By Andy Bird, AGP Relationship Manager
Most business leaders kick off the new year with ambitious plans: new markets to enter, products to launch, partnerships to forge. But the uncomfortable truth is your growth plan is probably too long.
Often, the businesses that scale successfully don't just know what to pursue. They're ruthlessly clear about what to stop.
The hidden cost of saying yes
Every opportunity you chase carries an invisible price tag. It's not just the money you spend, but the focus you fragment, the team energy you dilute and the strategic clarity you sacrifice.
When you're running a high-growth business, your scarcest resource isn't capital. It's time and attention. Every meeting you take, every initiative you get involved in, every "quick favour" you agree to pulls you further from the work that actually moves the dial.
I've watched great business founders stall their own growth by treating every opportunity as if it were urgent. They're present in every conversation but absent from strategic decisions. They're busy, but not effective. And their teams mirror this behaviour, often spreading themselves too thinly to deliver anything exceptional.
Three questions to build your stop-doing list
Start by auditing your current commitments. Review your diary, project list and standing meetings. Then ask yourself:
1. What are we doing out of habit, not strategy?
Many businesses continue activities that once made sense but no longer serve their purposes. Weekly reports no one reads. Partnerships that generate little value. Marketing channels that stopped working months or sometimes years ago.
These commitments drain resources while delivering diminishing returns. Be honest about what's momentum versus what's delivering results.
2. What could someone else do better?
As a founder, you likely started by doing everything yourself. But growth means letting go. That blog you insist on writing? That client relationship you won't hand over? That operational detail you can't release?
The best use of your focus is to work on the business, not in it. If someone on your team can do it 80% as well as you, delegate it. Free yourself for the strategic work only you can do: setting vision, building culture, securing major partnerships and making critical hires. Nobody says this is easy. But you do need to get used to saying no more often.
3. What's keeping us comfortable instead of competitive?
Sometimes we keep doing things simply because they feel safe. Low-stakes projects that guarantee small wins. Established markets where we know the playbook. Comfortable client relationships that aren't stretching us.
Growth requires calculated risk. If everything on your plan feels achievable, you're probably not thinking big enough. But equally, if you're chasing every shiny opportunity, you're not thinking clearly enough.
Delegation versus elimination
Here's a crucial distinction: not everything on your stop-doing list needs to disappear. Some activities should be delegated. Others should be eliminated entirely.
Delegation is about moving work to the right person. Elimination is about questioning whether the work matters at all. Before you hand something off, ask: "If no one did this, what would actually break?"
You might be surprised how often the answer is "nothing."
Protecting founder energy for what matters
Your energy as a leader is finite. Every yes to something minor is a no to something major. Every tactical fire you fight is strategic time you lose.
The most successful entrepreneurs I've worked with guard their energy fiercely. They batch admin tasks. They limit meetings. They create protected time for deep thinking. They say no quickly and without guilt.
This isn't about working less. It's about directing your effort where it creates the most value. It's recognising that focus is a competitive advantage and distraction is a growth killer. One of my much-repeated pieces of advice is that "one of the most important meetings in the week is the one you have with yourself". Create time to sit back and think about the strategic direction of your business.
Start with three
Building a stop-doing list doesn't mean changing everything overnight. Start small. Identify three things you'll stop, delegate or eliminate this quarter.
Perhaps it's a weekly meeting that has lost its purpose. A report you produce that no one uses. A market segment that's more trouble than it's worth. A project that sounded exciting six months ago but now drains resources without delivering results.
Give yourself permission to let go. Your business will thank you for it.