The Five Key Steps to Give your Business Room to Grow
I walked into a sweet little, sunshiny, room in my house this morning to write my blog post for the month. My eyes lit on the beautiful Christmas Cactus plant in this room that was getting ready to bloom. It’s glorious, it’s huge, and I can’t believe how big it’s gotten in the last year. I’ve transplanted it about four times and I think it could use another transplant — and I bought a bigger pot for it just last year!
I marvelled, as I often do, that I had purchased it for just $4.95 at IKEA about 15 years ago. I thought it was a dud — it sat, with little growth and no buds for many, many years before I moved it to a window in my home upon which (of course) it promptly started to grow.
Pretty soon, after sunlight and more attention, it started to blossom, bloom, and before long, needed a bigger pot, because it was finally growing.
With ongoing love, attention, watering, and sunlight, my little Christmas Cactus has finally blossomed into a spectacular flowering plant that blooms at length, twice a year. My not-very green thumb swells with pride whenever I see it flower.
And it strikes me how this leads to a lovely analogy of what I came to write about today.
Are you making decisions for the business you want to have vs. the one you have right now?
Just like the tiny Christmas Cactus that never bloomed or grew and lay dormant, your business will not grow or bloom unless you give it love, attention, and room to grow.
Here are the five key steps I believe you need to help your business blossom:
1. Invest
Investing in your business is the first step. You purchase it, you plant the seed, you give birth to the idea. You set the intention for the business. Just like I had purchased the little plant at IKEA all those years ago, I decided I wanted to have this business.
2. Nurture
But I didn’t pay any attention to it once I purchased it. I thought it would be a nice idea to have the plant, but I didn’t do anything to help it grow. It lay dormant in my home without food, water, or attention. It’s not enough to just decide you’re going to have a business, you have to give it regular attention and nourishment to help it grow.
3. Transplant
And as that plant or business grows, you will need to move it around — give it more room to expand — perhaps transplant it or give it more space so its potential can really be seen.
4. Vision
Purchasing a pot for your plant or business to grow bigger, means you have a vision for it to get bigger. You are holding space (as we call it in coaching) for it to get more spectacular than it already is.
5. Enjoy the flowers
Reaping the benefits of your flowering plant or successful business will only happen after you’ve taken care of it and helped it grow. Rarely do plants (or a business) flower by accident. They need continual love, attention, and nourishment so they will grow and be successful.
Perhaps using an analogy, like a flowering plant, can help you think about your business in a different way. What can you do to help it grow — where can it move, what nourishment can you give it, where can it get more daylight, or perhaps you need to change its food?
We all know that “doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” — Albert Einstein.
What can you do differently to experience a different result in your business?
Where does your business need love and attention to help it grow to the successful vision you had for it when you first started it?
Looking forward to seeing your business grow beyond your initial expectations.
To your success,
NOTE: I’ve just launched my latest group program for the new and emerging business owner — the Aligned Business Collective — this group learning and coaching community provides its members with resources to design, build and market their business with clarity, with impact, and with purpose, all inside a loving and supportive group environment designed to nurture you and your business, giving it space to grow. For more information, and to sign up, check out the Aligned Business Collective.
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Originally published at https://susanelford.com on November 2, 2021.
