Things Not Working? Feeling Stuck? Here’s an Entrepreneur’s Guide to Getting Unstuck.

Valuable insights and actionable strategies to regain traction and love your business again

Key Takeaways:

• The feeling of being stuck happens to all of us at one time or another.
• Stuckness comes in different forms for different reasons.
• Lack of vision alignment is a common people issue.
• Performing an organizational checkup is a vital step.
• Learn to celebrate both losses and wins – everything is a learning opportunity.

Entrepreneurship isn’t always smooth sailing. If running a business were as predictable as clockwork, the journey might be simpler. But more often than not, we’re met with challenges that test our motivation and resilience. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we feel stuck. The passion that once fueled us has dimmed, and our dreams seem out of reach.

What does it mean to feel stuck? It’s a feeling of being in a never-ending cycle of insufficient people, the wrong people, the lack of cash, and the lack of free time. We end up feeling like all we’ve done is bought ourselves a job. Decision fatigue sets in – everyone comes to us for everything – and we start to resent the very thing we created.

If you’re nodding along, feeling this way, know you’re not alone. Getting unstuck is a hot topic among entrepreneurs, and there are actionable steps we can take to shift our mindset and reignite our journey toward growth and success.

How are you stuck?

We can get stuck in many ways – on a personal level, a department level, or an entire company level. It’s important to distinguish where our stuckness lies. On a personal level, we can lack time, resources, energy, or mental space.

As a department, we could see that the team isn’t aligned, is not all-in, is not moving in the right direction, or is not providing the needed results.

As a company, there could be a plateau, a decline, or a problem with the overall strategy.

We can be stuck in many ways.?

Use tools to help get unstuck

For an entrepreneur to get unstuck and break through, he or she must understand the business’s six key components. This means knowing the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. One thing that can help is an Organizational Checkup, which will tell you how your business is performing in the context of its six key components: vision, people, data, issues, process, and traction.?

Once you have this comprehensive business analysis, you’ll know your challenges and where to focus to develop effective strategies. Usually, when we’re stuck, we can be unstuck using data. Do we have people with vision who are aligned with our vision? How are team health and accountability? How are processes and systems? Is there traction??

Focus on people and vision alignment

A good place to start getting unstuck is with people. People are the largest issue because when we talk about people, we’re talking about employees, vendors, contractors, suppliers, and clients. We have to have the right people in the right seats on the right bus.

When individuals lack alignment, and their energy is unfocused, it can lead to stagnation. Divergent paths hinder progress, exacerbating the feeling of being stuck. However, when there’s a shared vision, objectives, and a coordinated approach to managing energy, where everyone is aligned and moving forward, breakthroughs occur, and progress becomes possible.

The reality is that once we have a team, the biggest source of stuckness is our people. So when we think about vision, it’s about aligning people with the vision. When we think about people, it’s how do we hire people who behave the right way and know how to do the job well? And consider the data. We discover how we get people to perform and give the results we need while holding them accountable.

We know that traction is all about accountability. Make sure people are project managers, choose the right rocks, and work toward them. Check in every week to make sure they’re on track. Everyone should know how their performance affects cash flow. Every seat must have a KPI attached to measure its impact on the vision.

Streamline processes and operations

Getting unstuck also means identifying inefficiencies, and automating routine and repetitive tasks goes a long way to streamline daily operations. Again, we go back to people, get them to follow processes, and be accountable. Every process has an owner responsible for ensuring everyone is retrained and updated on anything new.

Once people are retrained, we need to measure using data and update training if necessary. We have to leverage technology and data to get new visibility into whether people are doing the right things and doing them correctly.?

Sharing financial information is imperative

Embrace failure and celebrate progress

Failures and setbacks are inevitable. How we deal with them is the measure of success as entrepreneurs. There’s a great book by Dan Sullivan called “The Gap and the Gain.” It talks about how we’re always in the setback mode; even though we haven’t hit our goals, we’ve made progress. And if we haven’t made progress, we’ve learned something that will help us get there.

The best leadership teams come from the gain with a mindset of abundance. And don’t forget to celebrate progress and what we’ve learned, which is progress in and of itself. Stop and think, not about what we’ve done wrong, but what we’ve done right. Celebrate the wins, draft learnings from the losses, and shift that energy toward the gain. Then, move forward with a new plan.?

Practice focus and self-care

Take a minute and stop what you’re doing. Take a clarity break. We can’t learn by doing, but we can learn by stopping and reflecting on what we did right and what we did wrong. It’s a matter of focus. The reality is that an entrepreneur will never have a “work-life balance,” but practicing focus will bring balance.

Focus on your business this week. Next week, focus on your family. Understand what you need and where to focus at any time so you can level up by knowing what will get you to the next level—it’s all about focus.?

Get help getting unstuck

Are you stuck? Do you need help getting off the hamster wheel of doubt and resentment with renewed focus, determination, and passion??

The Profit Recipe is composed of entrepreneurs just like you who have faced the same challenges. We’ll help you build resilience, become more adaptable, and make the right moves to bring your vision to fruition.

Schedule a 90-minute meeting with an implementor to discuss your stuckness and how we can work together to get you unstuck and create traction.??

You can read the original article at https://theprofitrecipe.com/blog/getting-unstuck