The 3 Hidden Threats To Your Success in 2018

I want to shine a spotlight on a few “unseen” threats that could potentially slow (or even STOP) your progress as you head into 2018…

The truth is, many business owners will unknowingly sabotage their chances of building a successful business.

This is something I see happening all the time…and yet, nobody really talks about it.

Why?

Because nobody realizes when it’s happening to them.

There are 3 hidden threats I want to deconstruct that have the power to poison and kill your business over the next 12 months:

Threat #1 – Bringing Your 2017 Stories Into 2018

What do I mean by “stories”?

Picture a challenge or event that happens in your business:

You didn’t hit your monthly goal…

You aren’t bringing in the right clients…

You aren’t closing people on your sales calls…

In an event there’s, often 2 parts –

1 – The TRUTH

2 – All the extra stuff we tell ourselves surrounding the actual truth. (This is what I mean by “stories”).

As a human being, you are a meaning-making machine.

Anytime something happens, you attach a meaning to it.

Here’s the challenge with that…

Most people are exceptional at looking at what DOESN’T work.

And if gone unchecked, these meanings can quickly snowball into full-blown “stories” you tell yourself of why something isn’t working.

When you come up against obstacles in your business…

When you aren’t progressing as quickly as you’d like…

When you aren’t hitting the income goals each month…

…the story suddenly becomes:

“What’s wrong with me?” or

“What’s wrong with my business?”

It’s one thing to identify the TRUTH of what isn’t working in your business, so you know how and where to improve.

Just make sure you aren’t surrounding the truth with a cloud of unnecessary or faulty meanings…because the stories you create will become JUST AS REAL to you as the event happening in your business.

To be clear, there IS value in looking at what didn’t work in 2017, but if you live in those thoughts, you won’t be able to move forward.

If you bring your disempowering stories from 2017 into 2018, is that going to help you create MORE success? Or less?

So, how do make sure you’re not bringing last year’s stories with you this year?

Follow these three basic steps:

Step 1: Pull apart your story and look at the TRUTH. (“This is what actually happened”).

Step 2: Find the lesson you learned from the event. (“Here’s what I decided about it”).

Step 3: Get closure. (“Here is my resolve…”).

As you go into 2018, it’s important to do this audit, so you can create some empowering meanings, and give closure to what didn’t work in 2017.

Threat #2 – Repeating What Hasn’t Worked

As you do your end-of-year audit, start by asking yourself what was GREAT in 2017.

What are you proud of?

What did you accomplish?

What were you able to make happen (for you, your team, your clients, etc…)?

What do you want to duplicate in the year ahead?

Then look at what didn’t work so well:

What did you hate?/What got you frustrated?

Where were you challenged?

Where did you get stuck?

Maybe you didn’t have a plan…

Maybe you didn’t prioritize your business…

Maybe you didn’t take care of yourself…

Get clear around everything that didn’t work in 2017. Ask yourself:

1- “What didn’t work?”

2 – “What do I NOT want to repeat again?”

More often than not, you’ll be able to see a pattern around the things that aren’t working, or the areas where you’re stuck.

What do I mean by a pattern?

Take a look at the areas that didn’t work in your business in 2017. Is there a theme or common denominator between two or more of these challenging areas?

The reason you’re stuck in one area of your business may be the SAME underlying reason you’re stuck in a different area.

So it’s critical to identify what isn’t working, look for the PATTERNS, and then address that disempowering pattern.

Let me be clear:

In business (and in life), you don’t get what you “want.”

You don’t get what you “need.”

You get what you SETTLE FOR.

If you have something in your business that’s clearly not working, but you’re willing to settle for that and tolerate it…then that’s the pattern you’ll repeat again and again.

The KEY is to ask yourself, “What do I really want to have happen?” What healthy, empowering patterns do I want to create?

Whatever isn’t serving you needs to be cut off and disposed of, so you don’t repeat old patterns that keep you stuck.

Threat #3 – Not Having A Proven Plan

If you don’t know where you’re going…

If you don’t have a proven plan to get you to the result you want…

…it can be a catastrophic threat to your business.

Just like a contractor wouldn’t construct a house without a detailed blueprint, you can’t just ‘wing it’ and expect to build and scale a business.

Trust me, there is nothing more expensive in your business than TRIAL AND ERROR.

No matter what you’ve achieved in your business…

No matter what you’re trying to accomplish…

No matter what goal you have in your sights…

There is someone who has been there before you.

If you’re going to be building or scaling your business in 2018 and you don’t have a plan, you’re adding YEARS to your learning curve (and a COUNTLESS amount of money wasted) to figure out what someone already knows.

The first step to having a solid plan is to get crystal clear on the RESULTS you want for 2018.

At Clients on Demand, we break the RESULTS down into 3 areas:

1 – The income you’re making

2 – Your freedom and lifestyle

3 – The impact you’re making

You have to be successful in ALL 3 of these areas.

If you’re just making money, but you’re working 80-hour weeks, then you’re not having any fun.

If you have a ton of freedom, but no money – you’re fun won’t last very long.

And if you have BOTH money and freedom, but it isn’t creating any kind of impact, then what you do will feel EMPTY.

This is exactly what we do at Clients on Demand – we give our clients a proven plan for building a huge business that allows them to be successful in all 3 areas.

If that’s something you want…

If you’re serious about creating a business model that provides income, freedom, AND impact…

If you want a team of experts to help guide you through a step-by-step proven process for building your business, (while arming you with the RIGHT mindset to push your business forward in 2018), reach out and we’d love to help:

To book a call and speak with our team, go towww.clientsondemand.com/talk