Your entrepreneurial journey isn’t meant to be simple or straight forward.It’s meant to be amazing. The world ” amaze” comes from “maze” which is a symbol of self-discovery in many ancient cultures.Choosing to be an entrepreneur is a modern path to self-discovery.So every time your journey looks too challenging or too unclear,remember it’s meant to.Then look inside,make your choice and keep going.The point of the maze is not to find your way,but to find yourself ( insight from Roger hemilnton ).
Who you become in what you set out to do is much more important that what comes out of it.Life is tough,Life is a battle. I think entrepreneurs fight more battles in their effort to create businesses that serves people and create jobs for others. They fight discouragement, government policies,competitors and trying all they can to gain customer’s trust.It’s a tough battle indeed but they don’t quit. Why ?,because of their entrepreneurial drive within them which is not a survival drive .That drive will just not let them quit.
Quitting has not always been the answer but endurance and perseverance. Perseverance is a true logo of any successful entrepreneur. They simply keep at it until they get a desirable outcome. That you are called an entrepreneur is not a child’s play at all.You must have entered many years of experiences that can make you look back,beat your cheat and say “you know what?, those things made me a better entrepreneur today and I’m proud of myself”.
Those failures you encountered were really success in disguise because they made you better though the results were unfavorable but you became a better you. Now you know what to do not to experience same failure at a particular venture you took on or what you did before. You can now point out where someone is likely to fail if something is done in a kind of way.
Experience they say is the best teacher.Others can now learn from your experiences gathered over the years.Never look back and call those years of failure wasted years. They are all part of the process of making you the success you are today or will be in the future.
Imagine the years it took Edison to finally come out with a functional electric bulb. You think 9,999 times of failure took a year?. No. That must have been many years of failure but he said it only made him to know 9,999 ways not to make a functional light bulb. Failure is an opportunity to test other avenues. Anytime you hit failure and the thing that comes to your mind is quit ,just do these three things.
1.Quit tomorrow – Procrastinate your quitting. When tomorrow comes, try next tomorrow and you’ll realize tomorrow has never really come.When people and even motivational speakers talk about procrastination,it is always in its negative term but it has it positive side too.Procrastinate your quitting until you are tired of promising to quit. If you are not good at it you had better start today. This is a positive procrastination business and it makes sense. Please, when you hit a roadblock and you want to quit, promise me to quit next tomorrow of next tomorrow.
2. Always try to fail – I can imagine the look on your face right now. You’ll notice those craving for success are the ones experiencing failures the most.If this is the trend then try to fail instead . Sara blakely ,one of the youngest female billionaire in the world noted “my dad encouraged us to fail.Growing up,he would ask us what we failed at that week.If we didn’t have something ,he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome.Don’t be afraid to fail”. Always try to fail, in so doing you’ll find out you are actually succeeding instead of always trying to succeed and hitting failure every time. See failure as an experiment, as an opportunity and as an asset. As experiment in terms of knowing what will work next time and what won’t work. As an opportunity to be creative in trying other avenues. As an asset in terms of experiences you have gathered from the failures to pass on to others trying the same thing.
3.Persevere but be flexible – Always continue to push but stop using the same method that’s getting you nowhere .It is said that doing the same thing and expecting different result is the best definition of insanity.Change plans ,change method and try a new system while you persevere .The battle is tough but hang in there.Check your model and change what’s not working .Study those that have passed through your ordeal and learn from their experiences. Make few changes here and there. Be flexible and open to new ideas . Remember , it always too soon to quit.Quit another day not today.