Are you challenging enough?

We’re taught very early on at ‘management school’ that there is no such thing as a problem, only challenges and opportunities.  Personally I think there are times when only the word ‘problem’, will do…who can imagine being without the immortal line, ‘Houston, we have a problem’!?  But I do prefer the word challenge, with its more positive connotations.

And I do love a challenge…which is just as well, since running your own business is full of them, as you know!

Taking on a challenge, however big or small, is hugely positive, energising and fulfilling.  Whether it’s learning a new skill, achieving a sales target or running a marathon, a challenge asks us to dig deep into our prodigious reserves of potential, to stretch our self-belief, our skills, our mental capacity, to engage fully…and to grow.

Challenges and their achievement can light our fire like nothing else!

It’s not just the big stuff we need to challenge ourselves with though. Sometimes just getting vertical each day can be a challenge…those days when we are paralysed by self-doubt, inertia, overwhelm…when we hit the dip and lose sight of our passion.  The days when we need to Get Stuff Done, but can’t see a way to just Get Started.

These are the days when we need a system to turn to, a map to follow…daily routines that have become daily disciplines…daily disciplines that have become habits…and habits that have become just what we do every day, however good or bad we feel.

‘The time to have the map is before you enter the woods’, as my mentor Brendon Burchard would say.

If you don’t have a map – a plan, a system, daily routines and disciplines – then that should be your number one focus until you do.  Your business success requires that you know where you’re going, why you’re going there, and how you’re going to get there, day by day, week by week and month by month. You want a challenge…there’s your first one.

2014 is our year of ACTion…the year we Get Stuff Done and make every single day count.  Let’s rise to the challenge.

For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk