Article written by Andy Hofmeyr (ActionCOACH Business Coach – Pretoria)
How do you as a business owner:
- Work harder on yourself?
- Become better?
- Gain more skills?
The answer is simple – you need to make the decision to fall in love with learning.
Using LOVE as an acronym, let’s take a look at what you can do to ensure that you learn and grow.
Lifelong learning
Embrace lifelong learning. Accept that there is no divorce in your relationship with learning. It’s ongoing and something you need to commit to afresh every day.
Try this as one of your daily affirmations: “I am learning every day and becoming the best version of me”. This will prime you to look for learning opportunities in all situations and your dealings with people. Adopt the attitude of Ralph Waldo Emerson who said “In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”
Ownership
You may have heard the phrase “There is no failure – you win or you learn”. Don’t fool yourself though – failing at something does not automatically result in learning from it. You need to step back, take ownership of your failure, and critically look at it through the lens of a growth mindset to discover what learning you can gather from the setback.
Vision
What is your vision of where you want your business to be at a point in the future, be that in 90 days, one year, 5 years down the road? As you consider your vision, ask yourself: “Who do you need to become to be the person capable of delivering my vision?” and “What is the most important area I need to learn and master to make this possible?”
Extend your comfort zone
Comfort zones are a good thing. They allow you to function well with minimal effort, which means less stress, and greater productivity. You do however want to be extending your comfort zones, and the way to do this is to tackle something just beyond your current comfort zone, to learn and master it so that your comfort zone expands to include this activity.
Brad Sugars, the founder of ActionCOACH Business Coaching, sums it up very well when he said, “Your business will only grow as much as you do”
ActionCOACH is a proud Partner of the NSBC