8 Reasons Why Your Growth May Have Stalled

We sometimes blame the cold winter air of February as to why the engine won’t start.

At the core of what I do is helping people and organizations to drive new growth through strategy design and execution.  My work is very focused on helping the driver move his business (the car) towards the right destination on the right route.

In most cases, progress sputters and stalls due to parts of the engine not working well, or not working at all. Thus, I am inclined to launch into a 1st series to help you tune-into the 8 key parts of the engine before we venture out on the road together. The whole you matters to me.

There is only one engine and you need to be clicking on all cylinders.  Personal growth begets professional growth.  Professional growth, in turn, leads to team growth and team growth drives company growth.  If your personal growth is road-blocked, you can’t possibly begin to think about expanding your revenue at the office.

There are 8 drivers (in no specific order) to a high performing growth engine.  Over the next 8 weeks, I will unpack each, explore how they might be impeding forward progress and what to do about it.

Habits and Discipline.  The act of choosing the right, repeatable habits in your daily routine may be the single most vital ingredient to driving successful growth and transformation.  If we wait until we feel like doing something, we never do it.  Habit and action-centered lives and cultures drive forward.

Purpose and Vision.  Purpose and Vision is the spark plug.  If purpose is the impact your work has on your world, then vision is the how your world will look different after impact.  It is out of purpose and vision, that is born meaning and passion.  People follow meaning and passion.

Leap of Faith.  Do you have the kind of faith that can free you from the constraints, distractions and fear that paralyze you from pursuing the possibilities.  Any growth initiative worth chasing in your personal or professional life will at some point, require a ‘leap of faith’.  When clouds haven’t parted and fog hasn’t lifted, will your faith carry the day?

Honesty.  Can you hold the person in the mirror accountable?  For what you said you would do.  For the goals and plans you laid that had no action.  For the people who entrust you with their lives.  For who you are today and who you say you will be tomorrow.

Prayer.  If purpose and vision is the spark plug, then Prayer is the fuel source for the engine.  There is no bigger opportunity than to take our biggest dreams and greatest fears to our Heavenly Father for wisdom, guidance, and strength.  Courage is fear saying a prayer.  Are you praying circles around your business?  Are you surrounded by people praying for your business?

Encouragement.  Do you build others?  Do you have someone who builds you?  Quite simply, people go a lot further when someone else thinks they can.

Unquenchable curiosity.  Are you willing to learn, unlearn and relearn?  The BIG ideas are very often inspired by and through sources outside your organization or immediate lives.  Curious people stay in a permanent zone of discomfort – they live with a flexible comfort zone that easily stretches and expands.  In turn, so does everything else.

Focus.  The old chinese proverb nails it – “try to chase 2 rabbits at the same time and the both get away”. Deep and narrow OR wide and shallow – which one describes you?  What you focus on expands.

These 8 drivers deserve a deeper walk through.  They are too mission-critical to you, your professional development, your team, and your business to just simply list.

The passenger door is open.  Jump in!  We’ll have the engine running in no time.

[Don’t miss one installment in this series over the next 8 weeks – make sure you jump over to the sidebar and subscribe!]