James Clear had an interesting post about something called The Repeated Bout Effect. In simple terms, it means, “the more you repeat a behavior, the less it impacts you because you become accustomed to it.”
He quotes Marshall Goldsmith, author of “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There,” who says, “Doing the same thing over and over again, even if it worked for a long time, will eventually lead to a plateau.”
Clear uses examples from weight training, but the principle applies to other aspects of life, including marketing and managing your practice. If you continue doing the same things you’ve always done, or you do them the same way you’ve always done them, you limit or retard your growth.
And if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
Clear suggests deliberately practicing new skills that you can master quickly, i.e., “in one to three practice sessions”. This will stimulate growth and help you reach new levels of achievement.
Identify skills that could prove helpful to you in marketing and managing your practice. Once a week or so, choose a skill to focus on for the next few days.
For ideas, read blogs and articles and books on those subjects. Talk to your colleagues and business contacts and see what they do to build or manage their business or practice.
Regularly add new skills to your bag of tricks and encourage your staff to do the same.
But don’t stop there.
I think it’s also wise to periodically examine your current skills and activities and seek ways to improve them.
Over the next few days, take note of everything you do–small tasks and big tasks, highly skilled tasks and rudimentary or routine tasks. Include everything: writing, speaking, presenting, signing up new clients, meeting with employees, interviewing job applicants, dictating a motion, prepping for trial, reviewing a new client intake, touch typing, and everything else.
Then, look at each task and ask yourself, “How can I do this better?”
Can you change the order of the steps? Add in an extra step? Use a different tool?
Can you do it faster, perhaps by leaving out a step or two?
Can you get better results by practicing the underlying skills or delegating some of the tasks (or the entire task) to someone else?
Acquiring new skills, combined with an ongoing effort to improve your current skills, is a powerful recipe for growth. And if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
