How can you overcome procrastination and be more efficient as a business leader?
A business owner needs to be able to come up with decisions confidently and relatively quickly, as compared to sitting on them for an indeterminate period of time or having the tendency to change minds when it’s already too late.
Being efficient in making decisions and acting upon them are important qualities of a business leader because it means that the response time is faster, problems are resolved earlier, and as a result, the business adapts to new circumstances without raising more issues.
Being mentally strong also increases your authority and reputation as a tough front-runner, earning your team’s respect and allowing you to set a good example for them to follow. A chronic procrastinator, on the other hand, will find being decisive a great challenge. When faced with a hard-hitting decision, an indecisive leader might delay his answer as long as possible or avoid making the choice altogether.
As a Business Coach, my goal is to train you into becoming a more efficient and smart leader and to achieve that, one of the tasks is to help you become more decisive and efficient.
Why indecision is a business epidemic
Changing your attitude on decision-making requires understanding the factors that lead to indecision. There are several reasons why you might procrastinate, but one of the most common reasons is analysis paralysis. The thing is that when leaders overanalyse a problem, the harder it becomes to find a solution, which causes a delay to make a suitable response. They end up running over the same options, hoping for some new information to appear, or toggle between two choices, unable to decide which is better.
So what is the antidote for indecision and procrastination?
Perfection is the enemy of progress
What often holds us back from making a decision is the obsession towards perfection. In any situation, we want to choose the “perfect” route, the one with heaps of gains and no downsides. Unfortunately, such choices aren’t realistic, so we’re left instead with a handful of alternatives that aren’t particularly good or bad.
To really resolve the situation, you’ll need to let go of any notions of perfectionism that could cloud your judgment and decision-making capabilities. Understand that business decisions are fundamentally flawed and the most that you can do is to find a reasonable, rational path to coming up with a fix.
Slow progress is still progress
You can’t always finalize your decision right away, so in the meantime, commit to making some kind of progress with your decision. For instance, if you can’t decide what activities you want to carry out in an upcoming event, write down a handful of potential ideas as early as possible. This gives you a chance to follow your instincts and delay the finality of your decision, but at the same time, it will also motivate you to take a step closer to that crucial objective.
This may not be ideal when an urgent decision is needed, but if you have some time to play with it, it will offer a creative spin on your usual procrastinating habits.
Don’t get fixated on the worst-case scenario
Our brains are hard-wired to overemphasize the negative consequences of our actions. This prevents us from taking huge risks because we always tend to anticipate a bad outcome.
As a business owner, blowing up your expectation of risk can make you worry unreasonably about how your decision might be mistaken no matter what choice you make. Recognizing this, you might try to compensate for your disproportionate anticipation, and normalize the way you think.
Our Cycle of Business Success Workshops are game-changers for business owners. They love what they see, and it completely fires them up. You’ve got nothing to lose by coming along to these free events and everything to gain. Why wait? Don’t put off until tomorrow what you absolutely know you should do today. I’ve helped thousands of business owners to build and grow their businesses – and they’ve never looked back.
Free to attend but with limited places! Upcoming event:
- Friday 18th November 2022 – Derby Mickleover Hotel
Guaranteed Investment
Everything I do is bound by my solid gold guarantees. Regardless of which programme we work on, if you do what you said you were going to do, when you were going to do it, you will get a return on investment guaranteed. If not, then I will refund you the difference. Yes, I am guaranteeing your investment.
