3 Habits for Startup Entrepreneurs
Rich Turner, Zipline Technologies, Inc.
Starting out on your own is a huge, blended smoothie of contrasting emotions. Some days you drink down exhilaration and sheer fun, and on other days it’s nerve-wracked, anxious, heart-pounding brew of despair.
It’s ok! Starting up is tough.
Even if your previous role was not your particular brand of happy, it probably set some rules that could define your working week. ‘Turn up at 9am…work…leave at 6pm’, etc. Now that all those rules are tossed in the garbage, how can you put a framework of sanity around your new venture to keep you effective and in control? Here are three suggestions for habits to deal with some of the things you may be feeling:
- FEAR
Don’t run away from it. Get to know it. I fear personal failure, but if I analyze that for a moment…I see that I’m worried about what other people think of me. Why should that matter? If I understand that I’m doing something I really care about, then I pragmatically have no ****s to give. This gives me conviction in my ideas, and I realize that ‘failure’ is a misnomer. It’s just experimentation. If you already made the jump in to the startup deep end, you did it because it was the right thing to do. And hey, if you start by wanting to figure out why you fear, then you’re already curious. That’s the opposite of fear!
2. FRUSTRATION
Whatever frustrates you is simply not yet fully understood. Think back to every time you had a day at work when a crisis hit and the world was literally ending. The next day there was probably a solution in place, and you wondered why the previous day was so awful? Use those instances to understand that a solution is on the way to dissipate your current angst, and pull that future back to your present. It will center you. Otherwise being in the moment will spiral you out of orbit. There is always calm after the storm, so logically speaking frustration is just part of the process to get to that calm. It’s supposed to happen as part of the creative process, to jump in and embrace it!
3. UNCERTAINTY
Going from structured work days to the personal liberty of making your own schedule, rules and success can breed uncertainty. “I wasted my day because I was sidetracked…”. Wasted day! Lost progress! Too much stress! Combat this by creating persistence in the way you do things. Start your day with personal and work rituals, even if it’s making coffee, checking mails, or going for a run. Ritual is routine, and persistent routine pays off. Even if you’re not creating your masterpiece each day, do what you need to get in to your flow and output that work. Talent flourishes on the solid bedrock of consistency. Hey, if motivation gets you going, then discipline keeps you growing. And it kicks uncertainty square in the ass.
That’s it. What are you waiting for? Know, embrace, persist!
