How Do I Get Comfortable Trying New Things?

In This Episode

One of the great things about being a small business owner is there are new things popping up all the time.  A key success factor for any small business owner is being able embrace and respond to these new challenges and opportunities.  But growing can be uncomfortable and scary at times.  If nothing else, it can make you feel even more lonely and under pressure.

We recently spent a few days at a farm run by one of our former clients.  After running his business for 20 years he decided to sell the business and buy a farm and a bunch of land.  Adam had never spent any time on a farm before so there were lots of new things to try during our time there.

Here are a couple of things to consider as you look to get more comfortable with trying new things:

• Know Yourself: one of the areas of Leadership we coach all of our clients on is getting to know themselves better.  It starts with the Extended DISC behavior assessment.  We all have a natural behavior style.  Each of us will either naturally embrace or avoid change based on our natural style.  This is where that uncomfortable part comes in.  If you are more of the reserved S/C style like Adam where you don’t like to make mistakes, chances are you’ll be slow to change and try new things as there is a great chance you’ll make mistakes along the way.  Or if you’re more of the D style like Jack you’ll really embrace changes that you are driving for because you realize change helps with progress and you won’t be so worried about making some mistakes along the way.  But that comfort with change can also mean you’re changing too much.  Whatever your natural style might be, you will be able to get more comfortable with trying new things if you do it in your way.
• Help: how are you with asking for help?  Many of us have been discouraged from asking for help growing up and are told instead to figure it out ourselves or are made to feel stupid for even asking a question.  If you’re a small business owner and you haven’t yet embraced the idea of asking for help, this is your chance.  Contrary to popular belief, small business owners don’t know everything.  They just sometimes pretend like they do because for some reason they feel like it’s a sign of weakness to ask for help.  When you ask for help you get the chance to engage other people on your team and it gives them a chance to teach others what they know.  This can be a wonderful thing for both the helper and the person they are helping.  We have seen so many instances where something new pops up and the business owner has never experienced it before. But if they reach out to folks on their team, chances are someone on the team has some experience with that “new” thing and they would be more than glad to help if someone just asked.  So if you’re not good at asking for help, or if those folks you’ve been asking haven’t been too helpful, then maybe it’s time to find some new people to bring into your life.
• You Might Be Surprised: we often coach our clients to embrace these new challenges and opportunities for growth.  They are chances for both you personally as well as your company to grow.  Who knows, you might even be really good at this new thing, all you needed was to be exposed to it.  We have seen small business owners who believed they weren’t good at things like sales or the numbers become experts in those areas over time as they embrace them and have the right help.  As we often say with business, it’s not rocket science but there is a lot to learn