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This business acronym is all about you, how you run your business.  Each of us is in business for ourselves, so this acronym is SELF.  Thanks to ElliStGeorgeGodfrey for suggesting it.

S

Scrutiny. Put your mind, thoughts, beliefs and actions under the microscope.   Have you got a healthy mindset or could it do with a check-up?  What are you currently doing using all of the above that is working well in your business, getting the results you want?  Now flip it over, still using all the above what are you doing that is not working well nor getting the results you want?  Are you finding that your business practices could do with major surgery or do you just need a minor operation to fix things?  For major surgery it could be a case of enlisting the help of a business coach. For the minor operation, if you are completely honest with yourself, then you could probably do it yourself.

E

Effective engagement. Where are you concentrating your efforts in your business?  Are you  still doing what used to work the old way? The percentage of the effort you put into anything you do will determine the percentage of the results you get.  If you are putting 90% effort into growing your business, however you have blocks and/or issues on what you are doing, therefore not being properly productive with your time you will get a 90% non-effective result.  All too often we forget that.  I put a quote up on my Facebook page the recently:

“It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy.  The bee is praised.  The mosquito is swatted.” - Mary O’Connor

So are you a bee or a mosquito, both make similar noises, both get results.  What results are you getting?

L

Learn. Einstein’s definition of stupidity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  Human beings are adaptable, yet as a species they seem to hate change and prefer stick with what they know. To succeed in business you have to have an ability to adapt to an ever changing market.  Children today are learning much, much more by the time they are starting school than you or I did simply because they are exposed to much more than you and I were.  To compete with that type of environment you have keep up or find a business that can survive without the constant need to upskill.  You need to develop all of the necessary skills to stay at the top of your game and often that means you upskilling as well as your employees.  It also means becoming aware of your blocks and issues and learning how to overcome them instead of ignoring them.

F

Follow through. When something goes wrong in your business are you one of those people who analyses what went wrong in a effort to avoid it happening again?  Do you have a similar procedure for what goes right and teach that to all your employees so that they can follow through with a successful strategy?  Often when asked by others, a person with an effective, competent strategy isn’t aware of what it is they are doing so well, they are working from a level of unconscious competence and will probably tell you they don’t know what it is they do, that they just do it.  It is important to follow up on both what doesn’t work in order to make it work and to follow through with what works and apply it to other parts of your business too.

What parts of your SELF could do with  investigating and changing?