As a business owner it sometimes feels like you are a player manager – telling everyone everything is OK, even if your man has turned his ankle and might be out for the season. This is natural, fake it till you make it, and the power of positive thinking – it’s a good thing – as long as you don’t bury your head in the sand about the extent of your business problems.
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If the reality means you need to be honest and say it’s not working, do it;
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If the reality means you have to take some risks, spend some money and call in those who can help, do it; and
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If the reality means you have to make some cuts that will mean you can survive, it sucks, but you have to do it.
The first step is acknowledging the problem – do you have a list of all the things that are on your mind. If not, pull out a piece of paper and write them all down – allow 47 minutes to do this, set your timer. Be as specific as you can, but don’t think too hard about the details, you are simply wanting to get a picture of the current position. If you know the solution note that down, if not, star it as a job to work out who can help you find the solution. Once you have the ‘challenge’ list ponder it for a day.
Next, set yourself another 47 minutes and prioritise your list, then apply Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog
Principle 3 – apply the 80/20 rule – rationalise your list, be honest and ruthless, only 20% of the things on the list will deliver greater results than 80% of jobs on the list, so only do them!?!
Next step is to invoke Principle 12 Take it One Oil Barrel at a Time – sometimes when things are bad, we need to compartmentalise the problems, deal with them one at a time. Once you’ve knocked off one ‘Oil Barrel’ things should get a little easier, firstly there is one less problem, secondly the knock on effect is that your mind is a little freer to consider the next most important problem and consider what your options for solving that. Also you are one ‘barrel’ closer to your end goal.
Also, to be your best player manager, you should take this opportunity to make some changes to ensure you don’t fall back into bad habits. A good habit is to follow Principle 17 Do the Most Difficult Task First – set aside time, first thing every morning, to Eat that Frog. Get the ugliest job of the day done first, you will feel better, your mind will be a clearer, and your shoulders will have less of a weight on them.
Good luck!
