I talk with a lot of entrepreneurs every week, and I have discovered
some common themes that make them successful. Combining these with
my own experiences, I’ve uncovered five main ways to keep you on
track for success.

Follow Your Passion

It is not enough to want your own business. You must find the
business that you are passionate about! Your business must be in
alignment with your personal goals, values and passion. When I was
growing up, I was heavily involved in theatre and dancing. I toyed
with the idea of obtaining a degree in musical theatre and moving to
New York to pursue a career on Broadway. However, I was cautioned
not to do this unless I was wildly passionate about it because the
rejection was so incredible and the industry was so competitive. Do
these obstacles sound familiar? They are very similar to those
experienced by entrepreneurs. However, when you do something that
you are truly passionate about, it’s easy to get out of bed and feel
excited and energized by your work! In addition, it is much easier
to find ways to stand out in a competitive market and to do great
work for your clients.

Have a Vision

In business, it is critical to pay attention to the right details.
Planning is crucial to success. It’s a well-known axiom that if you
fail to plan, you plan to fail, and yet I regularly hear from
entrepreneurs who do not plan! Without a plan in place, it is too
easy to get distracted by whatever happens to come your way. If the
opportunities (seminars, speaking engagements, networking
opportunities, article requests, etc) are not in alignment with your
vision, they will take you off course, and you may not meet your end
goal and your vision will become, well… blurred! Think about this
before you say “yes” to the next thing that comes your way. If it is
not going to help support your goals for this year, month, or week,
your decision should be very easy. Just say no.

Find a Way to Be Held Accountable

Many of us go into business to be able to flex our creative muscle.
We like coming up with wonderful ideas, but implementing them is not
as fun as the big-picture thinking! Our new idea sounds great, and
the potential revenue is exciting, but the tasks we need to do to
get there are overwhelming and we can’t seem to make any headway on
the project! So we procrastinate and find other things to occupy our
time, until we eventually take the wonderful creative idea off our
“to do” list because we don’t want to or know how to do the work to
get us there. This is a waste of your creative spirit! Successful
entrepreneurs find ways to be held accountable, whether it’s through
membership in a round table or mastermind group, forming an advisory
board, entering a formal partnership or hiring a coach to keep them
on track.

Spend Your Time on High-Payoff Tasks

Everyone knows that in order to stay in business, we must continue
to bring in revenue. However, many entrepreneurs spend too much of
their time doing activities that don’t generate income! So what is
an entrepreneur to do? Delegate! By outsourcing all the tasks that
don’t include generating money or building relationships, you will
be able to use your newly found time to make more money! Your time
for high-payoff activities (planning, forecasting, developing your
marketing funnel, training, and so forth) will increase and in turn,
your productivity will increase. There are many virtual
professionals who you can hire to do the work you need to outsource
and could include anything from accounting to administration and
beyond. Once you do this the first time, be prepared to be addicted
to this concept!

Focus

How many projects do you have going on at any one time? Or worse,
how many businesses are you running at one time? I recently met a
woman who has three businesses, and she was complaining that none of
them were doing well. Gee, I wonder why? Having too many projects at
one time, particularly if you do not have a way of managing each of
them properly, means that you’re likely to become overwhelmed. Pick
a project or two and focus on those. You will feel so great to knock
something out and will be motivated to continue onto your next task.
If you are spread too thin, I can guarantee you that you will
sabotage your chances of meeting your goals.

After assessing where you are in these five lessons, you can start
to see what you need to focus on. Whether you feel confused,
struggle with self-confidence or lack tangible results, I suggest
taking action to find out if you’re following your passion and
determine your measuring stick for success. If you are easily
distracted or overwhelmed, I suggest finding a coach who can help
you align your goals, priorities and values to create the life and
business you desire. By paying attention to these key areas, you can
start to shift to creating a business that fits your lifestyle, not
one that dictates it, which is one of my personal measures of
success.