Growing a small business can often mean stretching beyond your comfort zone. While it growth and taking on more customers, clients and work sounds great in theory, the reality can be daunting. You may think that you will never be able to carve out the time or find the resources to expand your business. Instead of throwing up your hands and avoiding the challenge, give yourself time to adjust and see if you just don’t find a way to stretch and accommodate a growing business schedule.
We all get in a groove–many of us are pretty good at establishing a working schedule and getting used to things being a certain way. In business (as in other areas of life) change is always on the horizon, however, and this means we have to be flexible enough to adjust. While most of us have a capacity at which we can work–we can only take on so much work and do so much since there are only so many hours in the day, we may be working at well below our capacity and just not think we are ready to grow and expand.
When you feel yourself saying “yes” to more work–expect that there will be an adjustment period. It might be hard to figure out how to fit things in and you may wonder if you have taken on too much. Sure, there is always the possibility that you have stretched beyond your capacity, but it is more likely that you just need time to figure out how to adjust your schedule and work rate to make room for the new project. Give yourself a probationary period with which to learn the new client or customer or adjust to the new project and see if you cannot shift your schedule and resources to make room. Instead of giving up at the onset, allow for an adjustment period. You will probably find that you are able to get in a new groove and pretty soon you’ll wonder what you did with all that extra time!