"

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 17 seconds

Overcoming Your Practice's Inertia


Has inertia settled into your life? Have you gotten into a routine of accepting your accounting practice as it is currently? Have you lowered your standards over time? Inertia can settle into many parts of our daily life and requires a major effort to change the direction. This includes everything from your diet to exercise regiment to your business routine.

In the dictionary, inertia is the resistance or disinclination to motion or change. As it relates to our businesses, inertia often means that we stick our heads in the sand with regard to truly making a change in the business, working a little harder on the things we do best, and avoid doing something new or unfamiliar. Unless our backs are up against the wall, it's very challenging for us to make a significant change with our daily routine.

Each day, inertia keeps people working in jobs that they've lost enthusiasm for. Been there, done that. That's right, many employees work for companies in jobs they hate and complain about it but are fearful of making a change in their work situation. Their need for a "safe job" makes them miserable and they get stuck in a long-term rut. Over time, this need for safety trumps their entrepreneurial desires, because they fear failure, which leads to overwork, boredom, anxiety and depression.

When you are stuck on the treadmill of life juggling the tasks of working, parenting, spending beyond your means, eating and drinking too much, and getting sucked into watching TV, it's hard to change your routine.

So, how do we break free from this self-defeating ritual of getting stuck in the mud?

First of all, don't expect to change everything at once. Impatience with the current situation can lead to impulsive and short-sighted decisions. While our society yearns for quick fixes, recognize that making changes to your business so that it serves your life with long-term benefits takes an ongoing effort and plan. Changing your office routine will be like giving up alcohol, losing weight, lifting weights, cutting up your credit cards and canceling your cable TV subscription ALL at once. So, break your transition plan into sizeable chunks recognizing that we are all resistant to change.

Below are the steps to overcome your inertia and get pulled out of the mud:

1. Map out your options
2. Prepare for change (be proactive on long lead-time items)
3. Acquire third-party knowledge or guidance to help you
4. Incorporate a system or routine into your plans to encourage compliance
5. Break your action items into small steps/phases (e.g., don't do all at once)
6. Take action and establish implementation dates
7. Maintain the momentum and make modest adjustments

It's time to take the bull by the horns and improve the quality of your life. Get started this month and avoid the temptation to procrastinate. Go for it!

Hugh Duffy MBA

Hugh Duffy is co-founder and chief marketing officer for Build Your Firm, a leading practice development firm dedicated to the accounting industry.  Based in Madison, Conn., Build Your Firm works with small accounting firms providing accounting marketing, practice management and Web site development services

Prior to co-founding Build Your Firm in 2003, Hugh was a Vice President of Internet Marketing for Business & Legal Reports (BLR), a business-to-business publisher for small and medium sized businesses.  Prior to BLR, Hugh was a Director with a publicly traded global internet media company, 24/7 Real Media responsible for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships.  The foundation of Hugh’s marketing background is fourteen years of consumer packaged goods marketing with Schick, Nabisco, Clorox and Coca-Cola. 

Hugh has 25 years of marketing experience, an MBA degree in marketing from the University of Rochester and a B.S. in finance from the University of Maryland.  While at Maryland, Hugh was on a golf scholarship and his coach was Fred Funk, PGA Tour player.  Today, Hugh’s golf game suffers and he is content watching his two kids play college lacrosse.


Read 6689 times
Rate this item
(0 votes)

Visit other PMG Sites:

Template Settings

Color

For each color, the params below will give default values
Tomato Green Blue Cyan Dark_Red Dark_Blue

Body

Background Color
Text Color

Header

Background Color

Footer

Select menu
Google Font
Body Font-size
Body Font-family
Direction
PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.