In today’s modern age of technology, starting an online business for less than $100 can be easy. With an average of 543,000 new businesses getting started each month, this shows that the desire to escape that 9-5 is vast.
But running a business isn’t as easy as it sounds. Objectively, it seems like the best option especially when it comes to making more money, managing your own schedule, and having more freedom to do the things you enjoy.
These things take place once you’ve gone through the processes of growing, gaining awareness for your business, learning lessons along the way, and truth to be told, the grind will always be a part of entrepreneurship. That’s why I love Gary Vee’s take on “enjoying the process”:
“One of the things I try to push people towards is to love your process. If you’re in this to flex on Instagram, you’re going to lose…”
Before we dive in, let’s also look at the following stats:
- 50% of small businesses survive five years or more.
- In the US, there are 30.2 million small businesses.
- Nearly 50% of small businesses spend $10,000 or less on digital marketing each year.
- 61% of small businesses invest in social media marketing.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur who’s been in business for 1 year, 5 years, or 30 years, what’s truly going to determine your success?
The short answer: hard work.
So let’s elaborate some more. Here are some of the key lessons for entrepreneurial success:
You have a clear vision
If you don’t know where you’re headed and you don’t set goals in place to help guide you along the way, you’re always going to feel like the hustle isn’t getting you anywhere.
Having a clear vision will help you with the following:
- Eliminate distraction. Anything that doesn’t foster where you want to be in life shouldn’t take up your time.
- Clarity of opportunities and possibilities. Instead of focusing on your weaknesses, you focus on your strengths and how they can get you closer to your destination.
- Take massive action because it’s the only that you’ll get closer to achieving your goals and living the kind of life you envision for yourself.
Not afraid of hard work
For anyone wanting to jump in entrepreneurship, if you knew that there’d be countless nights where you’d have to stay in, take a big risk, and skip out on all of the fun events your friends have going on, you’d probably think twice.
For those who are hungry, ready for change, have a vision that’s bigger than where they are today, you’ll push forward.
Success is never guaranteed and you can’t count on past accomplishments to sustain any business. More specifically, working hard means that you’re disciplined, dedicated, and persistence — even when the results won’t surface until months to sometimes years later.
You are truly passionate about what you do
When you love what you do, it becomes less about the destination but more about the journey.
One of the things I learned early on in my career was that making decisions based on money would result in loss of passion, and ultimately make me unhappy.
Being truly passionate about what you do means that you have a deep love for your craft and you’re willing to do what it takes to make your vision a reality.
Failure is seen as a stepping stone to success
It can be easy to let the fear of failure hold you back from really pursuing your dreams. I always like to say: “get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.” It’s in those moments that you start to experience growth, which in turn, fuels your chances of success.
Change your perspective on failure and instead, embrace it, and learn from it. Know that failure is not the opposite of success but it’s a part of it.
You don’t make excuses
Accountability and responsibility is huge. It can be easy to put off hard tasks because they’ll take a lot of your time or because you just simply don’t feel like doing them.
Any entrepreneur will agree that in order to do what you absolutely love, you’re going to have to live a lot of years also doing things that you don’t love as a part of the process.
“Excuses are used as a justification to defend your inaction, break this habit and take daily consistent action. Excuses are a direct result of taking a lack of responsibility for your life, people like to just take it easy doing nothing all day long, they act like they made it to the top already, when you realize that you are the one responsible for your life then you will stop trying to blame others. People have time to sit around watching TV all day long, but they don’t make time for success.” (Source)
You never lose sight of your “why”
There has to be a greater purpose than just making a ton of money or being able to wake up whenever you want.
Knowing your why means that you’re working to impact people and you have to start with yourself first. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to uncover your “why”:
- What do you want to do?
- How will you do it?
- For who are you going to do it for?
- What is the value you want to bring?
- How does it make you feel?
Final Thoughts
No one is ever going to work as hard as you when it comes to ensuring your own success. The risks will be high, but so will the rewards. Keep your head in the game and never give up. Continue to improve where you need to and never stop learning.
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