Top 5 Things to Avoid Doing When Growing Your Business

There are so many things you can be doing to grow and scale your business, but are you wasting time on things you shouldn't be doing?  Things that are getting in your way, slowing you down, and that you need to say F-It to?  If you want to grow your business this year, you'll want to avoid these five things.  

In this episode, I discuss:

• Things to avoid doing to scale
• Waiting to see what happens
• Constantly seeking
• Getting in your own way
• Constantly being busy
• Following the crowd
• What to do next

Tune into Episode 6 of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast or keep reading below.

5 Things Entrepreneurs Should Be Saying F-It To When Growing a Business 

In my previous post, 5 Things That Should Be On Your To Do List to Scale, we dove into the five top things that should be doing in your business.  Today, we'll dive into the top five things that you should not be doing in your business when you want to grow. These are things you'll want to say F-It to in 2021. 

1. Waiting To See What Happens

The first one is a pattern that I'm seeing quite a bit where people are being reactive instead of proactive in their business and giving up control. They end up in a wait and see mode - “I'm not sure what's going to happen so I'm going to wait and see.” 

There is absolutely a time and place for waiting, observing, and making informed business decisions.  However, you want to avoid waiting to have all the answers before moving forward. 

When you want to grow your business, you have to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. (Tweet this)

You want to be proactive and intentional in what you do. I see many people still waiting for a world after COVID and while everyone is optimistic and hopeful for what may happen in 2021, the reality is that the world as we knew it in 2019 may not be coming back anytime soon. There are things about that are disappointing, and there are things about it that are exciting. There is lots of opportunity and you get to create your own world.

In my own business, retreats were a big part of my business model. They’re something that I love to do so it was super disappointing to not be able to do retreats in 2020 and to know going into 2021 that I have no in-person retreats planned.  While I'm hopeful that I'll be able to do retreats in 2022, I'm not waiting around to see if I can, I'm making other plans.  

Pay attention to where you're saying, “let's wait and see.” 

I hear this a lot with my clients. When we end up having conversations and digging in, they realize that they have more control than they thought they did and there are things that they can do now and they don't need to wait and see. They were holding themselves back and didn't even realize it.

2. Constantly Seeking

The second thing that you'll want to say “F-it” to when you want to grow your business is to constantly be seeking and looking outside of yourself.  Instead of trusting your own intuition and doing business the way that you want to do business, you're constantly looking to others and looking outside of yourself for solutions.

"You don't need to look outside of yourself for solutions." - Crista Grasso | Click to Tweet

What I see this manifesting as is you're buying up every course, you're working with a lot of different people, and you're in a lot of different programs or masterminds. You're spending entirely too much time with your friend, Google, and you're probably doing the endless scroll on Instagram. 

If you think this only happens to new business owners, I see this with a lot of the established 6, 7, 8-figure business owners that I work with. 

Seeking frequently comes from a place of being unsettled and a lack of clarity.

This can happen when you don't have a clear vision or path forward to grow and scale your business. The problem with seeking is that it takes you off your path and it slows things down. It ends up feeling frustrating, getting expensive, and becoming overwhelming because when you're investing in all of the things and you're listening to everyone outside of yourself, you usually end up getting a lot of conflicting messages and you're left wondering what to do and who to listen to. 

You want to say 'fuckit' to seeking. 

People cycle through this. Early on when you start a business, it's common to be in that place but as you're consistently leveling up your business and you're moving from 6 to multi-6 figures and then from multi-6 to 7 and then from 7 to 8, or when you're adding new things in your business or making any big transformation, it's easy to fall back into that pattern of seeking. 

If you're there, the best thing I can tell you to do is gain clarity. 

Take the time to define your vision and reground yourself in what's important to you and why it's important. Look at what you want to do and take a careful look at the things that you currently have in your business as well as the things you have planned for your business and make sure that it's all directionally aligned with the vision that you have. When there's a disconnect, that's when you start to get unsettled and the seeking starts. 

3. Getting In Your Own Way

That's also when number three happens and you end up getting in your own way. Getting in your own way is something I think we can all relate to.

I've shared some examples of things in past blog posts, such as:

• Perfection - waiting to release something and being slow to get things to market because you're stuck in an analysis-paralysis perfection loop
• Over-planning and spending so much time planning that you're not taking action 

Another piece of this is spending too much time doing the mental game and thinking without following through with action.  It's important that we are taking the time to appreciate the things that we're grateful for and to envision the future that we want for our business... but you won't get very far without the action. 

You want to take inspired action and make sure that the things that you're doing are directionally correct and are going to take you closer to the vision and the goals that you have for your business.

Take inspired action towards your vision and goals. | Tweet this

Getting in your own way ultimately comes down to mindset and working through whatever mindset blocks you are currently experiencing, because we experience new ones or re-experience previous ones in new ways every time we level up our business and ourselves. 

Not sure what your mindset blockers are or want a way to work through them?  Download our free mindset guide to identify and work through everything you need to say 'fuckit' to in order to grow. 

4. Constantly Being Busy

Number four is constantly being busy.  If you've read prior posts, you probably know my feeling on hustling by now - hustling is a bunch of BS.  It's a lie that we're sold and it's one that we tend to feed into. We consistently hear messages, directly or subliminally that "if you're not hustling 24/7, you're not to be taken seriously" or "you're not a real business owner and entrepreneur unless you're hustling and grinding it out". 

That is complete and total BS.

The irony is if you pay close attention, those who are hustling all the time are in a place of lack. They're the ones who tend to not have consistent and sustainable success.

When you look at the highly successful entrepreneurs and business owners, they have achieved whatever their version of balance is. I know that can be a polarizing word and everybody calls it something different but I guarantee you, they are not working 24/7.   

They have learned how to take care of themselves and how to put things things other than their business at the top of their priority list. They make time for the things that are most important to them and it is NOT all business all the time.  

There is a huge misperception that you're not a "real" business owner or entrepreneur unless you're hustling and grinding it out.

Entrepreneurs need to stop wearing busy as a badge of honor.  It's so important to create space and making sure that you are taking care of yourself holistically outside of simply hustling and working super hard and overworking yourself in your business. 

5. Following The Crowd

The fifth thing to say F-It to when you want to grow your business is following the crowd.  In the post on inspired growth, I talked about the sea of sameness that is very prevalent in many industries right now, especially the coaching industry.  This builds upon that post. You don't have to do what everyone else is doing. 

There are many different paths to success.

You want to achieve success your way and in a way that isn't in alignment with the vision you have for your business, with your values, with your mission, with your guiding principles, with the things that are personally important to you, and with the things that make sense for your business and business model.

I have a version of this conversion with so many people:

• Entrepreneur: “I'm so exhausted doing xyz.”, "I hate doing xyz.", "I'm so sick of xyz."
• Me: “Why are you still doing it?”
• Entrepreneur: “Don't I have to if I want to scale my business?”
• Me: “No, you don't have to do anything in business.  What is the outcome you're trying to achieve?  Let's find a way that's more in alignment.”  

There are many different ways that I have seen people be successful and there are many different ways to carve out success. It's a matter of finding what works for you.

Personally, I don't want to be doing the same thing that everybody else is doing because that's when a business starts to lose its edge and its differentiation. I am constantly doing things that I feel inspired to do, even if, and sometimes because, it's different from what other people are doing. I encourage you to do the same.  

There are many different ways to achieve success; achieve it your way.

If you see a lot of people doing something and you look and you say, “That feels right for me. That feels exactly what I should be doing in my business.” By all means, do it.

However, avoid the urge to start questioning something you know isn't a good fit simply because you see so many others doing it. It is far too easy to get caught in the trap of thinking  “If they're all doing this, and they're all using this platform, or they're all following this approach, should I be doing it too? Maybe I should figure out how to incorporate this in my business.” 

To Summarize the Top 5 Things That You Should Avoid When You Want to Scale:

1. Don't wait to see what happens. Don't be reactive in your business. Take control of your business. Be proactive and create your plans even when there is uncertainty. 

2. Don't seek in business. Get the clarity that you need. Take the time, create the space in your schedule to go ahead and get that clarity that you are no longer seeking. 

3. Try to get out of your own way. Don't let mindset block you. Don't let perfectionism stop you and slow you down. Don't spend so much time over-planning or so much time in your head that you're not taking the time to take action and implement the right things in your business that are going to get you results. 

4. Don't constantly focus on or feel like you need to be busy. Work smarter, not harder. It's not all about hustling 24/7 and constantly being exhausted. There is no badge of honor for that. It truly is about finding and creating the time for yourself and for those other things that are important to you outside of your business so that you can be your absolute best in your most effective and efficient when you are working on your business. 

5. Finally, don't follow the crowd. Grow and scale your business in an inspired way that aligns with where you want to take things long-term and the things that feel right and aligned with your vision, mission values. 

Which of these are you ready to say fuckit to?