The 3 Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make & How To Avoid Them
Has your business become more complicated than it needs to be?
We all start our businesses to achieve Entrepreneurial Freedom, whether freedom of time, money or impact.
The problem is 4 out of 5 businesses fail in the first 5 years of business, usually because the business owner has too many demands on their time & energy to make their impact.
It’s a common mistake. Most entrepreneurs live in a vacuum, isolated from each other.
Even with access to mentors and coaching systems, we miss a lot of the little (and big) aha’s that come from the constant feedback employees get from their peers at the desk beside them or department managers. Providing ongoing support to build skills, simplify and streamline every aspect of their processes throughout the day.
Plus, most bootstrapping entrepreneurs have been programmed by society to work hard rather than think big to achieve success…
… And for venture capital businesses there’s always the added pressures of keeping stakeholders satisfied.
It’s all too easy to lose sight of your own overarching objective of achieving entrepreneurial freedom when your head is down – fighting for clarity, traction and time .
Here are the 3 biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make and what you can do right now to turn things around and avoid them from now on.
Mistake #1: Wearing Too Many Hats
Trying to run your business with a “task mentality” or “job mindset”.
Equating energy output with money earned, like an employee who is contracted to trade dollars for hours.
If you are scattering your energy on menial tasks, You won’t have the time, energy, clarity or focus for your most important activities.
To turn it around you have to shift your task oriented – job mentality into an entrepreneurial mindset.
Getting clear and focused on the specific entrepreneurial freedoms and outcomes you want in your life and FROM your business. It’s key to remember your business is supposed to serve you, not the other way around.
That was your mindset when you started your business, right?
This is the best way to get organized so you can put frameworks and systems in place to take control of your business. If you don’t think it through, it won’t be scalable.
You’ll paint yourself into a corner of tangled complexity that you can’t extricate yourself from, because even when you have the cash flow to hire you won’t have systems in place to train anyone efficiently.
You’ll be the only one who knows how to do everything in your business and how all your scattered efforts and unfinished loose ends fit together.
Instead of achieving entrepreneurial freedom… You’ll find it easier and faster to do everything yourself, eternally bushwacking your way through a tangle of weeds and thickets of an undirected process.
The stakes can’t be overstated, making the difference between building a business you love, or being consumed by your business at the cost of your quality of life.
Mistake #2: Getting Drained By The Demands of Others
Building a business is demanding.
Harnessing your time and energy and creating healthy boundaries is the most valuable skill you can cultivate as an Entrepreneur, Coach or Healer.
Your business depends on your ability to decide where, how, and when to invest your energy. You must stand tall, stake your claim and set clear boundaries.
Stay energized, centered and productive. Shift out of reaction mode – and prioritize making your impact.
Time and energy are your greatest assets. If you are too depleted to be effective, you need to stop and regroup:
- Build your physical energy.
- Get clear and focused on your priorities.
- Harness your time and energy to use them well.
This includes, eating well, sleeping well and getting your exercise.
If this describes you and you want daily rituals to develop high performance success habits so you can double your impact with less effort. See: How To Protect Your Energy And Gate The Demands Of Others
Mistake #3. Getting Paralyzed In Fear And Doubt
It’s normal to experience fear, doubt, and to procrastinate.
Everyone experiences it, especially if you have a big vision that fuels your passion and challenges you.
The key is to gather your courage, get clear and focused on your strategy, and take decisive action.
The faster you act, the more momentum you’ll have, and more quickly your confidence and capacity will build.
Understanding this and treating every action as a test, helps. So do metrics, so you can be strategic about identifying weaknesses and measuring growth.
Adopting an objective instead of judgemental approach. Balancing the yang of pushing yourself through challenges to to build momentum… with the yin of kindness, self care and patience.
The big problems arise when you try to avoid or mask your doubts and fears by burying yourself in endless planning, menial tasks and distractions.
You know… those things you do that feel productive, but you’re really doing to avoid the vulnerability of making mistakes, looking green or feeling confused.
If you need to conquer your doubts to get to the next level, See: 3 Steps To Conquer Doubt and Grow Your Business
