Letting go to grow

If you want something new in your life, you’ve got to let go of something.

However most people simply pile on responsibilities at work, home, social life without letting go of other tasks, and end up doing a mediocre job of everything.

Today, let’s apply this concept to money: Six years ago, Mary and Ken decided to pay off their mortgage in five years. They managed to do it – but only because they let go of a few things to make space for their mortgage payments.

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.

Now let’s look at its application from a business perspective. I have now undertaken three different entrepreneurship programmes 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 practiced that 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.

STEP BACK

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 in 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.

SCARY

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, at the end the clients were happy and it had been my fear misleading me, not the fact that there was anything wrong with the session. This letting go enabled us to move from having one program to running five 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 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 few 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.

What do you need to let go of with your money or business or any other area in your life to achieve your goals?