There are some internal habits of feelings and habits that determine the level of success we achieve as entrepreneurs. However, there are some specific habits that can prevent burgeoning entrepreneurs from achieving their business goals.
This can be especially risky if you are a beginner entrepreneur and you have not achieved some level of profitability yet. You can find yourself stuck in a stage where your business is not making any profit and you can start having doubts. At this stage, you have to ask yourself critical questions; you need to ask yourself how long you are going to carry on like this before you face some very serious challenges.
In this article, we are going to learn how internal emotional and mental habits end up being the cause of failure for many entrepreneurs over time. Then we are going to see how we can slightly tweak those habits so that you can shift from being a struggling entrepreneur to a profit-oriented entrepreneur if you are currently facing the challenge.
What Prompts or Stimulates Our Entrepreneurial Journey?
Many entrepreneurs I have spoken to say the desire to change something, make a contribution is what inspires them to become entrepreneurs. I share the same view because when I decided I wanted to become an entrepreneur, I had a strong sense of purpose. I wanted to start a series of profitable business that would enable me make a positive contribution to my community. I realized that entrepreneur is not about what I want but what the community wants. That is why I stepped up to the challenge and actually took the action to create the change that I wanted. So business became a tool for that change.
Each entrepreneur has his/her own unique way of solving this great challenge. If one wants to use business as a tool of change, one should understand what business really is.
What Business Really Is
Business is just the process of exchanging products or services for the monetary equivalent of that value. However something happens along the process…we reach a point of resistance and friction. This is where certain skills need to be developed only by rolling up your sleeves and actually doing the activities that will create the skills and value you need to succeed in the process.
If it is something you have never done before, there is going to be a learning curve and your results will reflect where you are along the learning curve.
Sometimes great resources can become a liability
Because feelings and thoughts are habitual in nature, what many of us begin to do is to start feeling a sense of discontent with the friction as we start looking for alternative ways to accomplish our business goals. This is the first motivator we talked about earlier...about becoming an entrepreneur.
This process of feeling uncomfortable and discontent will lead one to reach out to personally create a solution, which is actually a wonderful process. However, due to inexperience, we may point a finger at the actually process as the origin of the discontent instead of looking for ways we can become better, smarter, more efficient and more resourceful in the business process.
The first big learning curve in your new business process is critical as a beginner entrepreneur. This determines whether you graduate to the next level of your entrepreneurial journey to you fail and have to repeat this process over if you are still determined to stay on this path.
There also comes a time when you need to change your business or your niche or your business strategy in order to become profitable. Although that is what many entrepreneurs do, 90% of the time it is the wrong approach. More often than not, it is not the business process that needs to change. The problem is how well you master the business process. Any business is profitable. The problem is not the business, the problem is you—your mentality.
Many beginner entrepreneur get trapped in this, going round and round in circles and never really getting their business off the ground. Most of them throw in the towel the moment they encounter their first moment of friction. Essentially, they choose to believe that the problem has to do with the business itself. Instead of looking for the solution within, they decide to look for solutions outside by changing business, industry etc. well, we are not saying that you can’t change your business, niche, market etc. all we are saying is that you should try to look inside for the moments of friction before looking outside of yourself.
Many business failures are not caused by outside circumstances, but by failure of the new entrepreneur to upgrade their skills in the business process they are trying to build. People who get stuck at this level are known as “opportunity junkies“.
Starting Over Again And Again
People who walk away from a business process at the first sign of friction or challenge can be compared to a farmer who looks for a seed and the land on which to plant the seed, prepare the land and planting the seed. In the process of taking care of the seed to germinate, you walk away from your seedlings leaving it to die and starting the process all over again at another place. Clearly, this approach is not going to work. As an entrepreneur, it is not recommended that you do that with your business process. Instead of walking away, you should examine the situation and see what needs to be corrected, what skills you need, which areas you need to pay more attention, what tools you need and which people you need to succeed.
What’s The Answer then?
The aim of any serious entrepreneur is to get unstuck and move to the next level of consistent profitability instead of starting the process all over again. You have to learn to make quick business decisions and be slow to change those decisions. If, on the other hand, you are slow to making decisions and quick to change those decision, you might get stuck in whirlpool of stagnation. As an entrepreneur, you must sort through our world to find better ways of doing things instead of trying better things to do. That is what makes entrepreneurs who they are. You must remain committed to your business process until your first profit comes. Changing goals posts is not the solution.
If you have settled on a new business process or you have grabbed a business opportunity, give it your best shot before you even start contemplating how to change the business. Unless it has become absolutely clear that you just have to change the business in order to succeed, you should stick to your initial goals and try to achieve them as best as you can.
In business, the grass always seems greener the other side but we often forget the fact that the grass looks greener the other side because someone had to water the grass for a very long time. I believe every business idea is valid. It is how you approach it: the amount of work you put in, the skills you employ, the innovation you inject in it and the motivation with which you approach it that makes all the difference.
Don’t be in the habit of trying to find better things to do. Be in the habit of doing things better. If you have picked on some idea, try as much as possible to make it work instead of dropping it for something shiny every time you encounter the first huddle.
The rate at which your business grows depends on you. If you grow faster as an individual; if you become more efficient and more productive, your business will follow you. If you believe that there is something you should improve in as an individual, try to do it. It could save you years of wasted efforts and many thousands of dollars.
The entrepreneur must continuously evolve as a person. The entrepreneur must seek to improve himself and the business will automatically improve.
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