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Summary:
Are you coasting along on your success? Or are you continually upgrading your skills and knowledge to take advantage of new opportunities? Change can be scary, but continuing to adapt and evolve along with the times is a prerequisite for success. Too many of us only see fear and uncertainty when we hear the word “change”, rather than seeing all of the ample opportunities that abound as well.
The pace of technology and legislation can make it hard to keep up with new developments in your industry. The most effective entrepreneurs and strivers make a deliberate decision to stay current with what is new in their field. While they may change their tactics and approach to stay current with the times, they maintain a relentless focus on their core values to ensure that they are staying true to their original mission.
Retaining an open mind to changing your approach doesn’t mean that you turn your back on your core motivation or goals – it merely means that you retain a creativity and flexibility to meet your objectives even when the ground has shifted beneath you. Read on to learn some more tips on how to adapt in order to win big.
Transcript
The only certainty in an increasingly complex world is change. Nostalgia and a reverence for the past certainly have their place in helping us to identify what elements of our society are most worth maintaining. But don’t let a respect for the path breed a resistance to change inside of you. Sticking too rigidly to a plan or to a pre-conceived notion of how you expected your journey to unfold – can prevent you from seeing ripe opportunities along the course of your journey in life
It is good to have a vision to work toward. But remember that it is the experience of living your journey that truly makes the difference. You may harbor an idea of yourself from when you were younger that you cling to today even as the economy and world continue to shift in new ways. A few years ago, how many of us knew of options like being a data scientist of search engine optimizer? There’s no way to tell with certainty what fields and skill sets will be in most demand in even just a few years from now.
The dizzying pace of technological change in particular can make many of us uncomfortable. What if we have always fashioned ourselves as identified as writers or artists or salesmen? We may be reluctant to loosen our grip on these ideas and accept the ways in which the internet revolution has necessitated that we embrace an array of new roles for ourselves. “I’m not a computer person.” That is just another way of saying that I am resisting the idea of joining the 21st century.
You may think of entrepreneurs as inherently skilled at dealing with shifting terrains and environments due to the flexibility and uncertainty of going into business for yourself. Yet they very often are so conditioned to believe in themselves as the drivers of their destiny, that they may be reluctant to accept changing conditions brought forth by new conditions in the world. They also are acutely aware of the consequences of failure and outsized risk since they have much less of a safety net to help catch them if things go awry. Over time this awareness of the stakes can breed an overt fear of failure and an overtly cautious approach to thinking about new opportunities and circumstances.
The most effective entrepreneurs are those who recognize that they don’t have all the answers. They understand that their sliver of knowledge represents just the tip of a much larger iceberg that is out there and they need to continue to learn to keep up. They don’t rest on their laurels, but actively engage with the interesting ways that the world is changing so that they can continue to identify new markets and new openings to bring their offerings to scale.
Being open to change isn’t an excuse to not plan or to think ahead of what will happen with your customers over time. It merely means being adaptable and willing to revisit your plans based upon changing conditions on the ground. Here are some tips for how you can lean into change and keep your great business idea agile and capable of bending with new information.
Stay informed
Don’t just read the big publications in your area of expertise or your local newspaper. Your reading needs to be wide and indiscriminate. You may even want to try picking up a random publication with your eyes closed the next time you are at the newsstand. Even if you end up with a periodical on something you are not especially interested in – maybe tractors, for example – you never know what new ideas you may come up with just from getting out of your mental comfort zone. The key to continuous growth and effective change is to never atrophy and to keep learning new things.
Look at the positive
Too many of us often dwell on the negative when we think of change. We conjure mental images of things irrevocably lost and gone forever. We must retrain ourselves to focus on the good changes, even if they have been unintended consequences. The news media and social media are continually replete with stories of chaos and violence – it’s easy to imagine that we are living in an especially bad time. The unexpected reality is that there has likely never been a better time to be alive, with violence, disease, and poverty at all-time low numbers – we are merely more aware of challenges today due to the ubiquity of modern technology. This same technology and human advancements in knowledge have eradicated numerous diseases and ailments worldwide. Imagine all of the other positive changes you may have been missing due to a misplaced focus.
Stay focused on your core values
Maybe your position or daily duties will need to change as a result of changes in the broader economy. But that does not mean that you need to change the guiding ethos and ethics that you have instilled in yourself. Some things are resolute and do not need to change – that includes your inner compass. By staying true to your personal integrity and vision for what you want to achieve overall in the world, you will be able to more easily adapt to all of the superficial changes that also come about. At the end of the day, business will surely always be about delivering the highest quality products and services at optimal prices to the correct customer base. Don’t let all of the distraction and noise out there distract you from keeping your vision on living the same core values that led you into trying your hand as an entrepreneur at the beginning of your journey.
Accept the inevitable
Try as you might, you can’t stop change when it comes to broader societal trends. There are certainly actions you can take as an individual to honor traditions and businesses you respect. For example, as a book lover you may continue to frequent brick and mortar book stories to buy novels in print form. This is a good way to share your support for local business and the industry of book printing. But you, as an individual, cannot stop the broader trend of book publication shifting toward electronic and online readers. So while you have every right to do what you want as a consumer, you will miss out on major opportunities if you resist marketing your book to Kindle or Amazon out of a reverence for the past. Focus on the key elements that made you love books and publishing to begin with – but be willing to play ball in the new marketplace that has been created. It is going to go on – with or without you.
It is absolutely true that the prospect of change can be disconcerting and scary, especially when it comes to a matter as critical as how you generate your living and spend your most productive years. But by maintaining a flexible spirit and a curious attitude toward how new changes will shake out, you will ensure that your head isn’t buried in the sand. You will ensure that you will have your nose turned out for new opportunities and for advancement that your competitors – facing backward and resisting changes – will never be able to capitalize on in time.
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