Are you stuck in the messy middle of your business? Here’s how to break through it

Finding yourself in the messy middle of your business can often leave you feeling uncertain on how to get from where you are now to where you want to be. Having experienced this stage a few times in my own business, today I am sharing with you my process of how to escape it and find freedom without sacrificing business goals.

In this episode, we look at:
– The three warning signs that you are stuck in the messy middle
– Why intentionally designing your business is a must and how to start this process.
– How to identify where your business is no longer aligned with your long-term vision
– Focusing on taking action that moves you closer to your long-term vision, potentially at the expense of the short-term wins.

SHOW LINKS:
– Download the free workbook: Escape the Messy Middle – stephtaylor.co/emm
– Find out more about Freedom Fast Track – stephtaylor.co/FFT

 

Today, we're talking about the messy middle of business. And I have been there a couple of times in my own business. Honestly, I think it's something that we actually have at almost every new stage in our business, we get to this little messy middle where we feel like everything's happening around us and we're so in the weeds and we just can't break through the middle. 

But in particular, the messy middle that I want to talk about today is the one where you are making money in your business, your businesses turning a profit, but it's so reliant on you to function that you can't step away ever. 

So today I'm going to talk you through the process at a bit of a high level. It's really not as big of a process as you think it would be because obviously it really depends on where your business is stuck.

But let's start from a higher level, rather than getting straight into the nitty gritty.

 

3 signs that you are in the messy middle of your business.

 

1. You love what you do but you're not loving your business right now. 

Maybe it's because you're working harder than you would like and you're feeling burnt out. Maybe it's that you are spending most of your time doing tasks that don't really excite you and don't let you up. Nobody is super excited to jump into their inbox or to reconcile their bank accounts. And if you are spending way more of your time doing admin work that doesn't excite you, and you'd rather spend that time working with clients or teaching your students, then that's a pretty big sign that you are in that messy middle

 

2. You don't have the time freedom or the financial freedom that you crave and you don't know how to get there. 

And it could be that it's just one of these two pieces that are missing. Maybe you have the time freedom, but you don't have that financial freedom yet.

Or maybe you have the financial freedom, but you are burning yourself out, working 80-hour weeks to have that financial freedom. And one without the other kind of feels like no freedom at all because, without time freedom, you're just working nonstop, and without financial freedom, you feel this pressure like you can't physically make the choices. You don't have a choice of freedom because you don't have the security to back it up essentially. 

Once you have that financial freedom and it doesn't necessarily mean you have the finances to go and buy a mansion and sit by a pool all day long for the rest of your life, that's not financial freedom for most of us. But it's that freedom to make a decision without having financial consequences to justify it.

And from a business perspective that might look like letting go of a painful client and knowing that you can afford to let go of that client, or you can afford to say no to that potential client who is showing some red flags that they might be painful.

That is what I believe financial freedom in this sense means. 

 

3. You know that something isn't aligned in your business, but you just can't quite put your finger on what it is. 

When your business is in alignment, it flows so easily. It doesn't mean you don't have to work. But the work that you put in, the effort you put in, yields result quite easily and it feels enjoyable. You show up and you feel inspired, you feel creative, you don't need to force any of it. But when it's out of alignment, you feel like you're having to push yourself, feel like you're strong-arming your way through the business. You're forcing yourself to do work that you don't want to do. And yet it's still not working. You're still not seeing those results. 

So those are three pretty common signs. You know, you love what you do, but you're not loving your business right now. You don't have time freedom or financial freedom and maybe know that something isn't aligned, but you can't quite figure out what it is. If any of those three are resonating with you.

If all of those three are resonating with you, then listen up because this is a rough process to go through to fix that, to get back on the right path so that you can escape that messy middle. 

 

Step #1: Design your business.

Now, most of us don't pause often enough to intentionally design where we are going. But when we think about how our business plays out on these three levels. 

The first level is the vision. Where we're going. Where the business is heading at any point in time. Then the second level is your strategy. That is how you are going to get to that vision, how you're going to get to that destination. And then we have that third level is tactics. Your tactics are the actions that plug into your strategy to take you to your vision. 

And the fastest way to create a business that doesn't feel good or that isn't aligned is to follow someone else's vision or follow the wrong strategies that don't really lead to the correct vision that you're trying to achieve or just blindly do tactics. 

Now the other thing is you don't need to build somebody else's vision. You don't need to do what you think you are supposed to do. You don't have to want a particular thing. You can design your business exactly the way you wanted. Your vision is your vision and the worst thing that you can do is to copy and paste somebody else's vision to see what a competitor is doing and think, oh, that seems quite nice. I maybe I'll do that as well. 

And then inject that vision into your own business. It might work for a little while, but eventually, you'll get to a point where you're like, hang on. I don't want this. Why am I doing this?

And that's when you're going to have to backtrack and rebuild. So the sooner you can get clear on what your vision is, the sooner you can stop building your business to what you want. 

Now if you are somebody who prefers to prioritise your lifestyle over building a massive empire, great. That's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean you are any less ambitious. It doesn't mean you're not hardworking. It doesn't mean you are less successful than anybody else. It just means that it is what matters to you. And that is great.

I will also add that it's possible to achieve more than you thought you can and still have balance. It is possible to prioritise your lifestyle and still have a big successful business. But that all needs to be part of your vision. You need to know what you are building to be able to build that.

 

Step #2: Audit your business.

Now there's a reason why your 12-month vision for your business is not a reality right now. There's a reason why your five-year vision for your business is not a reality right now. And that's because something isn't quite aligned with it, something needs to change.

And often is that whatever it is that has supported you in getting to this level won't support you to get to the next level. What has worked in marketing your business to grow it to this point might not be what works to grow it to that next point. 

Unfortunately, we have to change them before we can have the business that we want. It's not, oh, I'll build a million dollar business and then hire a team. It's oh, I'm building a million-dollar business so I need to start hiring the team that is going to get me to that million-dollar business. It doesn't happen in reverse. 

Another thing that might change or might have supported you to get to where you are and won't support you to the next level is your finances. The way you manage them and the investments that you make into your business. Any, or all of these things are probably going to need changing to get you to that longer-term vision. 

 

Step #3: Take action.

That is easier said than done. There is a big gap between knowing what we need to do and actually doing it. The results won't happen overnight, but you do need to keep just implementing and keep believing in that longer-term vision. Keep moving towards it.

And unfortunately, this is where you can get derailed really easily because focusing on that long-term vision, staying on track for that long-term vision, can be so hard when there are things that pop up that deliver short-term wins at the expense of your longer-term vision. 

Taking on a painful client, for example, because you need the cash right now versus using the time and energy that that client would take up from you to build a new leveraged offering or using it to create processes and systems and train a team member. 

Those things might not deliver quick results but they will move you closer to the long-term vision, whereas taking on a painful client because you want the cash right now is moving you further away from that long-term vision, that business that you're trying to build. 

 

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