Building a business can be a bit like building a house, except in industry, the foundations are what you believe about yourself and your business. It is these foundations that will ultimately determine the kind of business you have and the success that is created in the industry.
I wonder, are the foundations of your business solid, or are they shaky because they are built on the lies of limitation?
Perhaps not such an easy question to answer, because it can be really tricky to know what you believe about yourself and business because mostly our beliefs are invisible.
Some of the lies of limitation that people use to create their business are things like:
Times are tough.
There is not enough business.
I need to drop my prices.
Customers are not loyal anymore.
People are slow to pay.
All of us, to a greater or lesser extent, buy into other people’s points of view or society’s points of view. All too often, we unquestioningly believe what we are told, and therefore we create it as accurate and true for us too until we begin to choose something else.
So how can you begin to know what your beliefs are about business and yourself in the industry?
Firstly, look at what is happening around you in the business. Look at what is and is not showing up in your world and ask yourself, ‘what would I have to believe for this to occur?’
For example, if clients are really slow to pay you, then what do you believe about that? If you are having no fun, then what do you think about that?
Secondly, get a piece of paper and take two minutes to ask yourself these questions over and over, ‘What do I believe about business?’ and ‘What do I believe about myself in business?’
Don’t edit your thoughts, and don’t say what you think is the right thing. Just get curious. What you believe, you will see evidence for in your world.
The thing is, I wonder how much of what you believe is really yours? Have you ever really thought about it?
So if you could handpick the foundations that would best support your business to achieve what you desire to create – what would you choose?
Because once you are clear about this, you can begin to create from that space. And a paradigm of scarcity is not your best choice.
Let me give you an example.
Say your experience is that you are constantly losing out on winning a particular kind of contract. For this to happen, you would have to believe that you have no success winning specific types of contracts, or that you are too small, or that you are not experienced enough etc., etc. You get the idea. And so, it is the unexamined belief that creates the experience.
Your point of view creates your reality; it is not the other way about.
And then what we often do is we keep telling the same story, which just tends to reinforce it and create more of the very thing that we don’t want.
So what can you do differently?
Ask a question. Questions are magic wands that begin to change things.
Here are few suggestions following on from the example above.
Truth – do you really desire to work with these kinds of clients, or do you just think you should?
What are the specific reasons that you did not win the business? Do you know, or are you just telling your story? What information do you require?
What change would have to occur for the client to choose to work with your business? Would choosing this change to compromise your values?
What are you not willing to do?
The lies of business are all about limitation and lack, and scarcity. They are everywhere, and I guarantee if there is some aspect of your business that is not working for you, then there will be some lie that you have bought into that you are creating your business from.
So instead of unconsciously creating your business in a way that doesn’t work for you, you can begin to choose to make it consciously from a different space. As soon as you get the awareness of where you are functioning from, you can ask yourself a question and choose something different.
