Could it be that you believe in the myth of hard work?

Is hard work working for you?

The myth of hard work is that if you work harder and harder and more and more you will eventually succeed.

Well that's just not true.

Hard work does not necessarily equal productive work, enjoyable work or profitable work; hard work does not automatically mean you will succeed.

So perhaps you have a blind spot around hard work and what it means?

One of the reasons I've found that many small business owners have this blind spot is that they don't really think abut what a successful business looks like, by their definition, before they get into it.

They know what they do, which is quite often what they were doing in their previous organisation, but they don't have a clear picture of the how their business needs to look to give them the business, financial and lifestyle success they want.

So many small business owners start out by having a few business cards printed, making a few phone calls and "get busy" filling their days with activity. Then all too soon they are putting in as many, if not more hours, as they were when working for someone else; except that they are not necessarily earning as much and what "free time" they have, they spend thinking and worrying about their business.

Imagine you want to build your own house. One of the first things you would do is design it or get an architect to draw up some plans. You would decide how many rooms you want and of what size and shape. You would decide how much garden you want and perhaps even what fixtures and fittings you will have as well as the location of the property itself.

You would do all of this before you laid the first brick or mixed the first batch of cement. You would have the house "finished" in your mind and a blueprint on paper before you started building.

To not do so would be foolish.

How would you know what to build and what needs to be done in what order? How would you know whether you needed 5000 bricks or 10000 bricks? How would you know whether it would take you 6 months and £100000 or 9 months and £150000?

So why would you do the equivalent with your business?

Define your business blueprint and get more focus

- Why start building without your blueprint?

- Why work hard when you don't know what you are building?

- How will you know what you are doing will give you the end result you want?

Your business blueprint might be to work 4 days a week, take 12 weeks vacation a year and only work for IT companies that will generate £10000 or higher for you. If that's the case, simply working harder and doing more activity won't do it unless that activity is specifically focused on achieving your blueprint and you have the infrastructure in place that will enable you to deliver that.

So go back to the drawing board – at least for a moment – in fact why not go grab a coffee and a notepad and define what your blueprint is for your business.

To achieve your dream, you first have to know what it is!