A few years before I took my medical leave, I went through a period of thinking that my business needed to change. The problem was, I had no idea what kind of change I wanted.
And because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, I didn’t do anything. I let the thought float in the periphery and stayed focused on the course my business was already on.
But now, 8 years later, after returning to work and re-starting nice and small, I see what I could have done that I was oblivious of back then.
Funny enough, it’s exactly what I taught beginner business owners who were trying to narrow in on their niche or clarify who their target client was.
It sounds really simple, but it’s as applicable to the new business owner as it is to the experienced one who wants to make changes to her business when change feels overwhelming.
It’s also exactly what I’m doing now, which you’ve been seeing glimpses of in real time.
1. Take a good guess.
2. Take a small step based on that good guess.
3. See what happens and how you feel about it.
4. Adjust to the next good guess.
5. Take action.
6. Repeat again and again.
Earlier this year, I returned to work knowing I’d be doing 1-1 work. I took a good guess at what that work would look like. I wrote an offer, sent some emails, delivered the offer, noticed what came up, adjusted … and repeated again and again.
As I held client sessions, wrote articles, emailed with many of you, and got offers for podcast interviews, I got to witness how I thought and felt about the work I was doing and the direction I wanted to go.
Each action brought me more clarity. Have I “arrived”? Ha—of course not. But I see a few things more clearly than I did this past August.
Enough that I’ve made a notable pivot to my strategic advising and coaching in just the last week.
This is what my 8-years-ago self didn’t realize: I didn’t have to have the big change figured out before I acted on it. I could have simply tried little things to see how I felt about it. No big decision needed.
But that’s the thing about growing a business to a certain size. When I was new and my business was small, I felt like I had lots of room to experiment and change. Once I was experienced and my business was sizable, I started thinking I had to have every last detail figured out ahead of time, which, of course, was impossible.
Sure, changes can be quite a lot more complicated with a big team, a roster of clients, and many moving parts, but it didn’t mean I needed to simply stay on the one path I was following.
I could have tried a different kind of work on a micro scale while keeping the rest of the business running. I could have experimented with one part of the business without having to make a decision about the whole thing.
There was—and is—room for curiosity, experimentation, and trying new things every step of the way. With a bigger business, you just have to be a bit more creative about how you do it.
Which has me curious …
Do you feel like something needs to change, even if you’re not sure what? How have you been navigating it?
I’d love to know if and how you relate to this. Fill me in, and I’ll personally respond.
Leave a Reply