Mentality Changes Required to Start a Business
Getting mentally prepared to start up your business
A lot of self-help books exist out there about starting a business. You’ve probably made all necessary preparations to start up on your own, but have you taken the time to prepare yourself mentally to startup the business. In truth, unless you have done this, you are probably setting yourself up for a wild ride with lots of emotional twist and turns.
Today, I would be leaving my work desk to talk about the hard reality in the realm of business startups and how you should prepare your mind to take on your venture head on.
“Too many people forget to mind their own business. They spend their lives minding someone else’s business and making that person rich.”
Robert Kiyosaki
So here is the truth, the plain truth, to prepare yourself for the journey ahead.
You must give in the time
Starting up a job doesn’t necessarily end your usual nine to five work. Of course, you have stopped a 9am to 5pm ‘job’ but you are most likely on the road to an a 6am to 11pm ‘business’. The plain truth is it takes work and if you want to do it right you’ve got to put in the time. Yes, you may have heard of those entrepreneurs who had free time to goof around, and travel around but most of the times those are mere aftermath of a long work period, you might just have caught them during their very few break times.
Mentality check: When starting a business think of yourself as working to overthrow the market that your white-collar job controlled. So, you are out in the harsh cold world struggling to gain a market segment probably monopolized by a company somewhere. And to earn your goals, you would have to outwork all the efforts of their staff and employees combined. This is what you should have in mind when taking this bold path.
If are starting up a business with the aim of getting more free time, sorry to spoil your hopes but, you might not be able to achieve some of these, at least not yet.
This sounds exhausting doesn’t it? This is why I suggest you go for what you love doing. This brings me to my second topic.
Go for what you love
Yes you might have heard it a thousand times before, in fact this might begin to sound cliché, but that is the truth. All entrepreneurs that have gone down this road have seen that work gets boring sometimes.
Mentality check: If you should make as much as you could, such that you would not need to work again, what (work) would you do on in order to pass time, if there’s something like that, you’ve probably gotten your venture or something similar to it.
Think about it, if the paid job you longed for becomes boring years after employment, don’t think you would not loose interest because it is your business. Your love for what you do is a driving force you need to take you through this strenuous and tortuous journey of starting up a business, and would be the force that would also keep you in the business.
When starting a business, learn to think beyond the ‘NOW’, you are starting a business with hopes that it would be the next gumption in that field, starting it with superficial interests or desires would just lead you back into the circle of an unsatisfied work life.
You would meet failure, that’s for sure
The road to successful business venture is paved with failure, lots of it.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right once and then everyone can tell you that you are an overnight success”
Mark Cuban
Failure has always been a part of life, to reject it is like rejecting the path of reality. Failure would come inevitably it is your choice to face your business and take the failure now. If you avoid your venture because of fear of failure, you would eventually end up a failure and that is failure coming at a latter state.
Mentality check: would you rather fail now and continue reaping the enormous benefits that comes from your failures, or avoid failure now and remain a failure the rest of your life. Its your choice.
Be gutsy, and go for the best
“If you’re the kind of person who has no guts, you just give up every time life pushes you. If you’re that kind of person, you’ll live all your life playing it safe, doing the right things, saving yourself for something that never happens. Then, you die a boring old man”
Robert Kiyosaki
Guts is necessary, you should be bold, take on projects that might scare you, work on ventures, that people consider above you. In my experience in the engineering sector, I’ve noticed how small firms disqualify themselves even before their proposals are rejected. Yes, many clients might want to partner with a firm with over 100 employees and many high portfolio companies, but, remember that sometimes with such large companies comes large and strenuous bureaucracies, and maybe this client just wants a simple company where he has direct contact with the owner, by selling yourself short, you have already lost all.
“There is a lesson from failure, but you don’t learn from not trying at all”
Mentality check: While going about your business, keep it in mind that the worst that can happen is a rejection, apart from that it is all to your benefit, would you give up all these impending benefits just for some fear or inferiority complex. Engrain this into your psyche and go for the best.
Be sure ready for competition.
The world is made up of over eleven billion people, each constantly struggling for survival, it would be stupid to think you would go into a business venture without competition,
Let me put it like this you would get competitors and even some very annoying imitations. We live in a dog eat dog world, with the general maxim if you can’t stand the heat, leave the kitchen,
If you think competitions are disturbing then you haven’t seen complete imitations, this can be devastating and make you even think of quitting. And bet me if you start up something good it would come, it is part of life
Mental check: Whenever you hit rock bottom and feel like yielding to the competition and quit, look back on what you have got so far, imagine a scenario when you triumph over all around you in such a way that you get acclaimed. See yourself being interviewed on TV and telling people about how this situation made you feel. Think of it this way because that is just what it is: A story you tell later in future, and everybody likes a good story, don’t you?
Keep learning
The world is changing, so should you, Try to learn everyday.
The world is like a treadmill even to remain in position, you need to keep moving, stop moving and you don’t just stop but rather you retard. To progress you don’t just have to move, you have to move faster than others.
Mentality check: Even your success in business doesn’t mean you should stop improving yourself, because the day you start thinking you’ve got enough under your belt, that’s the day you start loosing it all.
The ride is not always easy
It isn’t easy for anyone, trust me even the most established of us all face troubles too that is what you have to face, troubles are bent to come
Mentality check: When you face each trouble, in your mind, tell yourself that troubles higher than this might come in the future and you would overcome such trouble, make yourself feel as though you are stronger than that imagined, large problem in the future. Then using that mentality, face this current problem as a conqueror who would conquer an even bigger problem bigger than your current dilemma.
Problems and challenges would come and go, that is their life cycle, but you would remain, because your life cycle is even longer, don’t let any problem take you down with it.
Let’s face it, starting a business is difficult, and keeping a business is hard, but the result is nice. This is what I do, and think you should imitate if you can:
Take every day as a chain fragment, a chain you form by the continuous daily effort you put into your business, a chain of effort you make continuously everyday keeping to your resolutions. And try to ‘NOT’ break the chain, take it upon yourself that if this chain would break, it wouldn’t be from you, (and since this is your business, who else would break it — sneaky right? 😉). During those though days, when you feel like you’re not getting any results, take consolation if not from anything, but from the chain you have formed through days of constant effort, and remember it is this chain that would bring you the results you so desire.
Starting your business is really one tough climb, but the view is great!
