OutsourceSurvival.com

In a recent post on  Entrepreneur’s Journey blog, Yaro has an interesting discussion on being a successful entrepreneur. To (crudely) summarise the post, his point is that to be happy and successful you need to have positive patterns of behaviour. Do what you know you should be doing, and positively reinforce that behaviour (think positively about the actions you’ve taken). Check out the link to read it in full.

I read this post and it struck a cord. This is a battle I am currently waging, and one that I am winning for the first time in my life. I used to believe that fixing my behaviour would make me more successful. However, I now believe that behaviour is a symptom, not a cause. If you are struggling to fix your behaviour, you are probably focusing on the symptom and aggravating the cause.

Ok, so what does this have to do with outsourcing?

Both a lot and nothing Like many entrepreneurs I have a… shall we say ‘peaky’ personality. I experience high-energy high-productivity highs, and low-energy, low-productivity lows. For the last 6 months I’ve taken the conscious effort to ’smooth’ this out, by being more disciplined in how I think about things; in particular problems and challenges. I’m not bi-polar, but I’ve discovered that I do have some thought processes that promote ineffective behaviour.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a fluffy-wuffy touchy-feely kinda guy.

I am a big fan on the power of being positive, but I’m not into new age fluff. However, I recognise that I struggle to sustain ‘positivity’ and am prone to fall off the wagon. As part of a long search for a solution, I picked up a book called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life written by a renowned psychologist Martin Seligman.

Without sounding like a vegetable-kissing-tree-hugging-hippy, this book has dramatically improved my life. It will help you understand your cognitive thought processes- it is not fluffy, and will not have you chanting-positivity or star jumping at dawn. It does give you a great set of tools to apply discipline to your thoughts.

THOUGHT LEADS BEHAVIOUR, BEHAVIOUR REINFORCES THOUGHT

The idea is to be disciplined with the way you think, and this makes it easy to control your behaviour. Quite the reverse of most ‘new age’ methods. As an entrepreneur, business owner or project manager, I’m sure you’ll agree that our success hinges nearly entirely on our personal behaviour. Just about anything else can be worked around, dumped, changed or moved. We are the lynch-pin of our own designs.

I’m Still Waiting. What does this have to do with outsourcing?

Anyway! My point is that the last thing you need on a fast paced project is blind optimism… or a dose of the gloomy guts. You need to stay balanced right? A typical freelance project moves VERY quickly, and we need to be able to make sound decisions to keep it rolling. If it stalls it costs money, if we make a bad call it costs money. Having a healthy, balanced mindset will help you to achieve this.

Looking back over my past performance, I often bounced from one extreme to another, without really understanding it or being conscious of it at the time. This impacted my decision making, and negatively affected the performance project.

When I was too perky and optimistic:

• Project teams where given too much room, and I didn’t squeeze deadlines hard enough
• I was overly generous in negotiations and compromises
• Decisions were made too quickly without sufficient consideration
• I let indiscretions slide
• I was generally less disciplined

When I was depressed:

• Decisions were slowed by self doubt and anxiety
• Procrastination was a daily event.. if I got around to it
• Negative outlook impacted my decision making, problems grew out of control
• I was quick to assign blame rather then find a solution
• I was not able to lead the team as needed

Looking through that list it is a litany of failures- anyone can kill a project or business. And unfortunately I’m writing from experience. I have been the project lead of a high pressure web project, whilst suffering depression and anxiety issues. It was horrible for all involved, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But you can avoid it if you are conscious of your mental state.

Get your head straight before you launch the project (or business for that matter)

Nothing like having your life savings on the line to get the blood pumping. Sometimes it feels like dancing in traffic (I SCUBA dive now, it’s cheaper )

Only you know if you’ve got a tendency to be peaky… but if it sounds like you, take the time to work on your head-space first. I’d recommend Martin’s book and Yaro’s blog as a couple of places you can start.

It IS a roller coaster ride, and one that will be over all too quickly once it starts. With a bit of discipline, you’ll still be cheering when you step off the carriage. That is my hope for you!

(ok I sound a bit fluffly now, but I mean it in a ‘no one likes to see another person needlessly step in front of a bus’ kinda way)