In nature there is something called a gestation period. Everything has its own designated time to fully develop. If you plant a carrot seed it takes 70 days before you can harvest a carrot. Plant an acorn and it is years before you have a mighty oak. A baby takes 9 months before a healthy birth.
Business is really no different. There are various gestation periods for different projects. However, a common mistake many professionals make is expecting things to happen unnaturally fast.
This can be compounded by uncertain economic times. They would not think of digging up a seed they just planted a week ago because of the lack of sprouts today. Yet, they do essentially the equivalent in their business all the time.
In business this may look like placing advertising and not giving it a chance to take effect and pulling out after only a month or two. It may be joining a networking group and expecting to have business rolling in before people really get to know you and your services.
It could look like setting up a web page and only having a trickle of visits after the first few weeks. A common blunder is purchasing new equipment and incorrectly anticipating how long it will take to pay for itself and become profitable. It can be as simple as trying to close a sale before the prospect is ready to buy.
The calamity is that this pattern is repeated over and over and becomes the equivalent of throwing money down a rat hole. You wouldn’t think of planting a seed and not attending to it and then because there is no visible activity you dig it up and then go plant a whole new seed elsewhere and keep doing that over and over again.
When thinking strategically around building out the projects you are driving it is imperative to understand what a typical gestation period for each project really might be. Additionally, gain the clarity about what properly attending to and growing the project looks like. Get clear of what progress looks like along the way to the harvest.
Avoid the temptation of trying to find a way to rush the process. The most productive skill you can develop is to find a way to increase your capacity to operate effectively within the natural gestation period.