The challenges and hardships encountered in every business are a fact of life. While there’s only so much one can do to change external factors, one area you can control is the way in which you respond to those challenges.  

That means knowing yourself and your habits, both good and bad.

As an entrepreneur committed to long-term success, here are some habits that you’d be best to avoid.

Trusting the wrong people.

Never let your emotions cloud your decisions, especially when it comes to the people you hire and the business partners you ally with. Instead, look for people who complement and fill the gaps in your personal skill set. It all boils down to finding people that your business needs rather than the people you want.

Failure to plan

Instead of going with the flow and dealing with problems and opportunities as they arise, map out your goals and operating procedures so that you’re more able to deal with unexpected changes. Planning includes organising your resources, scheduling your time, creating timelines for your processes, allocating your tasks and more.

Once you’ve made the plan, review it regularly to make sure it’s still relevant. And most importantly, if you have a plan, stick to it.

Overcommitting.

Overcommitting is often the result of failure to plan or failure to stick to a plan. Eagerness, desperation and overconfidence are the common roots of overcommitting and overextending your resources. This normally occurs when pitching to new clients or impressing business partners and could result in wasted time and resources for pursuits that don’t contribute much to your business’ success. Choose to stay on track and focus on your own manageable goals.

Impatience.

Recognise that success takes time. Be realistic when it comes to setting your expectations. There will always be situations where nothing seems to be happening and nothing seems to be getting accomplished the way you want it to. Downtimes and slumps happen to the best of us. Instead, stay focussed on the ultimate goal and be patient.

Using the wrong metrics.

Evaluating your progress in terms of your business and personal goals is all well and good, but make sure that you’re using the right metrics to gauge your progress.

While profit is a major indicator of business success, metrics like customer base, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and where your performance sits in relation to industry benchmarks also determine how your business is travelling.

Micromanaging and trying to do everything.

Accept the fact that you can’t do everything all at once. Instead of hovering over your employees and interfering with their work for the sake of your peace of mind, let them do the jobs you entrusted them with when you hired them.

Everyone will be more productive if rather than trying to do everything, you focus on doing the right things.

Not taking a day off once in a while.

Everyone needs a break. Allow your body and mind to rejuvinate and relax every so often. Don’t risk operating and making decisions when you’re in overload.

Rest up and dial it down a bit.

Find out how your business can still improve. Take our TRUST assessment and find out the pillars of business your company needs to focus on and how myCEO can help you.