What do you have to give up to be a successful Entrepreneur?
Success may mean different things to different people.
And we might have various metrics to keeps score e.g. Money, Happiness, Our level of impact to the world.
First we must acknowledge success is a journey not a destination. Then we must be willing to give up things that don’t serve us. Success requires sacrifice!
9 things to give up to be successful
1: Limiting beliefs
These could be beliefs about yourself or the world around you.
Whether you believe you have what it takes to be successful, confident, and fulfilled or not, you’re right.
Give up your self-doubt and limiting beliefs! In order to achieve anything, you must first believe that you can do it.
When you say, “I am unlucky,” “I don’t come from a wealthy home so I can’t go this far” “If only I had x,y,z, I could…” you identify yourself with failure.
Empowering beliefs, combined with inner certainty, is the force that drives you forward when your brain wants to quit.
2: Excuses
Until we decide to commit to our goals we only make excuses.
The problem with excuses is everything you give as an excuse is someone else’s strength somewhere.
For example, when you say “I don’t have capital so i cant do X.” Someone somewhere is working their ass off and doing big things while also teaching others how to “start from zero.”
The first step is to become aware of our excuses and avoid making them because they close our minds and limits our opportunities.
3: Dwelling on the past
There are people who dwell on past glory and those who hold on to it to limit their progress.
The fact is your past doesn’t define your future, the only thing that matters
is what choices and actions you make from today forward.
Nothing stops you from learning from your past but don’t let it be a stumbling block to reaching the goal you set for yourself and where you want to go in life.
4: Bad Habits
It doesn’t matter how “great” you are right now – bad habits can limit your growth and even shorten your life.
Everyone would benefit from making effort to get rid of their bad habits. It’s not a one step or one-off process. It’s something that has to be worked on daily.
What bad habits do you have that is stopping you from reaching where you want to be in life?
For Hunter, it was drugs, that lasted for several years until he found his freedom:
“Days would turn into weeks as I would fade in and out. My reality had become drug infested hotels, sleeping in the back seat of my car or random drug houses. It was a constant state of paranoia and psychosis…I wanted desperately to be sober but I just couldn’t figure it out.
It’s like I was drowning and couldn’t get my next breath of fresh air. I would have periods of sobriety but I couldn’t maintain it for long. I would often fall victim to myself.
Now, i have allowed sobriety to consume my life like the drugs did. Even though I haven’t had to live like that for a long time I will never allow myself to forget the pain that I experienced. It makes the life I have today even better. I wouldn’t trade what I have for anything. Family, friends, happiness, love, sobriety and freedom. Freedom is priceless.”
Take the time to get rid of your bad habits especially in your 20s. Successful people focus on developing good habits and rituals that keep their body, mind and soul in check.
5: Avoiding Responsibilities
The more you shy away from responsibilities, the more excuses and complaints you make and blame game you resort to. This is a recipe for failure.
Give up your excuses! If you want to be successful, you must learn to take responsibility for your actions and stop making excuses.
Quit blaming everyone and everything for your problems. Hold yourself accountable and when you say you will do something, you do it.
How many successful people have you seen complain a lot? Limit your time for whinin
g and surround yourself with people who tolerate minimal excuses.
Successful people realize early no one cares about your problems. If you don’t like your situation then make effort to change it.
6: The need for approval
Sometimes we walk around wondering what other people think about us.
How about learning to make moves without seeking approval from anyone. The key is to learn to trust your guts and have faith to figure things out in the process.
Ask smart questions, make adjustments and still trust your judgment without relying on external validation or other people’s approval of your choices.
Give up your need for approval. People will always have different opinions, so it’s important to learn to value your own opinion over others.
If you need other people to give you all the answers or tell you that what you’re doing is right then you set yourself up for failure.
Start trusting yourself and avoid needing approval from others before doing anything.
In fact, when we seek approval from the wrong people – it can lead to them using it as a means to manipulate our minds.
7: The need to impress other people
In a social media age, it takes a snap of a finger to share each other’s status and progress.
We try to impress ourselves and even people we don’t even know.
Real success is You Vs You.
The only person you should be trying to impress is YOURSELF.
8: Fear of failure
Fear is the culprit behind most of our enemies of success:-
- Procrastination
- Playing small
- Ego and
- even some part of Addiction.
Give up your fear of failure. You must be willing to fail in order to succeed
Take that risk. Start that business!
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear!
9: Give up perfectionism:
Perfection is an impossible standard to meet, so learn to accept imperfection and move on.
You must give up your preconceived notions of how things should go in order to be successful.
CONCLUSION
The trends I’ve noticed about what makes an entrepreneur unsuccessful are summarized above; in order to succeed, we must give up these things.
If you don’t give up those things, don’t be surprised if your business stagnates for months and months and months if you don’t.
I got attracted to tech from an early age getting close to my Father. Coupled with learning some high end skills i was able to build a 6 figure Ecommerce store a few years ago after graduating from Pharmacy.
The only way I have found to express myself as an introvert is through writing.
I’m convinced 100% that to build a 6-7-figure business and beyond you need to invest in yourself and your personal development.
The more you grow, the more your business will grow.
PS: I wrote a short book on why you don’t need more motivation and how to push through in such moments – get it here:
Totally! Great tips really.
I need to give up my limiting beliefs that I can have a successful online business.
Thanks for sharing
Awesome tips! Giving up limiting beliefs is so important to turn your dreams into a reality. Thanks for sharing!
The last one especially…. Goodness. Great read though. Thank you!
These are great tips. Limiting beliefs and perfectionism are definitely ones I’ve struggled with over the years. Little shifts make a huge difference.
These are all great tips!
Beautiful piece