business. if the market grows, if their customer grows, they grow, else they don't grow. They'll blame their market or customer when things go awry.
3. Pleasure Not fulfilment: This comes from the activity of releasing Dopamine in our brain and we like dopamine.
It makes you want to keep doing something for pleasure, but not necessarily that you like doing it.
Today, we have cheap dopamine (Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts, Movies, Entertainment). This gives you pleasure without doing the work.
How often do you keep going from working on something, to suddenly checking your phone, seeing the Instagram notifications and getting sucked in it? Why do you get sucked into it? - Because of cheap dopamine - you get the pleasure without doing the work.
This is what keeps you from doing the work
The brain knows the actual work you have to do is giving you stress, making you sweat and is uncomfortable and eventually will get the pleasure when you complete it or achieve it. What instead the brain does is - it comes into action and gives you a weaker form of pleasure.
(Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts, Movies, Entertainment, web browsing etc.)
All activity that you do that stops you from doing the real thing falls into this category.
If you don’t work hard on your goals you’ll never feel fulfilled.
Realise this, and remove the cheap dopamine activities from your life.
Cheap dopamine activities are the resistance.
4. Sedation: Sedating yourself to hide from the pain.
Meaning: Completely stopping.
To stop chasing goals or dreams as you no longer want to face the obstacles in the path.
For many, the pain, and the challenges in the path are too much and hence they give up.
The antidote to this is:
Remember to take a pause, but never give up on your goals.
Retrain and reprogram your mindset, and go back to chasing your goals.
This is the only way!
Sedation doesn't help.
It feels good temporarily, but long term, it leaves you with only regrets.
Next...
The question which you might be naturally gravitating towards is:
How to beat Resistance?
One of the best ways to beat resistance is to understand how it is acting upon you and your goals.
Here are some ways to beat it.
1. Motion Vs Action:
You need to know the difference between the two.
Motion is: It feels like you are doing things but not getting anywhere.
Example: Improving the look and feel of your website, but it doesn't improve any leads.
At times, we fool ourselves into thinking we are acting on our goals, but in reality, we are finding ways NOT to act on the goals and still feel like we are in motion.
So what is Action then?
Action is a Directional activity with a cost associated.
Action has an outcome.
Example: Pitching your products to your clients with a clear ask to give you business.
Outcome for the above example: Yes, No or Not now - Later.
The resistance will try to keep you in Motion.
The Persistence will put you in action.
Notice the difference and consciously cut out the resistance.
2. Programmed Mind
Our mind is programmed to:
> To Avoid Pain
> To Seek Pleasure
> To Conserve Energy
> To Prove Itself Right.
Unless you learn to beat the programmed mind, achieving worthy goals becomes difficult.
> To Avoid Pain:
"Achieving any worthy goal is worth the pain. Pain helps you get what you want." - This is the mindset required for you to beat your programmed mind - "To Avoid Pain"
> To Seek Pleasure
Practise Delayed Gratification, forget instant gratification.
Developing the Delayed Gratification mindset is a sure way to stay focused on your goals.
> To Conserve Energy.
Programmed Mindset forces us to relax, eat icecream, chill, do it later.
You have to snap it with the "Do it now" mindset.
Observe the thought process, is the mind switching to the programmed mindset of conserving energy? - If yes, switch to "Do it Now"
> To Prove yourself right.
Stop proving yourself right with words like , "I know everything", " He just got lucky",
Don't let your ego and insecurity hold you back from greatness.
Be humble. Go into learning mode and be a student again.
Ask yourself this.
Is it good for me?
is it good for the people I love?
Is it good for the world?
If yes, then pursue it.
To achieve success, we have to do the opposite of how our brain is programmed. You have to notice the natural triggers of your brain and say no to it.
3. Pattern Interrupt:
Resistance will keep hitting you over and over again,
My pattern was – when I was working, I would keep checking my phone, check instagram, Facebook, youtube.
I literally deleted all the apps from my phone.
I only have 'Meta Business Suite' app to read IG/FB messages if someone sends them.
Same way with the alarm in the morning.
I would either snooze or turn off the alarm and sleep atleast half an hour to 45 mins extra.
The way I interrupted this pattern was - Installed an app called Alarmy.
The way this alarm works now, is there is no snooze, no way to stop the alarm unless I solve 3 different mathematics equations.
This helped me break the pattern of snoozing and sleeping and instead now I wake up on the first alarm because the "inner chatter voice" which told me to snooze and sleep is no more active and my brain jumps into a logical state because of mathematical equations.
I also sit down and plan for my current week and next week, I write it down physically on an A3 Sketch book with the key goals I need to hit this week and next week and everyday as soon as I come to office, I read them and push on achieving them. This has helped me break the pattern and switch to action mode immediately.
Look for your pattern in your daily routine and see which of your activities are putting you in motion mode and how can you break free of them to go into action mode.
4. Notice the hesitation.
We hesitate to take action on something when it is not comfortable for us.
Hesitation is a form of resistance our mind expresses, when it feels uncomfortable.
Mel Robbins, Author of 5 Second Rule Book, is once such a person who has done wonderful work on this:
Here's how she articulates why hesitation is a form of resistance:
"The way our minds are wired and the fact about human beings is that we are not designed to do things that are uncomfortable, scary, or difficult.
Our brains are designed to protect us from those things because our brains are trying to keep us alive.
And in order to change, in order to build a business, in order to be the best parent, the best spouse—to do all those things that you know you want to do with your life, with your work, with your dreams—you’re going to have to do things that are difficult, uncertain, or scary.
Which sets up this problem for all of us: You’re never gonna feel like it. You'll hesitate.
You only feel motivated to do the things that are easy…
Why is it so hard to do the little things that would improve your life?
The way that our minds are designed is to stop you—at all costs—from doing anything that might hurt you…
The way this all happens is it all starts with something super subtle that none of us ever catch, and that is with this habit that all of us have that nobody’s talking about:
We all have a habit of hesitating.
What none of us realize is that when you hesitate, just that moment—that micro-moment—that small hesitation sends a stress signal to your brain. It wakes your brain up and your brain all of a sudden goes:
‘Oh, wait a minute—w-why is he hesitating?…Something must be up.’
So then your brain works to protect you. It has a million different ways to protect you. One of them is called the Spotlight Effect. It’s a known phenomenon where your brain magnifies risk—why?—to pull you away from something that it perceives to be a problem.
And so:
You can truly trace every single problem or complaint in your life to silence and hesitation.
Those are decisions.
And hence you need to realise that motivation is garbage.
You’ll never gonna feel like doing the things that are tough or difficult or uncertain or scary or new, so you need to stop waiting until you feel like it.
You are one decision away from a totally different life…
Your life comes down to your decisions, and if you change your decisions, you will change everything.”
Notice the hesitation, if it is hesitation towards doing an important growth activity, then follow the 5 second rule
Count backwards 5-4-3-2-1
As soon as you hit 1, move physically and take action without thinking about it."
That's it.
Here's what I want you to do:
Answer the following questions:
1. What is the thing you’re trying to achieve (What’s your calling?)
2. How do you feel about yourself when you are all by yourself? (Content, Happy, Sad, Frustrated, angry, ) Why do you feel this way?
3. Resistance time tracking – When does the resistance hit you? Notice it. Stop. Record what your resistance voice is? This helps you understand and redesign your business environment.
Fighting against resistance isn’t easy, but now you know how to find it and address it. If the parking brake is on, hitting the accelerator more and more doesn't help.
If you work on this, it helps you achieve your goals faster feeling almost effortless.
The true success = Achievement + Fulfillment
Achieving one's goal and feeling fulfilled about it.
That's all I had to share with you today. (Phew! This was a pretty lengthy one! but a very important one)
Hi, I Am Avinash Kunchurkar
Founder of WorkNitro
Started my Career as a "Sales Engineer" roaming in Industrial areas in Bangalore on a Two Wheeler meeting and getting new customers.
And now, an Author of a Amazon's Bestseller book titled: A Salesperson's Honeymoon, A business owner having Two Distribution Businesses, A Service Business and an impending Manufacturing Business and A Business Growth Coach having trained more than 10,000 people.
I believe that the current education system doesn't breed entrepreneurs and hence on a journey as a Business Growth Coach to help business owners transform their business from "being stuck" to a "Growth" driven business.