How do you get unstuck?
Getting stuck in your martial arts business is not something that usually happens at the very beginning. In the beginning everything is new and exciting. There are big hills to climb and always something new that needs to be done. There might be a lot of struggle at the beginning but usually it’s the good kind where you find quick solutions often go hand-in-hand with just working harder. This is the fun phase where you get to tell people that you’re hustling and grinding and that you’re unstoppable – mostly because it feels like you are! The real struggles though, come much later and don’t seem as obvious.
It is easy to feel stuck when you realize that you’re doing the same thing over and over year after year and then you see your numbers stop growing and eventually start to decline. So you go at it like you did when you were at the beginning; you hustle and grind, and you get super busy but you don’t really move the ball down the field like you did in the past. Motivation and inspiration aren’t what you need now, and yes you need to work and you need to get stuff done, but you also need to look around and see how the world has changed.
The world will always change, but you won’t always see it. Or at least you won’t see how it affects your martial arts business. So you might want to read a book l, or go to a seminar, or watch a lot of YouTube videos of people like Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk, but the fastest way out, is to go find yourself a mentor or an outside board of advisors. People who don’t have any interest in your martial arts school at all! People who understand that all businesses is the same and so they won’t buy all your excuses and all the lies you’ve told yourself about why your business is failing. And it is failing because once you stop growing you start to die.
Mentors and outside boards are really just experienced people who will see what you cannot see or what you refuse to see. They are also going to be holding you accountable and will be able to help you see which direction you need to go and they won’t allow you to go anywhere else.
So go find yourself a new perspective and most importantly, and accountability coach, and then you can motivate yourself and seek inspiration and learn new things and most importantly get back to work.
Matt Pasquinilli – Painting 