One of the toughest parts of running a business is getting sucked into the comparison game.
We’ll look at where others are and question whether we’ll ever get there. We forget that every one of the so-called lucky people started exactly where you are now – or even farther back. Success may feel like luck, but it comes from what you do consistently.
And that’s where so many entrepreneurs struggle. They’re not sure what they should be consistently working on.
Author James Clear wrote the New York Times Bestseller Atomic Habits. He said in his own work and the countless entrepreneurs he has studied and spoken with, it comes back to the ability to ruthlessly prune busy work.
So you’re probably wondering, how do you put that into practice?
I’m all about keeping things simple. Let’s use what you want to get done today as an example.
Look at each item on your to-do list and ask, “Is this truly necessary?”
Or are you doing what’s *urgent* (answering e-mails, texts, the phone, running errands, etc.) or what’s important?
Once a week I write a blog piece and send out a newsletter for my coaching business. There are countless other tasks on my to-do list that bubble to the surface, but these two remain my consistent priority.
Following this routine has led to me blogging for other publications, giving talks, making some incredible connections and even led to a number of my coaching clients.
If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed or stuck, it’s usually because the next step doesn’t feel clear enough for action.
This often comes from doing too much under the urgent category. It’s someone else’s urgent, not yours, so it often doesn’t move you or your business forward.
That’s the beautiful part about routines and making progress on what’s important. It shifts your focus from comparison mode to creation mode. And this is where entrepreneurs like you show up best.
What routines do you have? What happens if you miss or change a routine? How has routine benefited you?
