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Today, one of my mentors gave me tips on how to grow your business in general. I found it so true and spot on that I have decided to share those tips. The following points were ALL given to me by Stephen, and I hold them as self-evident. Not only you can apply these for your business, but it can also be applied in any aspect of your everyday life. Shall we dive directly into the tips that we help you grow any business? Hint: they are so obvious that we don’t necessarily think of them. Frustration alone won’t take you anywhere. Life comes with its batch of frustrations. Running a business, too. Especially at the early stages. But the truth is: even when a business is well established, frustrating situations sometimes appear. So, we might as well note this: frustration sucks! And frustration alone definitely won’t grow a business. Frustration can quickly lead to taking the wrong actions. Wrong actions bring undesired results. And undesirable results can cause exhaustion and discouragement. Which brings us to the next point. Your mood must be kept in check. All of us have been subject to different moods. We either have been moody or have had experience with a moody person. Moods can make us do (not so) funny things… And when running a business, we can’t afford letting our moods in the way, whether the mood is joyful or not. We don’t always feel good. We don’t always feel motivated. Sometimes, we go through nasty times in life. Swinging through such moods and emotions can affect our business, and the way we do things. And a business can’t have that – certainly NOT for the long run. To cater for that, we must find ways to keep our moods in check and remove the emotions out of our decision-making process. The good news is this: in most cases, it only takes a few changes to make a difference. Identify such changes. Keep learning Your results don’t improve because you may not learn enough from your mistakes, or from the experience and / or mistakes of our peers. We need to learn how to see mistakes as stepping stones to success. Mistakes are only mistakes if we do not learn from them. But in order to learn from them, we need to face them. Let’s face our mistakes in the best possible ways. Let us acknowledge them for learning purposes. We also need to learn how not to be on the defensive when someone points our failures out. The desire to be on the defensiveness is a subconscious proof that they are right. Keep the distractions in check I am guilty of being passionate. When I need to understand something, I REALLY dive into it. To the point of loosing sight of WHY I needed to understand it in the first place. This behavior of mine can quickly become a source of distraction for me. Therefore, I need to learn how to set limits. You might have your own distraction coming on your way when trying to achieve something (like a business for instance). It is important to know what triggers your desire to be distracted, and how to eliminate (or at least limit such triggers). Distraction can give you the energy to start something new without necessarily finishing what you have already started. Procrastination is also a result of distraction, and it leads to finding it difficult to push yourself to do the work. Defeat distraction by determining what conditions you need to carry on important tasks. Have fun Can you imagine yourself achieving great results without having fun in the process? I can’t. If you can’t envision that, your therefore cannot afford not having fun. Having fun is TOTALLY different from being distracted. There is a time for everything. And unlike distraction, there is a time to have fun. Distraction comes whilst you are seriously attempting to do something. In my opinion, there are two ways of having fun when running a business. Either the business itself is making you having fun (that is the dream), or the fun time is scheduled. In any case, when you focus on having fun, your brain is relaxing. We need to understand that your fun time is as important as your deep work. Be consistent In order for us to witness and experience the needle moving in the right direction, we need to be consistent in doing the right thing. Identify the actions you need to take for your business. Take such actions. You made a mistake? No problem, learn from the mistakes, and identify what needs to be corrected. Do it until you find the right actions for your business. Once you find them, keep doing them. Be consistent in taking such action. Let’s be disciplined and quickly enjoy the benefits of consistency. Fundamental concepts and simplicity are your best tools. Every aspect of life – including business – always come down to fundamental concepts. There are fundamental aspects in the psychology sector. Same goes in law, in health, etc. Guess what: the same goes for business. In order to keep this post short, I will not get into examples – feel free to make your research and check it out. What is your business niche? Have you identified the fundamentals of such niche? What message are you trying to convey? Is such message simple to communicate? Yes, simplicity is key. Always keep it simple. An eight-year-old child should be able to understand your message. Note that I said “simple”. I didn’t say “easy”. There is a difference. Here is a good way to illustrate such difference is to remember it: Life is simple, not necessarily easy. Keep it fundamentally simple. What about you? Do you have any other tips on how to grow your business? What tips? I’d love to read your opinion down below in the comment section. This post was about growing your business I hope you loved it. Feel free to share and to comment, so I can learn from you too.