I have recently spent some time reflecting on whether self-awareness is a key component to business growth. I would describe self-awareness as the ability for one to be keenly conscious of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, and the impact of these traits on activities of day-to-day life.
The exploration of this idea began earlier this year, before lock down, as I pondered on how to extract my small business experiences into practical resources for local entrepreneurs. I spent a while thinking about what broad (but valuable) free tool could answer one major question for the micro and small entrepreneurs that I intended to serve.
First, I Identified that the major question I keep getting in my line of work as a business development
consultant is: “What business should I start?”. Therefore, a useful tool would be a solution that provides a systematic process through which a new entrepreneur (that is developing a business idea for the first time) or an existing entrepreneur (that is refining the model of an operating business) can use to develop a sustainable business venture.
I decided to explore my own personal business journey, and classified my results based on where I feel I failed and where I succeeded. I noticed two main themes. The times that I feel I succeeded in business, I was onto to something and I achieved positive results was when I followed my gut and intuition in line with my skills, interests and passions at the time, and where they led me towards what I wanted to add of value to the people that I wanted to serve.
The second thing I realized was a reverse of the first. Every time I followed an external opinion or perception of an idea I had not previously explored and that didn’t have any direct correlation to my abilities or interests, I ended up feeling drained, over whelmed, like I had failed, even if the business was momentarily financially lucrative.
After the above exploration. I concluded that traditional business literature that urges that the
entrepreneur go out in the world and find the gaps that need to be filled, the problems that need to be solved, and provide solutions – is missing a key component. This is SELF-AWARENESS: the ability, skills and drivers of long term motivation that an entrepreneur requires to adequately fill a value gap. An entrepreneur fills a value gap by the ability to maintain permanence in a specific market and
consistently offering new and innovative products and services to better serve a specific target audience(s). Here are (3) simple ways that developing your self-awareness can increase your business growth:
1. Purpose and Servitude: Putting in the work to become more and more self-aware will help you gain
clarity on your purpose, the value you bring to the proverbial table and the specific group(s) of
people that you want to serve. This kind of clarity provides a level focus helps you continuously
improve your offering for the audience you have identified that you can uniquely serve, thereby
increasing the likelihood of your achieving business success/growth.
2. Internal vs External Validation: The more self-aware you become the more you will align your
success with what you believe success looks like for you as opposed to what other may say success looks like. Many entrepreneurs, including myself, have fallen victims of success exhaustion that is a result of constantly chasing an elusive goal in order to receive external validation that we are on the right track and making a difference in people’s lives. I have come to realise that both positive and negative external validation is insufficient to permanently drive momentum to grow a business.
What matters is objectively and internally aligning with what you think about the work you are
doing, and the impact it has on the lives of those you serve. Recognise that you are independent of what others think of you, you have a sense of responsibility towards the people you serve, however, this should not come at a cost to yourself.
3. The Ability to Enjoy Life and Rest: I only learned the idea early this year of defining an annual
revenue goal that is satisfactory, as an entrepreneur, reaching that goal and taking a momentary
pause on business activity. The idea is that when you hit your target, you should be mindful of other seemingly great opportunities that in reality may take you away from other things in your life that are important to you and require your time. I would like to encourage you to become more self-aware, realistically set your goals for the year, breakdown what you will have to do to reach these goals, achieve them and then take a break. REST. RELAX. REFLECT and ENJOY YOUR LIFE. A famous life coach once said, “Just because you can do something, does not mean that you should”.
I hope for you a deeper understanding of yourself and the realization of your true desires.
By Henriette Paula Mugisa
Paula Mugisa is the Founder of Teesa Advisory Services which provides business advisory and guidance for small businesses.
