Stop Killing Your Own Business - Kill Your Excuses

Excuses come in many shapes and sizes - and we have many names for them. But whether they are "reasons", "explanations" or "Acts of God" - excuses can, will and do bring businesses to their knees every single day, and especially businesses that rely on a single person. The good news is that, if you know how, you can avoid this trap.

Let's go back to the beginning - just what exactly is an excuse? Well - an excuse is basically any time you let yourself or anyone off the hook for doing what they said they would do. So it could be that you said you would place twenty ads today, and you only did 19 - or maybe your assistant said she would be in your office by 9am and it was 9:15am this morning. In both of those cases, you or someone else will have said something like "ah yes - well that was because..." - that, essentially, is your excuse!

Now excuses can range from the simple, such as "the dog ate my homework", through to far more elaborate tales of hardship and adversity. The ones that are really tough are those that people believe - usually along the lines of "my car broke down - there was nothing I could do". Some excuses will absolutely have you on board - but they are still excuses and, if you are going to achieve everything that you are capable of, you cannot accept excuses from yourself or from anyone else.

This might all sound a bit hard core - and it absolutely is, and I make no apologies for it! The problem is that, in the corporate world, you can hid behind the organisation to a certain degree. No matter what you might have said you would do or not do, there are always enough other people who either haven't done what they said they would do, or are covering for you, that you can get away with it. In a typical corporate environment, you have to be doing something pretty blatant to get called out on it! But this is not about a corporate world - this is about someone working for themselves.

Corporations, especially larger ones, have to and do cope with a certain level of excuses - it's almost built into their business model - so results are on track. If you are starting out on your own, and the success of your business falls on your shoulders, it's a very different picture. The thing that you need to know about business at this point is that it is all about numbers. And that's good - because it means that you can develop a very clear business plan relatively easily, just by knowing some basic numbers. If that plan goes deep enough - and it needs to - you can boil that right down to what needs to be done each day. Now you have a step by step plan to take you to your objective.

So - all there is to do now is to follow that plan, step by step. But what happens if you miss a step, or don't fully complete it on the timeline you gave yourself? Well - businesses are built on momentum. The more momentum you build up, the faster and more easily the results come. If you miss one day, then you have lost some of that momentum in your business. If you do not build enough momentum, then your business will never break through into the realms of financial security.

When I was first told this by my mentor, my first reaction was "but you don't understand my life" - and many people have similar reactions. But this is not personal, this is business - and businesses are built on steady, consistent numbers. If you keep hitting the numbers, you will be successful! So here are three ways that you can set yourself up for success and avoid the insidious excuse trap:

First - have a daily plan, and commit that you will not go to bed until that plan has been completed. No "I'll finish that tomorrow" - it gets done before bedtime. Make your daily goals based on your actions, not results - things that you are absolutely in control of.

Secondly - set up some form of tracking. That could be a daily planner with your daily goals written in one column and space for you to check them off as you complete them. For more complex plans, maybe a spreadsheet. It could be a bag of beads that you empty - it doesn't matter! The point is to have something that you can work with to track your progress through the day.

Finally - and this will really light your fire - have someone hold you accountable! I know that sounds like a boss, but this is one area where most new self-employed people fall down - so get yourself a boss. Now this could be a friend, a supportive spouse or your business mentor. Setup some sort of daily reporting structure and have them hold you to it - now you are really locked into your plan and this accountability will absolutely drive you to stay on track.