Why People Get Stuck in Business: The Illusion of Progress

“Success isn’t about doing more.

It’s about doing what truly matters — consciously, calmly, completely.”

— Debmalya Life Biz Mentorship

The single most common scenario I face while dealing with my mentees or managers or employees from my different businesses is they get stuck somewhere in the process. They loose their focus in life, especially in business but they all are beautiful-minded, smart and intelligent. When I do corporate training, I listen to people more in my first session usually and try to find out what is their issues. You know, to me, identifying problems comes meaningful then giving solutions. Solutions are anyway easy for me all my life compared to finding the issues behind them. My role is like a mechanic when I am a business advisor; I find the leaks in the system and wrap it with my knowledge for fixing.

Today, I am sharing four very important aspects from my experience of breaking through a business plateau at the same time.

No information/ Update about your business: Yes, you read it right. I find this all the time. Maybe, it is your business but are you truly knowledgeable about it, having right and current data about or acquainted with new norms of the industry or even know what competitions are coming with nowadays? It is clarity and alignment in business that reveal a fundamental understanding: the distinction between productivity and progress. All these insights do stem from your wisdom. See, business is also a ‘Vidya’, which means a subject to learn.  No, I am not talking about having a MBA (although it helps if you are educated from a foreign and know better practices foreign companies take). I am talking about practical approaches that  you learn from your own business.

Wrong idea of being stable: It all happens at any age of your business, but mostly I observe it when you tend to age between 35-45 years. Why such a take? This is because you want to stabilize your life around this time. Marriage, kids, homes, cars and everything else all become very significant factors in this specific time, and your focus shifts to these things. I re-iterate that business is 24*7 hours job and there is no way of succeeding if you don’t want to go ahead for next 20 years putting countless hours yourself. Even if you try all your cards, the business may still fail. Then, why don’t you run before you walk? Nothing is stable, and you won't love forever. You seek for wealth and money, you need to make yourself crazy about your work. This is even a basic thing, not a premium one. All big CEOs I have worked with share one common trait. They work all the time. 

Mistaking Movement for Momentum:

I also find people stop going ahead not because of they fail or think about failure, they stop because they think succeeding. One big misconception, and it is very common, that I observe happening. They think about living a life with ease and consider life can be in an automatic car and business will run like normal. A big NO. Business is a child and like every parent, you need to take care of it all the times. Even the chances of facing biggest issue set foot at the time when you are actually doing everything fine. A play of GOD, perhaps, but this is what happens. So never mistake a movement for momentum. 

Identification of problems: The single most problematic issue I cater to solution is not identifying the underlying problems in your firm. Your ego prevents you from identifying issues. The biggest problem you can face as an employee or a business owner is not having the intention to find issues, even if they don’t appear in front of you. I always quote to CXO’s,”be alert like a dog and sinff problems out of your work. You will then create an upgrade your present scenario”. Well, what if you don’t find problems and competitors move ahead of you? You never want to get out of the race, remember.

in a nutshell: “It’s your business — yes.

But are you truly aware of it?

Do you know the new rules of your industry? The changing trends?

Or are you still relying on what worked last year?”

The above points were some of my key takeaways regarding any business I teach, advise, or strategize for, as well as my own endeavors. In my opinion, life and business should handled in same manner, as they both are precious to have. Remember that progress isn’t about what moves. It’s about what evolves.

Are you up for the game?

Jai Sri Hari

Deb Om Malya