Photo by Chemtec

There is an old saying, “I can’t see the forest through the trees.”  I believe this is a common problem for many businesses.  We are so often focused on the trees, or shall we say tasks, that we lose site of the forest or big picture.  The tasks may be important like handling a customer order or mundane and time consuming like responding to emails.  The tasks may be known months in advance or may seemingly pop out of nowhere.  But what these “trees” usually do is distract us from the big picture.  Our objectives are our forest, and all too often these objectives are forgotten because we are so caught up in the details (trees).  We focus on the action steps of our objectives and forget about the big “what” we would like to accomplish.  An illustration of this is building a website.  There is so much that goes into creating a website; buying the domain, finding a host, hiring a developer, deciding on structure, ensuring SEO, creating content, choosing colors,  proofreading, etc.  But those are all trees.  What we forget is the bigger picture of why we want a website.  The end goal is not to have a completed website, but to have an online calling card to generate leads and lend credibility to our business.

Photo by TheSwedish

If we focus on the details, we are apt to make wrong or inappropriate decisions.  The decisions we make may seem appropriate for getting the task done, but they may be the wrong decision for our overall objective.  In our rush to click things off of our to do list, we may choose the easiest, least time consuming, or least expensive solution, versus taking a step back and looking at what is best for our long term goal.  All too often, making decisions in the trenches means redoing a project later to accomplish what was truly desired.

Focusing on the details can also add more stress to our lives.  There can be seemingly unending lists of to-do’s that never seem to get accomplished since as soon as one is complete, two others are added.  Or perhaps things are not done on time or as quickly as we like.  Every task setback makes us feel like the project is a failure.  But if we pull ourselves up to forest level we can see the real progress being made.  To help minimize stress it is so important to stop every so often and look at the overall progress of one’s business.

My challenge to you is to look at your forest once a week.  Take a few minutes to set your to-do list aside and review your overall business, sales, and marketing goals.  Hopefully taking this time will help you have the right perspective to keep your business progressing and your stress-level low.

photo by Kymmie XOX

My husband and I are fortunate enough to have a boat on a series of inland lakes.  Every weekend we can, we drive for an hour to the marina.  The street just before our marina is quite hilly.  There is a dip and then a rise and then another dip.  One day after the rise, I put the car into neutral and coasted to the entrance of the marina.  That started the competition.  How far could we coast?  The next weekend we started coasting after turning onto the street.  We rolled down the first hill, slowed on the rise, and then sped down the next hill.  Then we got more daring.  When it was safe, we not only rolled down the hills, but would turn into the marina and try to make it all the way into our parking space.

Some days we could turn from the main road doing 30 MPH and easily coast all the way down the two hills and into the parking space.  Some days we would have to stop before turning and pray that the energy from the turn’s meager momentum would bring us all the way.  Sometimes the coast was fast.  Sometimes the rise after the second hill would slow us down almost to a standstill before the second hill gave us momentum again.  Sometimes if we turned too sharply into the marina we barely made it into the slip.  But amazingly, once we learned to let go and trust, we could coast to our destination easily and with minimal effort.

Since this became such a fun game, I started coasting other places when I could.  It not only saves gas and wear and tear on my engine, but it makes monotonous driving more fun.  So the other night I found a great hill on the way to meet a friend.  As I dropped the car into neutral, I wondered how often do we think we think we need to push down the gas pedal of life to get where we want to go?  How often do we think we need to do in order to get to our destination?  What if we just coasted?

How much momentum have we built up in our lives?  How far can that momentum carry us without any additional effort?  How many times are we tiring ourselves out with additional effort that is not necessary?  Today, look around you and see where you can coast.  What are the things you are pushing to happen?  Is the effort necessary?  If not, let go and watch.  Does your desired outcome still occur?