I think a lot of shop owners find themselves looking up and realizing a whole decade has gone by. They’ve had kids, gotten married—time has passed. While this time has passed, their buddies’ shops have grown and theirs haven’t. As they try to figure out why, they miss the things that detract them. They’ll come up with excuses and explain away the reasons that their shops haven’t grown. Their employees sucks, their customers suck, their marriage sucks—it’s sad. What they don’t realize is that they’re stuck in a rut.
When you’re stuck in a rut, you have limited vision. It’s like you’re stuck in a ditch. You can see in front and behind you, but you can’t see to the left and to the right. The problem with that is that you only know what you’ve done in the past and what’s possible if you stay on the same path—so, in front and behind you.
People in a rut tend to use their own opinion more than others opinions to make decisions. All of your mentors are wrong. Your friend that are you giving advice? Wrong. Your spouse? Wrong. This limited viewpoint causes tunnel vision at an extreme level. I encounter this a lot. People will call me up for coaching and they ignore the fact that they’re talking to the person that can give them the most actionable advice. They don’t realize that they’re saying stupid stuff and justifying what they’re doing— they’re blowing an opportunity to get advice on how to be better for an opportunity to brag to me. These owners are so concerned with ego and how they’re seen that they’re living a fake life. They’re more worried about their imaginary life than their real life.
When you’ve brainwashed yourself, it’s a sad existence. We are so good at lying to ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Instead of doing that, we must be focused on what we need to do to get ourselves to the next level.
If you can find the courage to get out of the rut—to be able to climb out of the ditch and be able to see from the left to the right—you can see the full 360 degrees of the situation. You can see where you came from, but you can also see where you want to go and different options for getting to that destination. In the rut, it’s all the same. Your life, your business, whatever problem you’re facing—it’s awful. If you’re stuck in a rut, it’s going to be the same. Nothing is going to make it any better until you stop lying to yourself.
Everyone needs to work on personal development. The only thing that will get you out of a rut is a new viewpoint. It’s imperative that you get to that higher level, to get out of the ditch, and make an accurate choice. A lot of people don’t realize that their current viewpoint is actually them lying to themselves. Many trust what they see with their own two eyes, which isn’t accurate, but in their mind it is. The people that are doing this are scratching their heads as year 11, 12, 13 go by and they’re still on the same path. It’s because they keep making the same mistake. What’s really happening is that they’re taking a fake attempt. What I mean by this is that people believe when they’ve taken a certain step (which is most likely a variation of or the same step they’ve tried in the past) that they’ve taken action, when, actually, they’re taking an inaction. That’s a fake movement, a fake attempt, a fake action. You can’t keep lying to yourself—you have to do whatever you can to get your business to the next level.
The only way to do this is by trusting and relying on other people and through personal development. Find that higher level person that can help lift you out of this rut. Make those friends, read those books (I recommend anything by Jim Rohn—he’s a game changer) and make that change. The bottom line, drop the ego and allow yourself to see the solution through someone else's perspective.
