The key to success starts in the mind. Your beliefs ultimately shape your capabilities, especially as an entrepreneur. If you go into a business venture with doubts and reservations, you will most likely fail. Business success doesn’t happen by chance. A business becomes successful because the people backing it has such strong beliefs in their capabilities to make the business succeed.
However, doubt has been a nasty disease penetrating the minds of entrepreneurs. They hear horror stories from people who have failed and instead of learning from their mistakes and applying the lessons learned to their own venture, they only take away the negative aspects. Adopting this toxic mindset will only lead you to failure.
I’ve begun to notice a trend in the common thoughts that prevent entrepreneurs from excelling and it’s time to set the record straight. There are 3 toxic doubts that I hear entrepreneurs often express when it comes to their business: “Creating a successful business is too hard,” “I have to have a big business idea to succeed,” and perhaps the dumbest of them all “Entrepreneurship has too many barriers to overcome.” At the end of the day, these are just excuses. If you want to change your way of thinking and really build a powerhouse business, take this advice on how to combat these 3 toxic thoughts.
BUSINESS IS TOO HARD
If you fall into the philosophy of thinking that business is too hard, you may have doubts like “Your efforts at the beginning will not give you the results you want,” “Nothing works easily,” or “It’s too much competition.” You probably look around and see people making profits and getting rich everywhere, yet you feel like it is extremely hard for you. Regardless, this speaks more to your lack of belief in yourself versus your business. The problem is that you’re letting your feelings trump fact. The truth is, in business you get what you negotiate for, starting a business isn’t “too hard,” or else there wouldn’t be millions of small businesses across the world. Yes, there is hard work involved, but that comes along with anything you do. If you’re looking for the “easy” way out, then entrepreneurship is not for you. You can go press your luck and wait for the government to rescue you from your poor little life. But, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. My advice? Drop the entitled attitude and put in the work, you can make your business succeed and create the life of wealth and freedom that you desire.
ONLY BIG IDEAS SUCCEED
So many people fall for this trap of thinking that if you want to have a big business, you need a big business idea from the start or they feel that a small business does not have the potential to become a big business. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If you look at some of the largest companies in the world today, they have stemmed from much smaller ideas. Take Amazon for example. Initially, Amazon was created to simply sell books online. When first starting the business, they had no clue that it would expand to the extent of what it is today. However, as Amazon grew and new opportunities presented themselves, they were able to grow and expand. The point is, it’s okay to start small. In fact, it may be better to start small especially if you don’t have previous experience running a business. The key to creating widely successful businesses is keeping your eyes peeled and taking advantage of opportunities to grow, scale and expand.
TOO MANY BARRIERS
For those of you who believe that entrepreneurship comes with too many barriers, you’re simply full of excuses. This is the most common toxic doubt that people face. Why? Because it gives them the opportunity to place the blame on everything else instead of taking accountability. Trust me you’ve come across these types of people. They’ll say things like “I would start a business if I had more money” or “I work 40 hours a week, I just don’t have the time to start a business.” These are excuses. Successful entrepreneurs find ways to work around these perceived barriers, while unsuccessful entrepreneurs heavily play into these excuses. The fact is no matter what you do for a living, everything has its benefits and everything has barriers. It’s up to you whether or not you will let those things stop you from succeeding. Experienced entrepreneurs make big bets on the opportunity. They don’t let a few bumps in the road deter them from going for it.
Entrepreneurship is all about how you perceive it to be. Of course, if you’re fueled with negative thoughts, it’s going to be a hard long process. But if you approach it with confidence, knowing that you can succeed, you will progress much faster and have a better chance of succeeding in the long term.