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When everyday feels like Monday

Sometimes life in business seems like a real struggle. Each day you feel like giving up. Each day seems to be like Monday with so much to do and yet with very little evidence of progress. When embarking on a startup journey you know it isn’t going to be easy. You very well know that there will be several challenges on the way. Yet as you face those very challenges, you can’t help but feel overwhelmed. You may even find yourself a little lost in the process and struggle to see the path ahead of you. It’s in these times that you wonder if there is any point in going on.  How can one get themselves out of such a bubble?

In search of this answer, most of what I read came back down to finding your ‘why’. Remind yourself why you started on this journey in the first place. Finding your ‘why’ can reignite your passion and give you a sense of purpose that can help you through your struggles. Its just a matter of continuing to come back to your ‘why’ so that each task you undertake is done with purpose. When you seem to get lost and progress seems bleak, reconnect with your ‘why’ for motivation. You may even want to set yourself a personal mission statement in line with your business mission statement to help reinforce this.

Storms are inevitable, so why not focus on your anchor, your ‘why’!

Are you a toxic boss?

So you think you may be a toxic boss, or perhaps you don’t even realise that you are…

This post identifies 8 signs that Google has shared as signs of a toxic boss:

  1. You find yourself frustrated when you have to coach an employee on a skill
  2. You feel you must double-check every employee’s work
  3. You have no desire to know anything about your employees other than whether they’re doing their job right
  4. You feel constantly behind and split in too many directions
  5. You’d rather stay in your office than converse with your team
  6. You feel your employees’ career growth should be their concern, not yours
  7. You can’t plan for the growth of the department because you can’t imagine ever hitting your existing goals with your current team
  8. You hate that some of your staff have skills that force you to depend on them, because you don’t have those skills yourself

How many of those sounded too familiar?

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Time is your most valuable asset

This post by Inc. spells out 20 life truths that we fail to come to terms with often and in other cases just don’t realise. There are a few points in there that revolve around time that resonate with me most.  Time is our greatest asset and we can choose how we spend that time. Instead of throwing money at a cause have you thought to give some time instead – it is worth so much more and can lead to so much more good. And how often are you focused on your now? The time is now. Why dwell on the past or consume yourself in thoughts of the future. Make the most of your time now, after all it is your most valuable asset!

“You can’t control the past, and you can’t predict the future, and trying to do so only removes you from the one thing you can control–the present.”

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Rejection isn’t the end. It’s the beginning!

Larry Kim in this post explains how he got 100 rejections and the lessons he learned from these.

He read his rejections and took them in his stride as constructive feedback. He used his rejection to work harder. It didn’t have to mean the end. Instead it drove him to bring about changes to his business to improve and grow it. Further more he followed up on his rejections from VC’s. This way he was able to show them that he took their advice on board and acted on them.

I leave you with this thought in Kim’s words:

“Save rejections. Value input. Act on advice.”

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Is your idea of success external to you?

In this post Nicolas Cole argues that many people are not successful because their definition of success itself is flawed. People tend to associate success with external things such as climbing a mountain or receiving an award or trophy. The problem with this is that success becomes a title, and once you have climbed one mountain to maintain such a title you have to keep climbing mountains.

But isn’t true success from within? Cole’s goes on to say that “instead of seeking validation, what you need to seek is exploration”.  Giving success an internal meaning can result on focusing on the feeling of success and the journey along the way rather than end result.

The key takeaway here being value yourself for who you are and not the title. Fall in love with the process rather than the results.

So how do you view success?

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No is the antidote to busy

This post by Tim Denning is all about how we often say that we are too’busy’. At this point in time, I would claim to be ‘busy’.  Having read Denning’s post is a bit of a wake up call for me right now.

It serves as a reminder that ‘busy is a lack of discipline’ – and right now I know I don’t have the discipline so this couldn’t be more true for me.

“Diet takes discipline; the gym takes discipline; business takes discipline; success takes discipline”.

Moral of the story, you need DISCIPLINE!

But how can this be achieved? Denning talks about having to say no at times with the thought behind this being, that:

“No equals more time. No equals focus. No is the antidote to busy.”

While I will try to bring things into balance and try say no where required, I also think that being less ‘busy’ requires some good organising and prioritising.

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So you say you are busy huh?!…

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