The Only Thing You Need to Hear as You Work to Grow Your Business
You may have seen this story floating around social media and it’s one that’s been so impactful for me. Let me recount it for you…
In the 1950s, a man named Dr. Curt Richter conducted a Harvard study that evaluated how long rats could tread water. Harsh, right? Stay with me. On average the rats could tread water about fifteen minutes before giving up from exhaustion and sinking under the water. At this point, the researchers would pull the rats out of the water and give them a break for a few minutes, then put them back in the water to see how long they could last for round two.
In the second round of treading water, the rats were able to average much longer. And I’m not talking about thirty minutes or forty-five minutes. I’m talking hours. Sixty hours to be precise. Which is more hours than we work in a week usually by the way.
This is an incredible story to me on the power of hope and encouragement. For you numbers people (like me), those rats increased their performance by 240 times from their first try to their second. Imagine multiplying your current results by 240 and the impact that could have for you. All because they were given a few minutes to adjust their mindset and given the hope to see that their goal of getting out of the water was possible.
To me, this proves the power of our own brains. The stories we tell ourselves and we allow others to speak into our lives matter so much. If you have a vision for where you want to go and you focus on that vision, you can bring it into reality in your life. Start showing up as the person who has already achieved what you envision for yourself and you will give yourself hope to attain it. I have found this exercise particularly beneficial to me before jumping on calls with clients or before pitching new clients. I spend just a few moments focusing on being the person who can guide that client to success. Instead of wondering if I can, I recognize that I will.
Growing a business is really overwhelming. There are so many things to distract us and cause us to get stuck in our heads, questioning our own abilities. Focus on what is most important, the parts of growing your business that are essential to getting you where you want to be and recognize that the rest is secondary and will take care of itself in your journey.
So if you are telling yourself stories that are not helpful to your growth, or you are allowing others to speak doubt into you, recognize that those messages are not serving you. You will go so much farther by surrounding yourself with encouragement and confidence that what you are working for will become your reality.
