Entrepreneurs: Break Through Your Barriers
At Franchise Funding Group, we are lucky enough to network with some amazing business owners – innovative entrepreneurs who are committed to growth – but many of them are limited and trapped by their own mental barriers and excuses they’ve created over the years. It’s disappointing that, in many situations, a great business opportunity is missed because the owner is frozen in a state of fear, uncertainty and doubts.
So we’ve been thinking… are their mental demons and challenges real barriers? Or are they just comforting excuses to justify taking no actions?
Take a minute to think about this: What’s holding you back from expanding your business? From franchising your business? Even better than that, look beyond just your business. What are the potential barriers preventing you from having better relationships and health, and even greater wealth and personal fulfillment? Be brutally honest with yourself and write down the top five things that are holding you back from greater business expansion and personal success. We’re serious. Stop reading and write down the 5 things.
Now carefully review that list. We’d be willing to bet that, on most lists, you’ll find a few barriers we all face at some point – lack of time, money, confidence, education or expertise; fears, doubts and risks; being too old or too young; being a control freak; fear of expansion and greater success; lack of systems, structure and personnel, etc. – but everyone is different, so your list will certainly be individual to you.
Now that you’ve identified the convenient and comforting excuses you’re putting in the way of your dreams, here’s your wake-up call. If you aren’t happy with the results you’re getting in your professional or personal life, there’s no one to blame but yourself. Stop wasting time on fabricating excuses. You have fully attracted the vast majority of results, circumstances and people in your life and business and it’s up to YOU to fix anything you don’t like!
For no-limit success, you need to own 100 percent of your results – the good, the bad and the ugly. If you accept responsibility and evaluate your actions, you can always change for the better. If you don’t take fully responsibility, you are giving your power to change away to others through your excuses, blaming, and complaining.
At Franchise Funding Group, when we’re talking to potential candidates to franchise their business, we come across many of these same excuses as well as business owners who are paralyzed by fear, doubt, risk and more. But as the old saying goes, if you change nothing, nothing will change.
So if you want to turn your small business into a national franchise system, you need to commit to that dream and find ways to work through your mental barriers and stop those excuses from holding you back. You can either make excuses or make money. You can't do both. You can either make excuses or make a better business and life. Drop the word "excuse" from your vocabulary and exchange it with "challenge." Any challenge can be overcome, but all excuses are tragically tolerated. Nothing is holding you back from a better business and life except your excuses and limiting beliefs.
