[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Have you ever just felt like you aren’t going forward, aren’t making any progress, or don’t even know HOW to move forward from where you are? You aren’t alone. Not at all. I have been there, and still fall back into it occasionally.
The journey to being good at business is EVER changing and honestly evolves regularly. I remember the beginning days of starting my own business and it seemed as though the good things and the signs of great things to come just never stopped rolling in. Every day new and better things were happening, the stars felt like they were aligning and I remember never feeling worried about “was this the right decision.”
Fast forward to 4 years later. Here I am. More established than I really could have ever hoped. Dreams of being self-employed and running my own ship realized. You would think that I would be more confident than ever, especially more so than I was back in the beginning. But you want to know what the funny thing is? I actually find myself having more self-doubt sometimes NOW than I ever did back 4 years ago when I had no clue what I was doing. Why? Because with success comes the need to evolve and continue to grow and also with success comes FAILURE. Over the past 4 years I have made plenty of mistakes and made some that I should have known better than to ever do. I have also had a TON of success and have so much to be grateful for. I think of running my business just like I thought about my swimming and now CrossFit career. You will have good days and some bad days, but every day is a day that I can choose consciously to be better whether it is in how I handle a problem or how I celebrate a success.
Part of my business growth journey has been in how I learn about growing opportunities. Realizing that you DON’T have to do everything on your own is a healthy thing. Also learning that the hashtag #communityovercompetition is a REAL thing and should be taken as literally as it sounds. We are all in this crazy world of entrepreneurship together aren’t we? The concept of community over competition seemed a little foreign to me at first because I thought, “Why would I help someone else who is trying to do the same thing as me? That’s like giving away business.” What I quickly realized is that this was a very bad way to look at business and in fact thinking of every person who was in my field of work as competition was actually stunting my growth.
Insert my discovery of TRIBES!
Have you ever received a message asking about joining a private Facebook group? Or how about being part of a “DM” Group? If you are like me you probably ignored the first 100 of them thinking it was a scam of some kind, or just someone trying to sell you something. Well everyone….stop doing that! I really believe in the power of the group I am in, and not just because I feel like saying that, but because what the group has afforded me is TANGIBLE results that I can speak to from my experience.
So here are two BIG reasons why if you have a chance to be a part of a TRIBE of people in your niche that you should take them up on the offer:
- A tribe creates a built in accountability partner
- Part of being in the group that I am in is that we have to comment in with three yellow stars whenever we post a piece of content on our page. Once we do so that means that all the other people in our group have to go like and comment on our post. Why? To help boost engagement and help others feel encouraged to be a part of the conversation as well. The Instagram algorithm is a tricky thing, but FAST engagement upon posting a key to it. Therefore, being part of my group forces me to engage on others posts quickly (which keeps me active on the platform!) knowing that If I want them to do so for me, I have to do so for them. We also ALL know that remaining active and present on Instagram is the KEY to successfully growing your page.
- Accountability is SO huge on the Instagram platform and I actually get a sinking feeling in my stomach if I forget to like and comment on my tribes posts. It also makes me stay focused on ALWAYS having content scheduled because I know that they will notice if I don’t.
- My tribe takes me to “brainstorming” school every day.
- What do I mean by this? Every day when I go to my tribes posts and read them it gets my brain going. It makes me think about things I do in my business and how I could maybe be doing them differently. It is also the easiest way to make me realize that there are things that I am not doing, that others are, that I SHOULD BE doing! It’s like having food for my brain to consume every day that keeps me on my toes about how I’m running my business. Things like: Am I posting consistently enough, am I organized enough behind the scenes with my planning techniques to make sure that I don’t miss anything, OR am I prioritizing my time correctly every day to make sure I get things done quickly to keep my clients happy? Seriously there are about 1000 things that all the ladies in my group bring up daily that make me brainstorm about how I run my own things.
Always on my toes and thinking about all aspects of business means that I am constantly focused on GROWTH! Whether it is that I need to buy a new planner, or take the time to learn how to use Trello (a planner app that’s online!), or HIRE someone so that I stop wasting my time on things that could be better spent elsewhere, there is ALWAYS something that I can learn and take away from my interaction with the members of my tribe.
Related article: Do I Need an Entrepreneurship Degree to be a Good Entrepreneur?
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