An Entrepreneur's Guide to Finishing Strong This Year
This episode is coming out on November 24th. We are one day away from Thanksgiving, 30 days away from Christmas, and 37 days away from an entirely new year. Let that sink in.
At this time in the year, it’s easy to want to hit pause on work and mentally check out until 2022 makes its debut, but I want to encourage you- from one entrepreneur to another, keep going.
What do I mean by keep going? I’ll tell you what I don’t mean. I don’t mean that you need to run yourself ragged and work straight through the holidays and never stop to reflect and be grateful or to simply just take some time for yourself.
PTO days may be gone but you still need rest.
As entrepreneurs, there are no longer PTO days to cash in on at the end of the year, and chances are, you haven't taken too many UPTO days - (that's my acronym for unpaid time off) in the last 11 months. You deserve to rest and rest is so good for our mind, our soul, and, in some ways, even for our businesses.
Finishing well doesn’t mean that you can’t rest, but it does mean that you can’t give up. You can’t quit just because it’s the end of the year and you’re tired. You can’t quit just because you set a goal at the beginning of the year and came nowhere close to hitting it. You can’t quit because the social media game and the constant algorithm changes have you feeling defeated. You can’t quit because someone you don’t even know online took a jab at you and your business. You can’t quit because the growth is slow and everyone else seems to have better luck than you. Quitting is not an option so let’s just take it off the table.
I’m telling you this because it’s what I need to hear myself right now.
All of those things I mentioned that make us want to quit often overshadow the truth.
A word about finishing well.
The truth is, we have all been given an incredible opportunity to start businesses, to reach people with a service or a product that’s going to enhance their lives, to promote our companies freely and with ease through social media and our websites, and in the last 37 days of this year, I want you to do everything in your power to end on a high note. To close out the year in a way that you can be proud of and in a way that will set you up for an incredible 2022.
As an enneagram 3 and somebody who is constantly inspired to start something new… It's really easy for me to throw in the towel when I’m no longer excited by something. I think to myself, “Oh, I’ll just stop doing this so I can start doing that.” Maybe you’re like me in this way. A starter and not a finisher.
This trait has served me well when it comes to being the visionary for BrandWell, coming up with new ways to enhance our service or do things a bit differently, but it is also my fatal flaw when it comes to finishing well.
I wrote down on a note tab in my iPhone last year that I wanted to focus on finishing. I also put the word “FINISH” at the beginning of my planner so every single day when I open it to read my to-do list, I will be reminded to finish what I start.
Finishing well is so important, not just in business, but in life. We are going to go through ups and downs. We’re going to go through really difficult trials (maybe you’re in one now), and having the ability to endure and to run the race set before us will produce character. That is comin straight from the Bible, my friend.
Romans 5:4 says, “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
“Many will start fast, few will finish strong.”
We need to push through the hard times in life and in business because in doing so, we are developing perseverance, character, and hope, and all of these things will make us stronger for everything we face in the years to come.
Here’s the deal with finishing. It’s not how you finish, it's THAT you finish. Let me say that again. It’s not how you finish, it’s that you finish.
You may feel like you want to stop because you don’t like the way you’re going to finish if you were to keep on going. But if you quit before the finish line, how do you know? How do you know that you wouldn’t have had a better outcome?
Or let’s say you do have a bad outcome, the only way to prevent that from happening again is to learn from what you did and do things differently.
Finishing, whether you see the outcome as a win or as a flop, is always a teacher. Think about some of the most profound life lessons you’ve learned. They probably resulted from some sort of what the world would call “a failure”.
Don’t be afraid to finish because you aren’t finishing on top! As entrepreneurs, social media often causes us to have our eyes on so many people and we can’t help but compare ourselves or our businesses to others.
The reality is, we need to finish at the bottom to strengthen ourselves and come back stronger so that we can be one or ten steps ahead when we look back on the next 12 months this time next year.
There’s a quote by Garry Ryan Blair that says “Many will start fast, few will finish strong.”
Gary is the author of the book “Everything Counts” and is often referred to as the goals-guy.
I don’t know exactly what he was referring to when he said that quote but doesn't it relate to entrepreneurship? Many will start businesses fast, few will finish strong.
I don’t know about you but I can think of about 30 friends from high school and college who started businesses but only about 10 who have stuck with it and built something sustainable.
You know the difference? Perseverance and commitment. The few that finish strong are willing to push through the mental ups and downs of owning a business. Instead of seeing everything as a personal attack, they see it as an opportunity for improvement.
At the end of the day, you’ll never finish something well without being wholly committed to the mission behind it. If you’re toying with the idea of quitting or maybe just of not finishing strong, go back to your why.
If you’re why isn’t powerful enough, rethink it. You need a strong motive to push you forward when exhaustion or mental defeat kicks in.
Are you going to be one of the many who start or one of the few who finish?
I know what category I want to be in.
Tips to finish strong as an entrepreneur
So let’s talk about how to make this happen. What does it look like to finish well as a business owner at the end of a year...
Revisit your why.
2. Adjust your vision. If you set goals at the beginning of the year that you’re not going to hit, you don’t stop reaching for them, you adjust the vision, you look at why you didn’t hit the goal, and you set a new, realistic yet ambitious goal for the remainder of the year.
3. Don’t attach yourself to the outcome as much as you do to the finish line. Finish, learn from it, start over.
4. Plan for the future. Without a plan, nothing will work. You have 37 days to sit down and plan for what you want 2022 to look like.
5. Find your people. I’ve never met a single entrepreneur who succeeded without someone in his/her corner cheering them on. Personal motivation is huge but external encouragement is necessary when the personal motivation dwindles. You need people to remind you of your why when you forget it.
I hope that through this podcast, I can be one of those people for you. Rooting for you in your corner.
If you want to finish the year strong with a new website, we a running a HUGE black Friday sale on our Squarespace website templates and the DIY Done Right Course that you can find at www.brandwelldesigns.com/thetemplateshop
Until next time friends, keep branding well. I’ll see ya in the new year!
KEEP BRANDING WELL,
Victoria
