Ep #130  Practicing constraint

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Today I am going to share the six areas inside your business that you want to start practicing constraint in, so that you can move forward faster while doing less

Constraining might feel like an ancient torture technique. Especially if you’re like me and freedom is high on your list of values. 

Constraint is really just another word for focus when it comes to our business. And it’s hard to focus these days with so much fighting for our attention. Also, We have so many options today. When you walk into the grocery store to buy coffee or tea there are literally 30, 40 different options for you to choose from. 

Having options is great, too many options leads to decision fatigue. As business owners. Decision fatigue can stop us in our tracks and keep us from creating the kind of results we know are possible. And more importantly…it can keep us from creating those results in a way that feels good. That energizes us. When we have too many decisions to make we drain and exhaust ourselves and we reduce the quality of our decisions.

In essence, when we have too many options, it gets harder and harder to make a decision and we make impulsive decisions rather than a carefully thought out decision. 

Having too many options in front of us can also create a lot of overwhelm. And then we avoid making a decision at all. 

When you think about your business and what you would like to achieve in the next 12 months, there are so many options for you to choose from. There are many ways in which you can go about achieving your goal.

If we give ourselves a hundred options, the same thing will happen when we are standing in the grocery store looking at the 40 variations of tea.

Too many options slows us down. It reduces our efficiency.

In order for us to increase our efficiency, we need to increase our focus or constrain the options we put in front of ourselves. 

Let’s dig into the six areas of your business where practicing constraint will serve you well in achieving your goals. 

The first area is your work hours. How much time you decide to spend working. If you constrain your work hours, in other words, give yourself less time to work, you will tap into the power of Parkinson’s law which states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Most business owners don’t have set hours for their business. They might have operating hours for the business but their work never stops. 

The second area where we want to practice constraint is the platforms we choose to be on and use in our businesses to create clients. Every time a new social platform emerges we all jump onto it because we think that we need to be everywhere. This isn’t true. You just need to be where your customers are. Be aware of jumping onto new fads and instead be intentional about where you show up. We want to make sure that we are actually using the platform we’re on well. Instead of trying to be everywhere and not showing up consistently because it’s just too much work.

The third area where we want to practice constraint is in the services we offer. Or our offers. My mentor always says that every service you offer is like a separate business. With it’s own ideal client and processes for delivery. And this is something to really consider for your business.

The same challenge you have with too many options is also what will happen in the mind of your client. Too many options can cause confusion. And a confused mind doesn’t buy.

The fourth area where constraint will help you move faster is constraining HOW you decide to achieve your goal. In other words, your strategy for creating the result you want. Choose the simplest path to the goal. Commit to it and don’t jump from one strategy to another before you have adequate data to tell you it’s time to make a shift. 

Number five is what you consume. Books, podcasts, courses. It’s so easy to get stuck in consuming information and not taking action in our businesses because when we learn, we feel productive. Learning is important and it has a place. And we want to be intentional with it and be aware when we use consumption as a means of buffering and avoiding the things we should be doing inside our business.

Number six is constraining the number of people you listen to or follow for advice or guidance. There  is NO perfect coach or perfect way - but when we listen to too many people at once we end up with conflicting advice or different approaches. This coach or mentor says do it this way and another one says do it that way. Implementing different strategies at the same time wastes time. It might also not be as effective as just sticking to one approach and going all in on that.

The biggest reason why you want to practice constraint as a business owner is that when you constrain, you cannot get distracted with shiny objects. You cannot hide behind the doing. 

When you cannot keep busy in the doing, when you remove the noise, the only thing left to change is you. When you choose to focus or constrain your attention and your efforts, you have to face the uncomfortable emotions that come with that choice and instead of changing the choice or the strategy…you now need to deal with you, and how you show up within the boundaries of that choice.

As an example, If you decide to work only 20 hours a week. You constrained your work hours. The only thing that is left is to change the way you do the work. You need to change how you show up so that you can get the results you want inside those time boundaries. Once the boundaries are up. Once you’ve practiced constraint, you cannot hide behind the distractions, you cannot move the mark every time things get hard. You are forced to solve the challenges that come with working fewer hours. You are forced to face the discomfort of doing things differently. 

And this is when the magic happens. This is when you evolve as the leader inside your business and learn how to work more effectively and find solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.

Inside my program, the EffortLESS CEO, we constrain our focus to the areas that matter most inside your business so that you reduce the busywork and spend your time and attention where you can make the biggest impact and move your business towards your goals. Applications for the new group are now open, so head over to ilonkaras.com/effortless to learn more about the program and how we can help you work less while achieving more.

You can watch the video of this episode HERE

Thank you for tuning in to this episode, I will see you again next week.The next round the EffortLESS CEO is opening soon. Apply to join HERE.

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