3 Ways Self-Improvement Can Grow Your Business

How does self-improvement help business owners grow their businesses?

Self-improvement is the process of becoming better as a person. In order to improve as a human being, you need critical thinking skills, self-awareness, and motivation.

Furthering your education is one way to improve yourself as well as having an openness for learning from others' experiences. These very factors that lead to self-improvement also matter when it comes to growing your small business.

A majority of new businesses fail within the first three years due to incompetent management systems and unskilled staff members, along with a lack of intercommunication. If you’re a business owner, you can improve all of these things with training and self-development techniques.

In this post, I’ll share how business owners can grow themselves and by extension, grow their businesses too. Dive in!

Become more productive

One of the best things about self-development is that it can lead to greater productivity.

Learning about time management, harnessing your focus and energy, and so on will enable you to avoid distractions.

Did you know that every minute spent meditating creates or saves 9 minutes of time? According to Chris Bailey, when you focus on your breath and calm down, you end up more focused and less prone to distracting thoughts.

You’ll put your head down and give your work all the attention it needs. And in the process, you’ll waste less time, grow your business faster, and also find free time to spend on your family and yourself.

Manage stress and make rational decisions

Personal development helps you address your fears and anxieties. In particular, learning about mindfulness and meditation helps you relax and live in the present moment.

This is especially important for leaders. If you can manage your stressors well, you will be able to make rational decisions instead of reacting impulsively in high-pressure situations.

Prioritize tasks better

With a stronger sense of self-awareness and appreciation, business leaders know what they want - which makes prioritizing their work easier.

I’ve found that books like ‘Start With Why’ by Simon Sinek help people uncover their deepest and most meaningful values. And in turn, this creates a drive to work towards one’s overarching goals.

As a result, it becomes easier to discard ‘busy work’. You can either hire someone like a virtual assistant or a full-time employee to handle such jobs. Or you can choose to automate activities like sending emails, creating and scheduling social media posts and more.

Communicate better with employees

Leaders who develop a self-awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses can then work on improving their communication skills.

I recommend picking up books and doing online courses on active listening.

We all take listening for granted since we do it so naturally but active listening is an art form in itself. It means paying attention to a person and removing all distractions. It also involves listening without judgment and without making any kind of response until a speaker is done with what they have to say. And this can be harder than it seems.

For example, a business owner practicing active listening needs to be able to read negative reviews and accept them as being true from the perspective of the reviewers. Even when the reviewer may be wrong, approaching feedback with an open mind can clue a leader into the fact that there’s something missing. Perhaps, they need to add more educational material or improve communication to prevent such issues from cropping up again.

Become more innovative

With a better understanding of themselves, leaders can start to see the world through a different lens - which in turn encourages creativity and innovation.

I recommend learning brainstorming techniques. And also looking up things like freewriting and doodling as creativity triggers.

When you learn more, read more, and experiment more, you end up putting things together in new ways - and this is innovation in a nutshell. So, look at self-development as a critical piece in the machinery of creativity. As you become smarter, more rational, and informed, you also create sources from which creativity emerges more easily.

Conclusion

Becoming a better leader is not easy. It takes time, patience, and discipline. That's why self-development is so important for business leaders.

To be able to grow their business, they need to strengthen themselves first - which starts with self-awareness and understanding what drives them personally and professionally.

It’s important to remember that personal development is an ongoing process - there's always room for growth. So don't get discouraged if you don't see results overnight.

Keep integrating self-development into your routine and you'll start to see a difference in how you work and how your team operates.