Clutching Crutches:
A Lesson in “How-Not-To” Grow

At first glance they are useful, necessary, and even temporary – but crutches can be obstacles to your success.

Crutches can be obstacles to your success

Little  by little they rob you, deplete you, and leave you for dead. Ok, that last one might be a bit of an exaggeration. What’s true is that crutches can become an enemy of growth by blocking us from moving forward with any type of momentum or consistency.

Technology has always been something I’ve convinced myself that I don’t particularly like learning about. Nor do I  want to be bothered with the particulars of figuring it out. However I thoroughly enjoy the benefits of it and even like to use gadgets once they’re all set up for me.

I’m the person that the phrase “plug and play” was created for. Beyond pressing the “ON” button I don’t want to have to do anything else. If it is not blatantly obvious to me at first glance how to make something technical work, then my usual response would  be to instantly  wait for someone else to do it.

 
Now I am the first acknowledge the necessity of outsourcing, Virtual Assistants, and even having a person proficient in IT on your team – but what I’ve come to discover in business and in life is that; if you don’t have a basic understanding of the thing that you pass off to someone else to do for you, you create a “crutch” scenario and in some cases a hostage situation.

The concept of a crutch is a very useful one, the idea that you can lean on something (or in some cases someone) to support you in being mobile until you can fully function on your own is a comforting and often necessary reassurance.

But when the very thing that was supposed to be a temporary support on your way to self sufficiency becomes the thing that stunts your growth it is not a good thing. When the word crutch is used as an excuse not to engage in normal business building and life enhancing activities then it’s a problem that you’ll have to address if you ever want to grow.

Over the 5+ years that I’ve been a full time entrepreneur, I’ve had ample opportunities to slowly learn some of the basic things I need to know to be more knowledgeable regarding technology but instead I chose not to, shrugging it off as something that I’d do “later,” or figuring I’d just get someone on my team to help me the moment I needed it if I had a problem.

This mindset and behavior seemed to be working very well for me until the other day when I had an idea that I wanted to implement immediately, but I had no one to help me bring it to life. I knew what I wanted to do. I just didn’t know how to do it.

To make matters worse (or so I thought) I had been informed at the beginning of the year that all technical requests would take at least 24 hours to be reviewed or addressed – so much for immediate. 

While I understood it practically, I hated these new restraints because they were inconvient to me and reminded me of my deficiency which made me hate even more the feeling of being helpless. How frustrating it was to “know” the thing I needed done was something basic that most savvy business owners knew how to do – just not me.

I called a friend who I admire for her ability to absorb technical things and got her help with what I wanted done. Still I was unsettled by the thought that if she were not available, I couldn’t move forward with my plan. So I asked her, “How is it that you learned and retained all of this tech stuff on top of all the other things you’ve got to juggle?”

She said, “It’s funny because most people think that I love technology. The truth is I’m more a pencil and paper kind of person. But what I love is the end result so I take the time to learn the most efficient way to get the results I want – even if I’m not always the one doing the thing that needs to be done.”

Being restricted from moving forward in this way made me realize that the crutch I’d been holding on to was no longer serving or supporting me, instead it had stunted my growth.

After this experience, I can assure you that I have no intention of becoming the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. But what I have committed to becoming is more knowledgeable of this aspect of my business. So, one of the things I did over the past weekend was to learn a few basic HTML codes that will empower me to make small changes to my website, create a squeeze page, or adjust the size of an opt-in box whenever I want.

This may not even be a big deal to someone who can read their newspaper in code, and yes someone else can do it for me. However what this situation taught me was the power that I unwillingly gave away by not having the basic knowledge for myself.

What's your crutch?

What’s your crutch?

Maybe technology is your “thing,” but accounting and bookkeeping are the things that get pushed off to someone else without you really understanding the basics of how they work.

You don’t have to change your likes or dislikes about a particular aspect of your business, but what must change – that is if it’s an area you want to grow in – is your understanding of it. We tend to shy away from the things we fear and that fear has a tremendous power to hold us hostage.

Right now, choose one aspect of your business that you know in your gut you need to better understand. Next define the best way to learn just a bit more than you currently know about it. Your goal may not be to master the topic, but rather to have more control over your rate of progress and success.

Go ahead, get rid of the crutches – it’s time for you to exercise your business building muscles!

http://www.Sanyika.com