One of the biggest focuses that you face as a new business owner or entrepreneur is how you have to change the way that you think and the way that you do things. Yet many people start their own businesses and don’t even notice any changes happening to them at all.
One thing that people get wrong is that they expect some massive shift to occur where they will almost be dazzled by bright lights and they will know that some kind of miraculous event has occurred. That isn’t how change happens though. Often, without checking in on yourself and looking at where you are, it’s possible to go through major shifts that you aren’t even aware of.
So why does this happen?
Points Of Reference
The reason why we don’t notice these changes is that we lose sight of our points of reference. When you start out and you don’t know anything you have a lot to learn and it can seem very overwhelming to decide what to do first and also to take everything in. As you start to learn a bit at a time, your knowledge increases and your ability to learn and think in a different way also increases. These change are quite gradual so it can for a while feel like you are constantly going nowhere and then all of a sudden those things that you used to struggle with are now much easier and you are focusing on the next big thing that you need to do.
One of the ways of knowing when this is happening is to set points of reference before you start learning the new skill. Kind of like,
When I know how to do X then I have learned another stage about this topic
You work out what your end goal for your learning is and you set way points along the journey leading you from the beginning right through to the final desired result. Every week or two weeks depending on how fast you are planning on advancing, you can look at your points of reference and then see how much further on you are from when you started. By doing this you are also giving yourself little victories along the way which is great for your mindset. no longer are you burdened with getting to the end, but you are instead working yourself towards lots of little points of reference.
This can be for your business and also for your personal life.
- Learning something that you can share with your partner
- Taking up a new sport
- Learning to play an instrument
- Learning a language
There are so many applications that this is useful to you for. Then when you look back on what you’ve worked on over the last 3 to 6 months you will see just how much you have achieved. If you have really stuck into this you might find that you have surpassed your expectations.
If you are going to use this as a benchmark for you becoming a landlord then you can set points of reference up for all of the legal and financial aspects that you need to be aware of. How much do you need to learn about marketing to source properties? Create this structure for that as well. Most of all, as you are going through your journey remember to look back and recognise how far you have come and how you have changed.