Where do you work best in your business? Do you actually know the answer to that question?
For many of us, we don’t and unfortunately it can have a massive impact on not only our mental health but our efficiency. Check out the video below where our Managing Director, Stephen, discusses how to find your zone of genius and pin down your personal skill set in your business.
What is a Zone of Genius?
You’re possibly sat reading this like, what the heck are they on about? What is the zone of genius? It sounds very grand doesn’t it? Well ultimately it’s you asking yourself the questions; where do I fit into my business? Where do my skills best serve the business?
As business owners we tend to try and take on all of the hats in our business, eventually leading to us struggling to keep up with the most basic of tasks on a day to day basis. This can lead to a feeling of overwhelming panic as the tasks begin to pile up. It can cause careless mistakes and delays on important projects or client’s work, ultimately damaging your brand’s reputation and industry footing. In turn this can hinder your business growth and the opportunity to explore or discover new ventures.
Not only is it damaging to our businesses but can have a huge negative impact on our mental health. We tend to find ourselves feeling extreme pressure, exhaustion, behind on our work and then inadequacy begins to rear it’s ugly head. A good friend of our’s Brad Burton, an amazing motivational speaker, describes this feeling like a shaken soft drink bottle, at some point it will explode if you don’t relieve some of that pressure.
If you can relate. If this is where you are at. Please stop for a moment, take a breath and rethink.
In the beginning of starting any business we all understand that needs must, but as we grow this needs to change for us to be able to scale effectively and efficiently. Today’s blog focuses on exactly this. Regardless of what heights we hope to achieve we need to understand which hats to remain wearing and which to hire out.
The exercise below is a useful tool to repeat throughout your business journey, whenever you feel like you’re running around in circles trying to complete all the little activities instead of leading from the front. It happens all too often, we know because we’ve been there. Watch Stephen’s video and he discusses some of his experiences of exactly this.
Firstly you need to understand that you cannot control everything and you cannot be responsible for everything, it’s just not possible. Just take a moment and picture your life as a glass of water divided into sections. One section is for family and friends, one for work, one for social activities such as fitness. Someone comes along with a problem, how much space do you have in that glass to deal with that issue?
If the answer is the glass overflows then that is no good for your mental health, you only have so much capacity to give and by overflowing you’re taking from one of the other sections, usually your family and friends.
Instead you need to learn to balance what goes into your glass with what capacity you have to hold. This gives you space, allowing you to take on just enough to cope with so when you are needed to solve a problem you’re not distracted, overwhelmed and lacking creation. You’re bringing your A-game.
Give yourself that permission to cut back on the noise and focus on what you need to.
The Exercise
We told you we were going to give you a tool to help so here it is.
Grab yourself a pen and paper and get started.
Sit somewhere quiet, with no distractions and focus on what is most important to you, what are your goals. Take that and put it on the paper in one sentence, yes we know it’s not easy but you can do this. That sentence is your why, your purpose.
Next take a separate piece of paper and write down all the activities that you have done over the last month in your business. All of those to do list tasks that have built up.
Grab a highlighter and section them off or just write next to each one the following:
- Not great at/Don’t enjoy
- Good at/Enjoyable
- Excel at/Love doing
- What you’re really passionate about/What ignites that fire within you
Take a look at those tasks. The ones you’ve included in the last two sections, paired with your why and your purpose, are the things that make a difference to your business and life moving forward. Those are your specific zones of genius.
You now have a clearly defined list of tasks that you need to delegate, outsource, or maybe even just stop doing altogether. It’s OK to hire out work you don’t enjoy or aren’t good at. It’s OK to focus on the areas that make you happy. It’s also OK and sometimes necessary to say NO.
You started this business because you had a passion for it. It meant something to you. It’s time to reclaim that passion, reignite that fire and reclaim you in the process.
If need some extra help, we are here.
If you feel like you need some support with this then don’t worry, Valued Academy can help you. Book your discovery call today.
