What if your criteria for what objectives you would take on was that they were easy?
In the book Scaling Up, author Verne Harnish, uses a graphic to challenge the traditional mentality of entrepreneurship. He replaces the model of summiting a mountain with a river that flows downhill. His point is that nature chooses the easiest route and businesses should too.
Easy is an interesting criteria to play with because so many things in business are hard.
One of the consequences of using easy as a filter is that it curtails over-investment. If something doesn’t easily work, then it’s abandoned. More initiatives die because they ask too much, but the ones that remain are profitable.
Additionally, easy as a criteria engenders thinking because thinking is easier than doing. Thinking is often helpful in business because it anticipates problems and identifies opportunities. Both of which are missed when you’re heavily involved in doing.
Whether easy as a decision filter is right for you, it’s important to understand that we all have internal priorities that shape our decisions. Yet, we tend to be unaware of them.
Consciously choosing how you’ll make decisions, even for just a season, can help expose your inherent priorities and their impact on you and your business.