The Importance of Self Reflection for Entrepreneurs

From facing competitive markets to working on budgets for marketing, insurance and taxes, you’ll need to overcome several hurdles to create a successful business. Half of new businesses fail within 5 years, according to the Small Business Administration, but the right combination of skills, knowledge and execution will increase your ability to reach your goals.

Preparation is often seen as the key to a successful new business launch, but don’t stop there. You should assess and reassess where your company is at throughout each stage. How can you do that? Engage in self reflection. It can help you see where you’re at, where you’re going and how you can reach your goals. That type of reflection can be done as part of a formal review process.

The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer

Take some time to stop and ask yourself questions about you and your business. That time can be helpful whether you’re about to start a business or if that happened years ago. Here are some of the questions every entrepreneur must answer.

• What are you responsible for? Another way to ask this is “Who’s really in charge?” Unless you have a business partner, the answer is ultimately “you” for every part of your business. However, that’s not always the case in practice. Some entrepreneurs blame employees or other external factors for failures and challenges. Does that describe you?
• Are you working hard enough? If you’re unhappy with your business’ success or your progress with the idea, maybe you should take a look at what you’re doing. Should you work a few weekends in the near future to concentrate on your goals? Could you be putting your time in the wrong things?
• Do your employees respect you? It says a lot about the type of owner/manager you are. If you don’t think employees respect you, ty to provide more guidance and support. You can also start considering if changes are needed to influence morale and engagement.
• What do you and your company stand for? Identity is critical for you and your business. Knowing this answer will help you build on strengths and work on any deficiencies (real or imagined).
• What kind of rating would you receive, if you weren’t in charge? Imagine being an employee in your business. Would your boss give you a good rating? It may be time to perform a sort of self evaluation performance review, so that you can benefit from formal self reflection.

Conducting a Self Evaluation Performance Review

Reflecting on your business and you as an entrepreneur can be helpful. However, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities that consume your time. As a result, you may forget to look at the big picture. A more formal type of self evaluation performance review can help, so that you recreate the appraisals that employees regularly receive in large companies.

Start by creating several rows on a text document or spreadsheet. Fill the labels with headings that describe core competencies that relate to your business. For instance, you can list qualities like takes initiative, creativity and technical skills. Then make columns like unsatisfactory, satisfactory, good and excellent.

Go through and rate your qualities. As you conduct your self evaluation performance review, consider how you can build in certain areas. You can put those thoughts in a comments section. Another section can be used for goals. Create two spaces: one that identifies what you’d like to accomplish for the next review; and an empty space that you’ll fill out in a next review, which gauges your progress for the goal(s).

Your self evaluation performance review may lead you to pursue opportunities that build your business skills. Earning your online business administration degree enhances your knowledge in a broad range of subjects like finance, accounting, marketing, strategic management and more. Gain what you need to guide your business to success.

At the University of West Alabama Online, you’ll study in a convenient environment that allows you to maintain your professional and personal schedule. Tuition is competitively priced, and 80 percent of students receive some type of financial aid.