Ahhhh business, the ongoing always changing process of exchanging something for another. I’ve been reflecting on this site lately, how it’s molded and grown from the beginning roots of lifestyle design from which it came. It’s certainly taken a long “bend” toward business growth and reflection, as that is the ongoing stage which leads to “Liberation” and is something that I’m still working on as I try to life life intelligently, now with a daughter : )

I’ve been reacting, responding, and stagnating more that I’d like to be in my business building efforts over the last 6-8 months.

Particularly, the offerings pages, the links I have at the IT Arsenal website in my menu have been showing up like a road block to me, something I have to finish before I can get on with creating more useful content like blog posts and other guides/content/actions that funnel in interested clients. Really, so I can just get on with growing. [not like being a larger company, but progressing in experience, knowledge and yes, income]

Do you ever have that? Do you get “stuck” on something, enamored, unable to move away from it, even if you realize it’s not the most important “thing”? Seemingly something you have to push through or “beat” before you can continue on with your journey? Website work on my own website, salespages, and organizing the digital stuff are like that with me. I’d add a comment about just not doing/deleting/moving on from whatever you’re stuck on here, but if you could do that, you’re not exactly stuck, are you?

I don’t expect these salespages to attract much “cold traffic” on their own, perhaps they won’t even be useful but I just need to finish them, so I can put it to rest and take other action to attract clients and point them to useful services and products ready to purchase, to get to the next “thing” with everything I’ve learned, to make a difference and proceed.

Act vs. react, create vs. respond, grow vs. stagnate.

There are clear modes of operation we need to shift between being at the lead of any project, blog, business, or endeavor, and it’s easy to get stuck in one mode when you need to shift gears.

So, how do you shift? We’ll that’s the trick isn’t it?

Stopping, Sharing, Focusing, Getting Fed Up

Stopping

Stop what you’re doing. It’s not working. I’m tempted to rattle off the old Einstein definition of insanity quote here.

Take a break from the “grind” that you’re stuck in so you can take a step back, this is what helped when I noticed I was moving “work on this page” from to do list to do list. I decided I needed to not see it for a while, it gave space for some clarity.

Sharing

It’s hard to just stop, you start to doubt and question, so share about it, in an online forum, with that person you connect with about your business, at that place you know you’ll feel just a little bit heard. I had this happen sharing at fizzle.co and oddly, scheduling a meeting I then had to cancel with Stella Orange [and excelent wordsmith copywriter helper] because I wanted help working on the language of these words. I’m sure the language still needs help, but the process of writing out my “problem” and scheduling time with Stella in her onboarding process on her site made a sharing difference in reflecting on why I was stuck

Focusing

There’s something so vague and so alluring about being able to focus. I don’t have anything more magical or powerful to say than what’s readily available except that using a short fast journal process works, picking the “top 3-5 things that would make today great” at the start of your day works, using a timer works, sharing with some sort of accountability works, using focus music works…but non of that “works” if you can’t muster the inner “stuff”, the grit, to just put butt in chair and take action, which leads to the next point.

Getting Fed Up

That’s an odd phrase, “fed up” … I can’t tell you where it came from but I can tell you how it feels. You just can’t deal with moving that thing from one list to another again, you just want to break through the glass wall and move on already, you’re a little angry. I had to complete these things so I could press forward and create more, develop and grow, and so I had to pick a few things each day, I had to put boots to the ground, I had to simply [while not easy] take action.

I got a little angry and when I listed out those few things that were going to make a difference, I stared at them with determination to complete. There’s no way to convey how to “muster energy” but that’s what I’m trying to do…the “just do it-ness” of getting fed up and wanting to get something done.

Growth

I’m happy to say I’ve completed those sales pages [for now], and moved on. I’ll revel just for a moment, because it’s been awhile since I’ve shifted to such a high production mode.

I’ve started up regular emails to my list again with my business, done some individual marketing campaigns, explored using different tools to share more content [beacon.by in particular is working out great] and published a few blog articles. I’ve cleaned out my client management tool, reached out to people, concluded that “business is completed” with others, moved on, and woken up.

I’ve been able so slip into a focus mindset for multiple hours a day, oh how elusive that can be in life.

It feels good to produce content, and a little scary, because now people can share it, not like it, or I can get “stuck” on it and fall back into stagnation. Overall it’s much better than the cycle of fake productivity I was on before, the struggle bus of uneffective action I couldn’t quite see through.

TIP: Sifting through my news feeds [RSS, saved articles, etc.] for a focused 10-15 minutes a day, saving and sharing a couple articles drove me to produce more content in my own endeavors. I stopped doing this previously, thinking, since it’s not a “creation” act, I’m wasting time. The opposite appeared to be true, I think because it caused reflection, which tickled the need to “respond” in some way to that.

It’s also really fun, and puts me in a place to communicate with people more often, build more, and what feels like taking more ground in development of the inside parts of my business, all good things.

 

Back to business growth, acting, creating, growing…. join me.