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Why It's Time to Switch Your Focus
Here's how to finish the year strong...
Chris Laub
November 22, 2024
1,200 Words | 5 Min 0 Sec Read
Welcome to another issue of Passionate Income.
Today we’ll be discussing why the holidays are the best time of year to shift your focus while slowing down.
In particular, what you can do to finish the year strong.
Let’s dive in.
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With just one week until Thanksgiving, the holidays are bearing down on us quickly.
If there’s one thing we know about the holidays, it’s that this is the time of year when most people mentally check out from work.
As a 9-to-5 employee, this mentality is understandable. In many cases, their bosses are just as checked out as they are.
As a business owner, however, zoning out for the next six weeks can put you at a major disadvantage come January.
On the surface, taking it easy during the holidays might not sound like a big deal. Especially if everyone else around you is doing the same.
The problem is, some of your competitors will be working ferociously between now and New Years.
Meaning, if you wait until January to start reflecting on the previous year and planning for the next, they’ll already have a 1.5-month head start on you.
Does that mean you need to work 16-hour days for the rest of the year?
No, of course not.
But when everyone around you is relaxing, Christmas shopping and planning out which holiday parties to attend, it can be hard to stay focused.
Fortunately, unless you sell physical products—in which case you’re going to be pedal to the metal until Christmas—it’s likely your business will naturally slow down as the people you sell to become more distracted by the holidays.
If that’s you, that slowdown can be a blessing, allowing you to stay focused without having to work crazy hours during the holidays.
This is especially true if you run a client services business. Unless you serve entrepreneurs, it’s likely your customers and clients are the same people who are checking out during the holidays.
So, what should you do with your time over the next six weeks?
While this is nothing new or earth-shattering, the most powerful thing you can do is get into a quiet space and reflect on these three things:
What went well this year
Where you failed this year
The lessons you learned
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of getting into a quiet headspace and journaling this stuff out. Ideally, you’ll use pen and paper, with your phone turned off and as far away from you as possible.
In terms of what went well, you’ll want to look for patterns you can duplicate in the upcoming year.
Regarding what didn’t go well, identify which of your behaviors were responsible for those problems and how you can eliminate them in 2025.
Further, while most of your problems will result from ineffective or inefficient behaviors (including procrastination, limiting beliefs, etc.), some things will be out of your control.
Examples include unexpectedly strong competitors entering your industry, business trends that went in a different direction than you expected, and so on.
If any of these (or something else) negatively impacted your business this year, analyze the situation to see if it’s something you can overcome.
And if not, decide what you’re going to do about it.
Armed with these lessons from the past, it’s time to extrapolate them out into the future.
First, if there’s something you did that worked well, ask yourself how you can do more of it / spend more time on that thing.
Examples include spending less time on low-value tasks, hiring someone to free up more of your time so you can focus on it more, etc.
Next, look at the things that didn’t go well and identify what you need to fix.
For most of us, this will be the hard part of the exercise, mainly because it requires us to get honest about our weaknesses and flaws.
But as they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
And when it comes to business, you are the chain.
Meaning, no matter how good you are at certain parts of the business, if there are any major deficiencies in your skills or mindset, they'll act as an anchor that prevents you from rising to your full potential.
Fortunately, 99% of entrepreneurs problems fall into the following categories:
Fear of failure
Fear of rejection
Lack of focus
Lack of discipline
No long-term vision
Lack of skills
As someone who’s worked with the top 0.1% of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, I can confirm they're normal people.
While it’s true they may have been born with certain characteristics or personality traits that lend themselves to entrepreneurship, at the end of the day most of them:
Are willing to get out of their comfort zone
Have a long-term vision for the business they’re trying to build
Focus on taking the correct actions day in and day out
Build the skills they need to make their dreams a reality
Are disciplined enough to do what’s necessary even when they don’t feel like it
Doesn't sound that complicated right?
As you’ve likely heard, simple does not mean easy.
While something can be simple to understand, the reality of putting it into practice can be maddeningly difficult.
Especially when it comes to overcoming both our body’s and mind’s natural tendencies—100% of which are evolutionarily designed to be attracted toward the path of least resistance.
So, while it’s easy to say this stuff, it’s much harder to put it into action.
Which is why so few entrepreneurs are successful.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be perfect.
All you need to do is make consistent progress so that you're continually improving in the five areas outlined above.
And to make that progress, you need to understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie. So if there’s one thing you can do over the next six weeks to guarantee success, it’s this:
Get quiet.
Get honest with yourself.
And identify what you need to work on so that next year is exponentially more profitable than this year was.
Last but not least, make sure to watch your inbox. Why?
Because starting Monday, Passionate Income will be rolling out the biggest discount we’ve ever offered on any of our programs.
Cheers!
💡 Takeaway: While most people disconnect from work during the holidays, doing so will set you back come January. So rather than veg out, use the next six weeks to reflect on what you did well this year, what you could have done better, and what you'll do to make next year your best year ever.
🎁 Resources:
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