The Cost of Avoiding Issues in Your Business

I came across a post on social media from Leila Hormozi, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

The idea of the post was: Stop avoiding stuff.

Avoiding stuff accumulates debt, and debt accrues interest.

Avoiding a conversation? Relationship debt.

Skip a workout? Physical debt.

Put off work? Professional debt.

Everytime you avoid what has to be done you create a future problem with interest.

You don’t need to be perfect.

But don’t lie to yourself. Everything you delay eventually comes due.

So, what are you putting off?

As entrepreneurs, working as owner/operators in our own businesses, this hits all too close to home.

It’s so easy to delay and defer. Skip over the important, and soothe our anxiety by doing everything else.

Anything but the thing that actually needs doing.

Common issues that I observe beleaguering contractors in this way are, avoiding a conversation with an employee. (Because they “work hard”)

Skipping taking care of ourselves and our families.

Putting off work that we dread, like getting that proposal back to the client, or doing a sanity check on our current man-hour rate.

Owner/operators are the busiest people on earth. Working 14 hour+ days, putting out a lot of fires.

The buck stops with you.

And because of that, the default path is to just keep doing what you’ve always done.

Avoidance rather than facing up to the problem or opportunity.

A hack?

Stop relying on will power.

Relying on will power is a sinking ship.

It is a finite resource. You only have so much of it.

Don’t exhaust it on the trivial things.

Rather, set up the system and processes so that the “thing” gets done.

It gets done, even if it hits you at a moment of low willpower.

Why? Because the process is defined. The outcome is clear. The default motion is to just get the thing done.

I love the quote from the book Atomic Habits:

“You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your processes.”

Some examples:

Instead of relying on hitting a moment of inspiration, energy, and willpower to update your budget and sanity check your man-hour rate, define a process of exactly what needs checked in your budget, and put a recurring calendar event on your calendar to review it regularly.

And don’t allow anything else to get scheduled in that time slot. Honor your calendar.

Instead of only talking to your employees when there is a problem, schedule regular evaluations with predefined questions and feedback items, so that the “perfect moment” to talk to your employee “just happens”.

No willpower required.

The employee is already expecting it, and quite likely, looking forward to it.

Instead of closing off your consultations with the “I’ll get your proposal back to you after the weekend,” and adding another to-do item to the stack on your desk, that will only get done nights and weekends…

Go ahead and build templates, and quite literally cut your estimating time by up to 90%.

Turn that proposal around before you even leave the driveway.

Go home with a deposit or a “no”, rather than a to-do item.

Don’t try harder.

Build the process that makes it more likely that it will get done, than that it won’t get done.

Trying harder is not a strategy.

Go get ‘em.

Weston Zimmerman

SynkedUP CEO & founder

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