Need Structure? Cranky About It?

Apparently this is the year to lay foundations and create structure for your business.

Or at least that's what a lot of entrepreneurs I know, including me, have realized.

And that's making a lot of us cranky.

When you're an ideator who loves to be in creation mode, systems and details can fall by the wayside.

Or get shoved.

For those of us who flourish in flow, who are energized by coming up with new ideas and bringing them to life, our minds often rebel at what feels like the restriction of structure, spreadsheets, systems, tracking, and other repetitive tasks that tend to keep businesses alive and healthy.

I saw this almost across the board at last week's Vision Map workshop.

Many of the participants are creatives and/or support creatives and/or have minds that fly in multiple directions at once and light up like constellations.

Our businesses have all reached a point at which, as one participant put it, we "have to become really pragmatic," where we "can't move forward without putting structure, organization, processes in place."

The problem is that this feel hard, unnatural, not-our-skill-set to a lot of us.

This can help...

How to Release Crankiness and Embrace Structure

—> Get to your why. At the workshop, every time we dug into the heart of someone's business you could see the shift in their energy. When you remember why you're passionate about your work and the impact it has on the world it fuels you to do the things that seem less intuitive, easy and fun. The systems become a means to an end that you simply need to figure out, rather than a giant mountain that blocks your view of everything else.

—> Find gratitude for the hard thing. One new mom at the workshop, who is figuring out how to build a business and care for her 7-month-old, said this and I thought it was beautiful: "Have gratitude for the discomfort of the hard days because if we can do it on the hard days we can definitely do it when it’s easy." If something feels hard to you, let it feel hard. Then take a deep breath and do it anyway. That's where your muscles grow, and it's what makes it easier to do the next time.

—> Break it down. In the Vision Map we start broad ("My Business in 2024") and narrow down until you're building a strategy in bite-sized steps. Give yourself 10 minutes and do a brain dump of every system you think you need in place, everything that's not working right now and what you wish were happening instead, and everything other people do in their businesses that you'd love to do in yours.

You don't have to DO anything yet with this list, just make it.

This will move you forward.

And moving forward is the only thing you need to do right now.

One step at a time.

That's how you build a business.

Want to build your business alongside friends? Join the next Implementation Lab for Entrepreneurs.

Want to build with a partner? Let's talk.​

Whatever you do--keep your feet on the ground, your head in the clouds, and keep going.

Joy : )