If you want something new in your life, you’ve got to let go off something. The problem with us is we sometimes just live life but today I want to put life into context with both money and business. Most people keep piling up responsibilities at work, home and in their social life without consciously making a change somewhere. Then they end up doing a mediocre job with everything. This concept is applicable everywhere. Nobody wants to feel controlled. Everybody wants to enjoy life. When the word budget is mentioned, people relate it to being restricted, not enjoying life, stinginess, failure (if they have never been able to maintain one). If there is nothing you are working towards it does become hard to consistently keep a budget. And if you are indeed progressing towards a goal, you will want and be willing to let go of certain things.
Mary and Ken decided to pay off their mortgage in five years. They just wanted to know that whatever happens, they will not have to worry about having a roof over their heads. They managed to do it but could never have done so without understanding what to let go off. Simply put, paying off the mortgage became more important than cable TV and a large portion of entertainment expenses. They even changed the way they shop. One of the major decisions they made was to delay taking their daughter to an expensive high school. They figured they would rather use that kind of money when she is in college. Had they not done this and tried to continue servicing a big mortgage plus the school fees, they might have ended up compromising college.
We live in a world that does not talk about sacrifice and does not like to acknowledge it. This story would have been sensationalized in most places. It would never be about what they had to let go or the difficult choices they made to make this happen. Your goals could be completely different but the principle is the same.
I have now done three different entrepreneurship programs and the theme has been the same. Let go for your business to grow. I have experienced this personally. As I write this article I am out of the country for three weeks and this could not have happened if I had not practised the art of letting go.
We take on more clients, more work, lead more initiatives but we still have the same amount of time per day. Then we wonder why it is falling apart and why we are completely overwhelmed. As an entrepreneur, the greatest joy has been to see others get empowered and get completely amazed at how much better others are at certain things that the business really needs. It is liberating to know and understand that I do not need to know everything and to accept that I cannot be the best at it all.
Put the processes in place but be willing to step back so that you can actually see them work. Yes, it is going to be an experiment that can at times fail, but the lesson will be learnt and you will improve as you go along. Letting go is scary. The first time I let somebody else teach one of my classes I was petrified and kept wanting to jump in because they did not say exactly what I would have said. However, in the end the clients were happy and it had been my fear misleading me, not the fact that there was something wrong with the session. Letting go enabled us to move from having one program to running 5 programs simultaneously. You cannot explore bigger opportunities while only working on yesterdays’ opportunity. Letting go is not just about involving more people. It is sometimes about moving on to different kinds of work.
Business just like everything else evolves. Kinuthia (not his real name) is a consultant. His time is his commodity. In the beginning, his model was the more clients the better so any client would do. This became unsustainable especially as demand for his services grew. He did try to accommodate everyone and ended up disappointing almost everyone. He has let go of this and now handles the fewer clients who are able to give him repeat business. That has become the basis of his decision for taking on or releasing clients. It took some time and painful choices but his business is now doing much better because of this. It’s time to ask yourself, what do you need to let go off with your money or business or any other area in your life to achieve your goals?
Wacked runs programs on Personal Finance and Entrepreneurship. To enrol get in touch with her through waceken@centonomy.com|Facebook/WacekeNduati| Twitter@cekenduati