How Should You Prepare Mentally As An Entrepreneur?
Admittedly, a few take to it easily enough. They enjoy knowing it’s them against the world, and waking up every morning to the prospect of squeezing out some progress, whether it’s measured in sales, headway on a project, or just clocking another glorious day of workplace independence. This is a prime example of an entrepreneurial mindset.
Beyond being prepared to oversee basic business operations, running a business requires a different mindset than holding down a job. You have to think and act like a successful entrepreneur, which is harder for many than it sounds. This requires one to keep the success of their endeavors top of mind while backing a positive attitude with consistent daily actions.
But for others, the transition from the supposed security of a W-2 job to the uncertainties of business ownership is daunting. If that’s you, and if you’re thinking seriously of going out on your own anyway, then it’s you I’m talking to right now.
Adopting a healthy entrepreneurial mindset calls for replacing your fears with confidence. Though the best way to gain confidence is through experience, it’s not advisable to dive headlong into the hard-knocks school of starting a business without setting aside time and bandwidth for some mental preparation.
“Mental preparation for what?” you might ask. Why, to try your best to be the sort of person who runs a personally fulfilling and, at least by your reckoning, successful business.
After all, you’re no longer exchanging tasks for wages. You’re putting your expertise, passion, drive and intelligence in the marketplace in hopes of realizing more of your potential than ever before.
The development I recommend starts with embodying your brightest and best self — with you as the only guardian of that standard. In practice, this prospect is enough to send most would-be entrepreneurs running to the security — make that supposed security — of a regular job.
So what are the biggest fears we face in adopting a successful, entrepreneurial mindset?
Fear of Isolation
Facing the loneliness that comes with starting a business, calls for a sense of drive and purpose fierce enough to keep you swimming against a tide of frustration, disappointment and loneliness.
So it makes sense that the social implications of a drastic life change — as represented in starting a business - is one of the biggest fears of would-be entrepreneurs. With you focused on your grand project, it can be difficult to relate to friends and family.
After all, being an entrepreneur truly consumes you as the ever-growing list of responsibilities you have to meet chews through your so-called down time. The new business becomes who you are, what you eat, what you sleep and what you breathe. In those circumstances, you either learn to revel in and take inspiration from your own company, or you grow miserable.