Stop Stopping
How many times have you started something new that didn’t work out?
Maybe it wasn’t a good fit or just wasn’t for you?
Are you seeing a pattern with testing new things and throwing them away too soon?
If you are consistently finding yourself going from venture to venture it could be because you are stopping too soon. You’re not giving enough time to truly test the idea, product, vision, etc.
There is an easy way to follow through with a new plan or vision.
First, STOP STOPPING!
You aren’t putting enough effort into this new venture or plan and you’re cutting it off too soon.
Then, make a plan to test this new venture or idea. Did you brainstorm all of the possibilities in this new idea? Did you think of as many routes to take as possible? If not, I’d back up and regroup.
When you punch in a destination on google maps chances are it will give you more than one route to get there. The same theory can be used when bringing a new idea to life. Think of all the possibilities and write them down.
Finally, create a timeline for your idea. You should have a start date and a finish date. Push your finish date out far enough to give yourself enough time to test it properly. Maybe it's 60 days or even 90. Come up with a weekly plan and follow it like a timeline. Week 1 will be ABC, Week 2 will be DEF, and so on.
Exhaust all options on this idea working and or not working.
The point of this exercise is to find a golden nugget.
Short story: I went to a real estate event in NY a few years ago. I wasn’t exactly jazzed up about going to NY or sitting at a 3 day conference. But someone told me, “If you come away with 1 piece of useful info, then you won.”
Guess what, I FOUND MY GOLDEN NUGGET in all that chaos.
I listened to a speaker talk about delegating tasks in your business. The point of the speech was to follow the Do-Delegate-Delay Method. What tasks can I DO now, what tasks can I DELEGATE, and what tasks can I DELAY….
Then the thought hit me. I hate paying bills!! Not the idea of giving money to pay for a service, but the sheer practice of sitting down and paying a bill. I don’t like organizing profit and loss statements, I don’t like keeping track of expenditures, etc. I'd rather have someone pay bills for me, have someone show me profit and loss, have someone handle my finances.
So I made the ultimate move…
I gave my wife access to all of my money. I know, weird right? I never thought about it that way until I did it. But she is a bookkeeper by trade. This is what she does for her clients on a daily basis! So I made the move and kept it to myself.
MY GOLDEN NUGGET!
It occurred to me…why not give my wife access to all of my finances since we share everything anyway? Why am I shellfish with my bank accounts? So now she pays the bills, keeps track of expenditures, shows me profit and loss statements, and so on.
We schedule a date night the first week of every month to sit down and review the previous month's finances. We set a schedule to invest money. Bills are paid, money is saved, statements are tracked, and so on.
I took the golden nugget, came up with a plan of action and followed it.
Week 1: Give my wife access to all of my finances.
Week 2: Come up with a plan, brainstorm every idea possible.
Week 3: Create a schedule to pay bills, save money, invest, etc.
That three day conference showed me a little golden nugget. It showed me to have a plan for new ideas.
That new idea: Delegate the tasks I don’t like doing and find a way to manage it.
Instead of stopping, I developed a plan to keep me moving. Moral of the story?
