Stuck In A Rut: 4 Questions To Fix Entrepreneurship Tunnel-Vision

Being stuck in a rut can be a dangerous place when it comes to being an entrepreneur. It likely means you aren’t tapping into your business’ full potential, which means capped growth, or even worse – shutting down business.

Your biggest enemy when starting up a new business (or when you are even past start up stage, but you have plateaued) is not knowing what is going on around you and how it affects your operations and overall strategy – tunnel-vision. This means, you need to be aware of both where you are at in your business adventure as well as keep track of your competitors, industry trends, complementary industries, and what your audience wants and needs. That’s a lot of things to track and it’s very easy to get complacent.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself as an entrepreneur to make sure you avoid tunnel-vision, or if you’re there how to get out of it.

#1: When was the last time you talked about your business to someone external to your team?

If your answer is more than one day, then you have gone too long without talking to someone about what you do. It could be a simple quick elevator pitch introduction or an in depth conversation about your strategic focus. Talking about your business out loud to others will allow you to both gage feedback as well as learn to focus your energy on the right things when it comes to your business.

#2: When did you last do an audit of your business strategy?

You probably did a great business plan to get yourself started, but things may have been tweaked along the way as you came up against challenges. You need to make sure you sit down with your team, or if you are a solopreneur, be really honest with yourself or talk to an outside consultant. Have a look at that business plan and measure your accomplishments against the milestones you set out for yourself. Then set some new goals. If you never did write a business plan of any kind, first slap your hand, then sit down and write out some goals and set some milestones.

#3: Are you accomplishing at least one thing every day?

If the answer is no, then you better get on that. It might be researching new clients, finishing up that amazing content strategy for next month, or anything else you can imagine.

If your answer is “I’m not sure” then you really need to sit down and plan out your tasks. If it gets to the point where you aren’t sure what you are working on daily, then how can you know how your business is doing, or where you need to work on most?

If your answer is “yes” then first give yourself a gold star, have a glass of wine or whatever you do to celebrate your small victories, then ask yourself if you have been prioritizing your tasks right. I find it helps to write things down. You want to make sure that what you are working on will get you to where you need to be in business, not just keeping busy.

#4: Do you track what your competition is doing?

This is a big one. If you work in a business that hasn’t traditionally been known for its technological advances, but lately there have been great strides made and all your competitors are capitalizing on it, leaving you in the dust, then maybe it’s time for a change. Keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing will allow you to measure your progress against theirs, but it also might spark some creativity in your own strategy to help you stand out, which could help you out of your rut. The other thing competitive tracking does is force you to remove the blinders to see everything going on around you.

It doesn’t take much to get yourself back on track when you find yourself in a rut. The first step is recognizing when it’s happening!