Understanding Why Letting Go is Important

As a business owner, it’s essential to prune away the dead weight and clean up the messes when they happen to maintain success, whether you’re already a seasoned entrepreneur or an aspiring one.

It took me a while to realize that cutting away dead weight is necessary to allow others to get the nourishment they need to bloom and grow. Making it a routine to review relationships quarterly or monthly is important. Not everyone is a good fit for your business, including clients/customers, contractors, software, and network. Some relationships are not worth having, regardless of what you’ve been told you should be generating from them. Unhealthy relationships not only drain our confidence but can also harm our business’s health and detract us from our goals. It’s essential to prune them away and focus on what brings you joy, fulfillment, and success in your personal and professional life. It’s okay to let go of your customers, friends, and sometimes even family members.

As business owners, we are resilient and understand that mistakes will happen. Owning them, fixing them, and moving on without letting them shake us to our core comes with confidence in ourselves to overcome and win the battle against doubt. Sweep off the doormat and let doubt know you have nothing to hide and that there won’t be enough grime inside your brain for it to cling to.

To avoid working with negative clients, it’s crucial to learn to decipher who the weeds are amongst the flowing fields of flowers. There are fewer weeds in this world than there are flowers. You will always have positive results with your ideal clients when you feed and water your beds enough.

But how do you determine toxic clients from the rest?

Here are some criteria to help you spot a weed invasion:

• They are never happy with your work: No matter how hard you try, these woeful weeds are never content with what you give them. Not only does this feel frustrating for you as a business owner, but it also depletes you from top to bottom. Sometimes, these clients drive you around in circles before returning to your original idea, claiming it as their own.
• They abuse your time and energy: These creeping charlies are hiding under their cloaks as energy vampires, absorbing not only all of your time but your energy too.
• Energy vampires disrespect your time by asking for things around the clock with the expectation of an immediate response. Their disregard crawls past your personal and professional boundaries when they don’t take “no” for an answer.
• They don’t pay on time and/or consistently: If the behavior becomes a habit, it’s probably not going to work in your favor.
• They make excuses for themselves: Weeds regularly make excuses for their absence, their inability to provide what you need, and many times even try to peg their lacking back onto you.
• They don’t listen to any of your professional wisdom: Clients worthy of being cut don’t take your work seriously, instead claiming themselves all-knowing and disregarding your expertise.

Once you’ve spotted a weed invasion, take them out by the root. Removing them will give you more time to water what matters most in your life: the clients that are blossoming, your passion, commitment to your professional art form, and your life outside of it. Keep the soil rich, and be proud of who you are and what you do. You are an expert in your field and the master of your domain! If you need more guidance in your business, schedule your complimentary coaching consultation today.