Low Hanging Fruit. How Do I Choose What to Pick?
The other day I was talking with my husband. I was feeling completely overwhelmed by everything I had to get done. He told me my problem was that I always felt like everything was life or death. I didn't know how to prioritize. Me. I was in retail management for years. My entire job was prioritizing. Yet here I was listening to my husband tell me I didn't know how to prioritize. I didn't want to, but I had to consider that he may be right. I have so much on my plate, and I truly didn't know what to do first. I live by lists. And I know my life has spun out of control when I can't even start the list.
When I was in retail, I had a district manager who love to say we needed to go after "low hanging fruit'. The problem was, everything was low hanging fruit to him. He would read off the list of goals my management team needed to hit. I would ask which was the most important, and he would tell me they all were. Some people are very good at digging through the mud to find the life raft. I used to be one of those people. But somewhere along the way, I lost that insight, that ability to decide this is more important than that. I lost my self confidence. That is what this boils down to. I used to know my job so well that I knew what needed to be done, how long it would take and who would be best person to do it.
Starting a new business is starting over. You may know the industry, but it takes on a different life when you are a business owner. You are expected to know everything about what you are selling. As a business owner, I want to know everything, be able to answer every question a client may ask. That isn't realistic when you start out and it has eaten into my confidence. I just have to keep working on it. It's hard when there are so many things coming at you at once. These days everything moves at such a fast pace. It's hard to slow down, take a breath and write down that To Do list in priority order. But that is exactly what our world needs these days. Everything cannot be done at once. Unless you are willing to settle for mediocre results. You cannot be an expert at everything, yet that is exactly what the world expects. Now, one person does a job it took 5 people to do ten years ago.
I am not an expert at everything. I never will be and I have to accept that fact. There are things I am very good at. I will be work on a list of those things. I will sit down and make that priority list, based on what has to be done, what I can do and then what I would like to do. I will not hide my head behind my arms and hope the world will settle down for me. I will just have to become the expert at what I am good at. Find my niche in this new business venture. I have done it before. I will do it again. I think that is what I have been lacking; the belief that I can do this well. Talking (writing) through this has brought me to the conclusion that the priority is to become the expert again. Use that expertise to take care of the client in business and my loved ones in life. That is the priority. Thanks for working this through with me!
