The ups and downs of entrepreneurship are like riding Mr. Freeze at Six Flags. If you have a business or are in the process of starting your business, you probably are familiar with my description of how your emotions are up and down as an entrepreneur.
What are the Ups and Downs of Entrepreneurship?
The ups and downs of entrepreneurship start when an idea germinates in your mind throughout your life if you have a business or have never started the business. What I mean by the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is that sometimes you will feel so good and accomplished within your thinking and in your body. You will feel good about yourself, which is what I call the ups. Your thoughts will be pretty good towards you and your life. On the other hand, sometimes you will feel terrible inside, and you may want to give up. You start to think, “What’s the point, right?” This area of entrepreneurship is what I like to call the downs. Therefore, you have the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Thankfully there are ways to stay balanced. In this article, we will go over a few.
When an idea first comes to your mind, it’s exciting, especially when you know that your idea is going to impact people’s lives for the better, as well as your own. So this point in the process is an up. You feel so good when getting this idea that you completely think it all the way through to the end result. You see its success, and you see people happy benefiting from your services. You’re so excited, you have to tell someone. So you go and tell everyone in your house and your friends on social media.
But when you tell them, no one seems to be that excited about it. They all just kind of look at you or not, right? Then self-doubt kicks in, and you start to drag yourself down… this point is a down. It’s definitely not fun in the down points of entrepreneurship, but it can be used as a learning lesson and not an excuse to give up.
False Perception of Support in Entrepreneurship
Have you ever participated in your school’s candy bar sale? I always like to use this as a bad example of everyone you know will support you because we banked on that when we were younger. Almost everybody in your neighborhood, at your parents’ jobs, your aunts’ jobs, and their neighbors bought some candy bars from you. Sometimes buying more than one or even the whole box. They bought some candy because they knew you or your parents. They also bought the candy because they love chocolate and didn’t have quick access to a store. And you solved their problem by providing the chocolate for their deeply ingrained craving, so they paid you for it.
I am sorry to say that entrepreneurship support works totally differently as an adult. Instead of trying to raise money for your school now, you’re trying to make money to provide a quality life for yourself or your family. At the same time, you are helping people solve their problems (just like anyone working a job). Now instead of supporting you like they did when you were younger, they talk bad about you. And those people who supported you before are not supporting you now and probably never will support you. NEWS FLASH: BECAUSE IT’S YOU.
The you they thought they knew because of their own opinions of you to make themselves feel better. So basically they were above you. They’ve formed this whole distorted image of you growing up as this or as that. You come to some of those people now and they are going to look at you with a look that says, “Why would I listen to you or better yet, buy something from you?”
The Downs of Entrepreneurship
Those beginning downs of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship are pretty tough points to cope with. Because in reality, we want our family to be proud of us and support us. As an entrepreneur, unfortunately, we have to quickly learn, it doesn’t work like that and that’s okay. Because if you want to live a peaceful and prosperous life concerning you and your business, you can’t allow disgruntling doubtful voices to hinder your growth mindset.
Although your thoughts and heart might be in a more open space because you would be right there to support your family and friends. Even if it’s just in excitement for that person. Support gives fuel to those who are living to impact and empower other’s lives. No matter how big or small.
Beware of “Friend Request”
And get this, although these same people who clearly have shown us through the years don’t “mess” with us, they send you friend requests. Do you get where I’m going? Okay, good, let’s keep going. Because we have businesses to run and selves to take care of. So these people who send you these requests will never like, comment, or share anything about what you do because they are not there to help you promote your business and aren’t obligated to. They are there to see if you may or may not be doing better than them after everything they put you through to alter how you think about yourself so that you won’t accomplish anything. And the secret they don’t know is that it’s not that you can’t accomplish anything because you can.
Their winning point is that you won’t, thanks to your thoughts of yourself holding you back. Some people have the mindset of, “If it didn’t happen for me, it’s not going to happen for you!” I put an exclamation because people find excitement in misleading you by tearing you down. And that type of mindset for someone wanting to venture out and start a business is toxic. So toxic that you won’t budge one step to get started. That is the moment that you have allowed them to control you once again.
Do Not Give Up
When the down points of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship show up from lack of support or exhaustion, DO NOT GIVE UP! Your service or product won’t be for everyone. You have a choice to accept that friend request or not. We have to start taking responsibility for our mental health by looking at our choices and examining the outcome. If you see that the outcome compared to past outcomes of being in the presence of these people was detrimental to health, choose wisely. When your product is not for those whom you have chosen to surround yourself with, leave. The good thing about social media is that you can remove yourself or people from your friends or followers list. The choice is yours. Go and find the people who need what you have.
How to Stay Balanced and Start Your Business
Once you figure out you need to change who you surround yourself with and who really needs what you have, you will find your niche. A niche is “a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.” These are the customers who will support and benefit from your service, idea, or product. I admit, I am someone who was (and still is) afraid of moving past my doubtful thoughts because of what might happen, so I had a hard time announcing and promoting my businesses.
The off thing about it is that some of those thoughts came out right regarding what people would say or do. And that is okay because our consciousness is made to protect us. Some of those fearful thoughts are protection from hurtful feelings of rejection. Although some of my doubtful thoughts were right regarding what someone would say or do. Because people did say and did stuff. Some people had their noses up and a lot of people never liked or shared my post. I am perfectly fine with that because I had to learn my lesson through the downs. This a good way to pinpoint those toxic individuals you need to remove from your life.
What You Must Learn
What you will learn through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is what will not work and who not to allow back into your space. Sometimes you’ll be treated like, ‘Who do you think you are?” That is what all of that negative talk is for. It’s for your thinking, it’s to distort your view of yourself. When they mumble those words, they want to say, “You are going against those bad ideas we gave you about yourself, what are you doing!?” It is said to you to stop you from doing something great with your life. Because if you think bad of yourself, you have no room to believe in your abilities. It can be scary and debilitating to the point of you doing absolutely nothing and remaining the same.
Also, you have to learn and understand it’s okay if people you know don’t support what you have going on. It’s not their responsibility or obligation to support you. This, for me, makes it better because now they can’t control how you feel about yourself or your business every day. They don’t control if your business is profitable or not. Once you accept this, you create space in your entrepreneurial journey for more ups than downs.
Steps to Start Your Business
More ups from the ups and downs of entrepreneurship will come from setting short-term achievable goals with yourself and your business. First of all, you have to change your mindset to think positively of yourself and your ideas. Each time you have a negative thought, replace them with three positive thoughts about yourself. Here are some steps to building your business credit and experience some ups as an entrepreneur.
Step 1. Come up with an idea for a service or product
Step 2. Come up with a business name and do a free business name shirt on your Secretary of State website.
Step 3. You may choose to get a virtual phone number and virtual address from Google and other online mailing services.
Step 4. Register or file your business name and information with the Secretary of State (average cost $100).
Step 5. After approval, go to the IRS website and apply for you EIN. You can select the best tax assignment for your circumstance.
Step 6. Get your Duns number from Duns and Bradstreet (To get grants and business credit reporting).
Step 7. Set up a free website. Google free websites.
Step 8. Open your business banking account.
Step 9. Go to Nav.com and set up a paid account to have your business credit payment history automatically reported.
Step 10. Through Nav.com apply for 3-4 Net-30 accounts using your EIN or DUNs number to purchase inventory and supplies for your business.
Step 11. Payback your Net-30 accounts 10 days before the due dates with your business banking account. Thirty days later you will have placed your business in a position for a small business loan and grant approvals. You have given your business a strong and legitimate reputation. This is how to stay balanced through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
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The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of The We Spot, it’s employees, sponsors, or affiliates.
