The third of eight articles entitled ‘Know Your Business’, which explores how to identify the perfect business to run and is written by entrepreneur and multi business owner James Keightley, who runs his own ecommerce business and business coaching consultancy. So far we have looked at the first stage of what are known as our Logical Levels and this was the environmental aspect, next we will explore the behavioural aspect of identifying your ideal business to run and operate. It is important to find as close a match as possible at all stages of the Logical Levels, in that I mean you should; find the best environment to operate in, behave in that environment in the most authentic way, behave in a way that is best suited to your skills and capabilities, believe in your choice of environments, behaviours and capabilities, ensure that it is congruent with your sense of self and that all these are in synchronicity with your big vision.
For the moment lets leave the environmental aspect as this was covered in the previous article entitles ‘Know Your Business Know Your Environment’ and lets now explore the behaviours which your are most attracted to performing when running your own business.
Again, let’s revisit some of those past exercises because they are just as relevant for fleshing out behavioural desires as they are for identifying your preferred environments.
Ask Yourself – so like before spend some time thinking about what sort of things you like doing the most, whatever they might be. What makes you bounce out of bed in a morning and what gives you real satisfaction. Is it a hobby or some kind of interest? Write these down and start to create a list of all the things you like to do. You are looking for actions, such as walking, painting, signing, driving, navigating, flying, cooking etc.
Go For a Walk – again, spend some time walking and ponder some more on what you have already thought of. Notice the reoccurring behaviours that you think of and add any new ones to your list.
Note – do not try to make any connection between behaviour and salary, you are simply thinking of the things you enjoy doing, irrespective of whether they have the potential to earn you money.
Write a Short Story – this is still a great way to flesh out more ideas about what it is you like doing in terms of behaviour. Write a short story no more than a page long describing something you have done in the past, what it involved, what you were doing, challenges you faced, how you overcame them and what the outcomes were. When you have finished the story make a note of the types of behaviours involved, what you were doing and how you were doing what you were enjoying. Add this to your list of behaviours.
Go For a Walk – have another walk after a few days break and give some more thought to your short story and any other short stories that come to mind that you could have written about. Notice again what type of behaviours it involved you performing that you really enjoyed and make a note of these so that you can add them to your list of behaviours.
Another Miracle Question – here is another chance to ask yourself the miracle question, ‘if a miracle could happen and you were able to wake up tomorrow doing exactly what you enjoy doing and where money or any other factors that would ordinarily be a limiting issue did not exist, what would you be doing and how would you be behaving? Again add these behaviours to your list, which might include cooking, fishing, teaching, reading, craft work, gardening etc.
Ask Others – Finally, ask others to email you a list of things that they can see you enjoying doing or things that they think you are good at.
You have already compiled from the previous article, ‘Know Your Business Know Your Environment’ a short list of environments that your prefer. Now it is time to repeat the process for your preferred behaviour.
Look at the list of all the behavioural words and see if you can identify any patterns, any words that are repeating themselves and see if you can narrow your list down to at least your ten of your preferred behaviours, the ones you really enjoy doing. It is OK if you have more than ten, but this is a good number to work with.
Like before, write these on individual pieces of paper and select two at a time, say for example cooking and reading, and then decide which of the two behavioural doing words would you rather sacrifice if you had to choose. Place the one you prefer to one side and pick up another two and repeat the process until you have a pile of words that are in your keep pile. Now go through that pile and repeat the process until you have only three behavioural words left, which should be the three behaviours that you feel you would be least able to live without, your most favoured behaviours.
So, now you will have your three favoured environments and your three favoured behaviours.
In the next article, ‘Know Your Business Know Your Capabilities’ we will be exploring what skills and capabilities you are most naturally suited to or prefer to use on a daily basis.
