Common mistake #1: Operating without a plan

Planning and having a business plan are your primary roles as an entrepreneur. In fact, business experts recommend you spend at least 25% of your time as a business owner planning. To begin a business without a plan, and to continue without analyzing and changing your plan as you grow, is a sure way to struggle to succeed. It’s like heading out for a drive and not knowing how to get where you’re going.

So what’s the cure? Plan! Start with a business plan that outlines your audience, competition, vision and mission, product or service and marketing strategy. Once you have a plan, schedule time into each and every week to plan your business. Analyze what’s working, what isn’t and where you’re going to go from here.

Common mistake #2: Managing your business instead of leading it

As a small business owner just getting started, it makes sense that you may be the one person who does everything. However, as you grow that practice isn’t going to continue to make sense; you’re going to run out of hours or end up eliminating tasks that are necessary to grow your business.

You don’t, for example, spend all your time invoicing and bookkeeping if your time could be better spent coaching clients and bringing in profits. Leading your business means knowing that it’s better to focus on your specialized skills and hire or outsource to others for their specialized skills. Leading means building a team of people to help you grow your business rather than trying to do it all yourself.

Common mistake #3: Not having a system

The most successful entrepreneurs have a system that keeps them productive. It may be something as simple as using Outlook to prioritize your tasks and then not closing the door to your office until they’re all completed. It may be something more complicated. The point isn’t what system you use – that’s going to be personal to you – the point is to have a system that helps you stay organized and productive.

Common mistake #4: Overextending yourself

It’s so easy to have your fingers in too many cookie jars. When you start experiencing business success, you want more – it’s only natural. So you start other businesses, you launch new products or services and you partner with others. Unfortunately, all this activity pulls your focus in many directions. The result is that you’re only able to devote a small part of your attention to each project rather than your full attention to a single project, and that affects your success.

The cure? Make sure, before you take anything new on, that you can devote your full attention to the project and give it the focus it deserves.

Common mistake #5: Trusting the wrong people

Trusting the wrong people doesn’t mean you’re susceptible to scammers, it means that you’re putting your faith and commitment into people who are not going to help you grow your business. This includes partners, employees, contractors and even services.

Before you take any steps to forge a relationship with anyone, assess whether it’s going to help you grow your business, set goals for the relationship and establish measures to track and evaluate your success.

If you’ve already made one of these mistakes, not to worry. They’re survivable and may even lead to bigger and better opportunities. Don’t be hard on yourself. Mistakes means you’re actually pushing yourself and striving to achieve your goals, and that in and of itself is a wonderful thing.

* Commitment

and

* Discipline

Let’s take a look at them individually.

Commitment

Commitment is defined as:

* The act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself
* A pledge or promise; obligation: we have made a commitment to pay our bills on time
* Engagement; involvement: you have a sincere commitment to something

Commitment comes from having a focus on what you want to accomplish and the wherewithal to see it through despite any obstacles, challenges or hurdles you must overcome to get there. Commitment can exist because you have passion for your topic and goals. However, commitment can also come because you have no other alternative. Often, people are committed to a goal because they must succeed, there’s simply no other option but to see it through.

Commitment will help you get through the difficult parts of owning a business. It’ll motivate you to enhance your strengths and to improve your weaknesses. It’ll help you strive for excellence and continue pushing to grow and prosper. Commitment, however, isn’t a stand-alone quality. You can have commitment for success, but only when it is paired with discipline do you have a winning combination.

Discipline

Discipline is defined as:

* Activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training
* The rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc
* Behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control

Discipline is getting on the treadmill every day because you want to lose those last four pounds even though you dislike running on the treadmill. Discipline is working on those business-building projects you dislike, because you know it’ll get you where you want to go. Discipline is the action part of the commitment and discipline equation.

Is it possible to cultivate commitment and discipline?

Acknowledging that commitment and discipline are required to achieve great success is easy enough, but actually embracing commitment and discipline as part of your personality, philosophy and way of life is a bit trickier. The reason experts and coaches often talk about passion is that with passion for your business, goal and industry, commitment and discipline almost fall into place.

When you enjoy what you’re doing, being committed to success and disciplined to accomplish the tasks to see it through are much easier – in fact, they’re almost effortless. However, when you don’t feel passion and joy for your business, commitment and discipline are a struggle. They’re like getting on that darned treadmill; you have to force yourself to do it.

You can of course take steps to find other things to motivate yourself like money, prestige and freedom. But, it won’t be nearly as fun as if you also enjoy your business.

My pal, and Indie Biz Chicks Contributor, Gwen Bell wrote a great blog post yesterday on “The Secret to Becoming an Entrepreneur.”

I’m not going to spoil the post for you – I want you to read it on your own. But I will tell you this – there is no “secret formula” or “magic potion.” I think Gwen makes an excellent point in her post… and I’m anxious to hear what you think.

I posted something similar (though a lot more long-winded) last week. In my opinion, you can make one of two choices… you either do it or you don’t.

I’m going to stop talking for now. Go read Gwen’s post and then come back here and let me know what you think!