How to Boost Your Bottom Line by Strengthening Your Power Factor

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to fill a bucket that is full of holes? Imagine for a moment how silly it would be to try and keep the bucket full of water when the water just keeps pouring out the bottom.

Well that is what most of us do when we try to leap forward in our growth with a diminished Power Factor.

Your Power Factor is a combination of your energy, your bandwidth and your support systems. As entrepreneur's, our greatest asset is our creativity and ambition. But if our Power Factor is being compromised, then your bottom line can take the hit.

Let's take my friend Lisa for example. Lisa had a desire to take her business to the next level. We would talk about a lot of options, including putting her million dollar marketing plan together and investing in additional virtual assistants to help her get more done. The problem was though that Lisa was constantly spiraling around a lot of chaos in her business. She never seemed to have time to focus on the "bigger fish" that would help her catapult forward even though she worked non-stop.

One day I asked Lisa, "What would have to happen to get you to slow down enough to work on that marketing plan?"

After thinking about it a while, Lisa said, "You know, I'm feeling so drained I just don't have the bandwidth to think that far out. It's just easier to run around patching these holes than slow down and deal with the bigger situations."

Bingo. Time to strengthen the Power Factor.

I asked Lisa if I could support her in having a huge breakthrough (of course she said yes). I asked her to just do a big data dump of all the things she was putting up with in her life and business. She named things like:

• The tension between me and my friend/assistant. I need her to do things she doesn't want to do and we are both frustrated. I don't want to lose our friendship but this situation just isn’t working for me.

• The time delay between when the client orders and how long it takes to get the product shipped (if it gets shipped at all). I feel like it reflects on us badly but I haven't had time to figure out what exactly the problem is.

• Handling this five page list of all the systems I "should" have in place to get things done with less mistakes.

• The fact that I have to spend the first two hours of my day catching up on email and then I get interrupted 17 times a day with urgent emails/phone calls from my clients as I try to get work done.

• The feeling that I have that my marketing person is spending a lot of time (and money) working for me but I don't necessarily see the kind of ROI I want. How do I figure out if what they are focused on is really worth it?

This list could go on and on but you get the point.

Whether these issues are real or imagined, they are taking up energetic space in Lisa's life and until they are handled it's like a black hole exists sucking the motivation right out of her like a giant vacuum.
If you find that your Power Factor is down, how do you get it back?

Here are three easy steps to take to turn the black hole vacuum around so you are back in your power again:

1. Make a list of all the things that are feeling incomplete, unresolved relationship issues, team situations that are not aligned with your goals, etc. The simple act of getting it out of your head can do wonders to clear some space!

2. Create a plan of attack. What needs to happen to handle the situation? Do you need to have a conversation with someone to get back on track? When will you handle it by? Stick to it so you feel a sense of completion.

3. Get proactive. What kind of process, agreement, system or boundary could you put in place so these types of issues don't drain your energy again?

When you handle the stuff that drains you, you free up bandwidth to be in your creative energy again. Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, not handling these types of issues will cause you to be in "attraction avoidance." The Law of Attraction can’t work because you are avoiding dealing with energy drains so your focus is on the very things you don’t want.

Take back your power today…I promise you that even tackling the toughest situations will make you feel a little giddy-up in your step. By the way, Lisa had that conversation with her friend/assistant even though it was really scary. What she found out was that her friend/assistant wanted to go on to another opportunity and was relieved that Lisa wanted to make a change! Win-win for everyone!