That quote, by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, is one of the best I’ve heard in a while. While she wasn’t commenting on entrepreneurs at the time, she hit the nail on the head regarding small business success.
There are times when you have to go with the flow. Small businesses don’t have the resources to battle upstream all the time. Like Salmon, you jump an obstacle, then rest. You push for a sales goal, then rest. You make an uncomfortable termination or focus on a critical hire, then rest.
The resting part is normal, but if you rest too long you start floating back downstream. Losing ground in the water, so to speak. Then you have to make up yardage, with the added frustration of facing the same obstacles and seeing the same scenery as before.
We often think of these rest periods as the reward for our accomplishment. The problem with that approach, at least for many entrepreneurs, is that they don’t put parameters around the reward. It winds up lasting for as long as they can stretch it. Then they begin swimming again when they realize that they’ve floated too far downstream.
What I’m describing is the typical reactive mode of an entrepreneur. Get the adrenalin up for the challenge, then wait until circumstances dictate that you need the adrenalin again. That’s how you sink into perpetual firefighting mode, going from crisis to crisis with little progress other than merely undoing the latest problem. It’s why so many small businesses are stuck at a level of competence and comfort. Swimming only when you have to isn’t progress, it’s just fighting not to lose ground.
The next time you feel that sense of accomplishment for surmounting a difficult obstacle, ask yourself what you are going to do with your rest/reward time. Use it to think, to plan how to avoid that obstacle in the future. Use it to plan your next challenge, instead of waiting for that challenge to float down to you.
Most importantly, set a time limit on how long you will wait until starting on the next goal. Taking control of your rest periods will go a long way towards freeing you from the adrenalin/crisis mode.