Who’s in the 5am Club? How about the 10x club? The 14-hour working day club?
I’m a big fan of “self-development” and love to read all the books and be part of the bootcamps with the gurus like Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone and Guy Kawasaki, but sometimes it all feels a bit as though what they are espousing is “not for the likes of me”.
All that talk of making 20 sales calls before breakfast or making your first million by next Tuesday is honestly just too much.
Over the past few months I’ve also been involved in smaller masterminds and memberships which I thought would be more “me” and I did indeed gain a lot of insight and motivation to move forward with my business.
But even there, I came away feeling that I was failing myself and my business if I wasn’t prepared to go live on Facebook every day or some other “marketing must” which pushed me way beyond the limits of my comfort zone.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe the old saying that what you want waits for you outside your comfort zone, but I also believe there’s more than one way to skin a cat and one size certainly does not fit all!
Going live on Facebook is a “big thing” for me, so far outside my comfort zone I need binoculars to see it.
I also shy away from picking up the phone to make “cold calls”.
Does that mean I’m not cut out to have a successful business? I certainly hope not.
There are other things I am comfortable with doing and things which I am willing to do that are outside my comfort zone, but just not too far outside of it.
Most recently I worked with a fantastic business coach who took the time to get to know me and what actually makes me tick, motivates me, terrifies me, triggers me and lights me up inside and worked with that to nudge me in the right direction.
It was still uncomfortable to a certain degree, but not in a way that made me want to give up.
It felt liberating to break through my discomfort in a comfortable way and I felt supported and understood.
The other thing many of these gurus focus on is building a six, or even seven figure business.
Lovely, I’d love it if this time next year I was a millionaire, Rodney, but…
IT’S. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN…
and here’s the controversial bit … that’s OK.
As nice as it might be to be a millionaire, I’m striving for “comfortable” – a nice five figure business that affords me a “comfortable” life.
I’m through with the “big action for big rewards” gang and I’m going to concentrate my efforts on taking “uncomfortable action for comfortable rewards”.
What you want may be waiting outside your comfort zone, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat!
Author: Tracey Sweetland
Founder of The Business Connection and owner of Red Shoes Media and Marketing, supporting small business owners and helping small business to grow.