Are you an honest person or could you be accused of lying?

Yeah I know you don’t steal, and you don’t outright lie to clients or people around you. Of course you let clients know if a quoted feature already exists because that’s the type of honest person you are.

Are you honest with the person that matter most though?

Are you honest with yourself?

The lies we tell ourselves

We could all be accused lying to ourselves from time to time. It’s often easier on our own ego to do so.

It’s easier to say that clients aren’t buying right now, than it is to say that you totally messed up the meeting.

Acknowledging that you messed up the meeting puts the responsibility squarely on your shoulders. It’s your fault.

It also puts the solution squarely on your shoulders. That means you don’t have to simply wait on the next time ‘clients are buying’ you analyze the meeting and realize that you didn’t research enough about the client beforehand.

Then next time you have a client meeting you book out time on your schedule to make sure that you have researched the client needs properly.

Some example lies

Stop right now and write down some of the lies that you tell yourself. If you need a primer then here is a list to get you started.

Lie I got off track this week and didn’t get item “A” done for my client.

Truth I spent too much time on social media or looking at new bike parts instead of working.

Lie I have to work weekends to keep up.

Truth I don’t have an organized list of tasks.

Lie This week got away from me.

Truth I don’t plan my week beforehand which means my week just happens to me. I have no control over my time.

Lie I’m always living project to project. You just can’t make money freelancing.

Truth You have no budget so your money just disappears.

Lie I can never afford to save my taxes from projects.

Truth You don’t have a budget or a plan to keep your cash-flow going. You simply spend on a whim.

Lie Clients just aren’t buying right now so it’s really slow.

Truth You have no marketing strategy and your client on-boarding is haphazard. Really you simply just hope that clients ‘fall in’ to a contract with you.

Now that you have them written down, know they are lies and make a plan to take responsibility to kill the lies.

Under each lie write down the truth of the situation. Now that you have the truth written down you can start to develop an action plan to deal with the truth.

Letting the lies continue is simply going to harm your business long term. So let them continue if you want a business that is not as successful as it could be.

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