No Matter What, You’ll Fail If You Think Small
This isn’t some “The Magic Of Thinking Big” stuff. It’s a fact.
You will never be fully prepared when you decide to start a business. There are a number of things that need to happen in order for you to start a business in the first place. A lot more than simply writing up a business plan.
It’s during these instances where you are the most vulnerable. People don’t think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur let alone be able to make a living off of it. And in a sense, those individuals would be right.
It all depends on your mindset.
Amongst other things, naturally.
Specifically, if you think small or on the short-term, chances are quite likely that your business will crash and burn in due time. For this reason, I encourage those who are thinking short term to start expanding their thinking.
You’re Not Looking Far Enough
No shit, short-term thinking makes you only think in short time spans. That obviously means you’re not looking that far.
True, but even the most obvious and simple things sometimes are worth reiterating.
It can be very easy for people to be placed in a sense of security, especially after they hit a pretty hefty milestone. It’s not out of the ordinary for people who have hit a massive goal to revert back to basics or struggle with what is next for them.
Success gets to them and people lose who they are or stop doing what they did that made them successful in the first place.
But above all, many narrow their thinking and don’t bother about thinking farther ahead.
While being present and being mindful is important, we are moving forward.
And that means we need to be forward thinking. And asking some tough questions.
What other things can you do through your business?
Were there other ideas floating around earlier that you could explore?
When was the last time you set some goals?
Asking these questions encourages you to take action to do those things and to set some more targets. Furthermore, it forces you to think larger since you may be recalling ideas that were discussed months ago. That or perhaps recalling goals or dreams from months ago that you set aside.
Another thing you can consider is keeping a journal and recording ideas, concepts, or even some other goals that you want to work on. That way it’ll be easier for you to focus on things now and worry about your other goals later.
You Prioritize Immediate Things Without Thinking Of Consequences
Every single one of our actions has a ripple effect and if you have a narrow way of thinking you may not be aware of the consequences of your actions.
If you’re only focused on a specific goal for your business it can be difficult to see how that attitude will affect both your work and the outside world. This is especially prominent in app development or tech companies.
Some startups have the idea that they’ll get bought out for millions of dollars some day. It’s a nice idea and it’s good to be ambitious.
But it’s not realistic.
Those who want to build a company only to get bought out will focus more on building relations or other priorities. They won’t focus on what is actually going to get them to their goal.
Building relationships is key to business for sure, but you also need to have something worth buying as well. A company has no use for an app that is behind in development and needs a lot of fixing. Even if you’re great business partners with another owner, they won’t buy or pay much for a shitty product.
Another side of this is that problems will certainly arise. And as a business owner, it’s your responsibility to deal with them. This disrupts your work, but also it can be a huge source of unnecessary stress because you feel stuck with how to deal with it.
That or you create other problems by handling your problem poorly.
By thinking a little bit bigger, you certainly won’t be able to predict what’ll happen but it can allow you to take a step back and to look at situations better.
You can take the time to ask yourself some vital questions:
Is what I’m doing bringing me closer to my goals?
What are some weak spots with this idea?
What sort of issues would I have to address in order to achieve this goal?
The idea with long-term thinking is it’ll allow you to reveal potential roadblocks that you may have to deal with some day.
We Stall Our Growth Substantially
One of the other aspects of short-term thinking is even if we are aware of our attitudes, we think that over time we’ll overcome it. We’ll stop working those dangerously long hours someday and things will get better.
But this places us in a false sense of security as so many of us won’t be changing our habits.
Remember, my “business” stalled for over two years because I thought something would change.
Guess what?
Nothing happened.
That is until I took some active steps, set some realistic goals that I want to achieve and got to work. This forced me to think a little bit bigger and broader and it was what brought my business up off of the ground.
It challenged me as an individual and as an entrepreneur in a brand new way.
Think Bigger
You don’t need to be mapping out every scenario or plan for years and years ahead. But broadening your thinking and challenging yourself in new ways can be easily achieved if you think bigger than where you are at right now.
And that’s a fact.
