The Top 3 Reasons We Fail In Business

Practice Building

Andrea Maxim, ND

I want to share the top 3 reasons why we fail in business (and in our lives)…

Reason #1 – Not Taking Responsibility for Our Lives

Just like you expect your patients to take responsibility for their health, you also need to make sure that you’re taking responsibility for your own choices in life. Regardless of whether you’ve heard all of this before, you have to understand this if you want to grow a thriving practice… if you want financial freedom… if you want that dream life. You need to take 100% responsibility for everything that happens in your life and in your business.

How do you know if you’re really taking full responsibility? Become very self-aware of your current complaints. Each one of your complaints is an indicator that you are not taking responsibility somewhere in your business:

“There aren’t enough patients coming into my office.”

“The clinic I work for isn’t driving enough traffic my way; that’s why I’m not able to pay my bills this month.”

“I didn’t book any new patients from this seminar because they didn’t promote me enough.”

When you make complaints or place blame elsewhere for things that are going wrong in your business, you are giving up control and becoming a victim. Instead, I encourage you to retain your power and look for opportunities to take action and change the outcome of your business. Next time you hear yourself complaining about something that’s going wrong in your business, stop and think about where exactly that complaint is coming from. Remind yourself, “I am not going to become a victim to my complaints anymore,” and then think about what a positive recourse could be. Ultimately, understand that the only thing that’s getting in the way of you and that perfect practice is… YOU.

Reason #2 – Blind Spots

We all have developed core beliefs over the course of our lives that we consider cold hard facts. These typically directly contradict or conflict with the goals and the desires that we have for our lives. Most of these we picked up when we were young, the most impressionable ones coming from our parents, teachers, friends… beliefs like: “It must be absolutely perfect” or “I’m not smart enough to do that.” Here’s one that my mom instilled in my sister and me: “You’re not working hard enough until you’ve worked at least 60 hours per week.”

We will never be able to achieve our goals if we continue to perceive these core beliefs as fact. The great thing is, we do not need to become prisoner to them. By taking small, positive action steps every day, small wins every day, we can change these core beliefs and, as a result, open the realm of possibility even wider. 

Reason #3 – Fear of Failure

The big “F” word. FAIL.

As humans we avoid this word like the plague. To fail brings with it all kinds of negative emotions: Fear of exposure. Fear of rejection. Fear of being punished. Fear of making a mistake… We all have them. When I launched the “MAXIMize Your Clinic” course, it was the most gut-wrenching experience of my entire life. It was my biggest project to date. It was promoted to my colleagues (in my mind my biggest critics), and I felt like was I standing out there naked for the entire 5 weeks of the launch. Then it’s a whole new level of fear when people actually start using your product: What will they think? Do they think it wasn’t worth the investment? Do they think it’s too simple? Too complex? Are people going to write complaints about me?

Something I’ve learned from most of my coaches and people I follow – “gods” in this industry – is that when I feel afraid, that’s when I know I’m doing something that I’m born to be doing. I know I’m doing something that is going to make an impact.

My goal is to help you take that extra leap. You’re leaning right on the tipping point of greatness, and it’s my job to give you that extra push… help get you out of your comfort zone and have you achieving things you never thought were possible. Even if you feel like you’re going to have a panic attack, do it anyway.

I lost countless hours of sleep during the launch period because I was so afraid. I was up at 3 AM some nights on my laptop, making sure that I wasn’t making any mistakes in my presentation slides, my emails, my social media posts.

Failure is an essential part of success.

If you want to be successful and you’re afraid to fail, then you’ve got a real problem. It takes creating things and putting them out there to see what is going to work and what isn’t. The best inventions that we have on this planet were not created on the first go and did not come from a “safe” idea. They were novel. They were insane. They were life changing.

Just put your work out there. Accept that it’s not going to be everything you dreamed it would be on the first go. Do not STOP if it isn’t. Tweak the idea. Tweak the launch. Learn more from your colleagues and business coaches, and make your products better and better each time.

Get Out of Your Own Way

I really hope that this discussion about failure was enlightening for you and got you thinking a little more about what’s holding you up in your practice. It’s all about you getting out of your own way and making amazing things happen!

Andrea Maxim, ND graduated from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. She created The Maxim Movement – a movement that helps like-minded people move towards MAXIMizing their digestion, MAXIMizing their hormones, MAXIMizing their weight loss and, of course, MAXIMizing their health. To support her vision, Dr Andrea has completed her first book, MAXIMized Health: The New, Intelligent System for Optimal Digestion and Hormones, available for purchase on her website: www.TheMaximMovement.com.