and what to do about them
Every rose has its thorns and so does entrepreneurship.
Here is a collection of 12 main problems entrepreneurs deal with.
1. NOT ENOUGH TIME
Most of us struggle with time.
We say there just isn’t enough time for what we want to do.
But the fact is we all have the same amount of time, it’s just how we use it is different.
We only have – or better said: TAKE time for the priorities.
So stop tolerating wasting time on things that are not meaningful!
Learn your priorities, if necessary change them and make the time for what truly matters.
2. FEAR OF FAILURE
That is one of the most common problems entrepreneurs face … the fear of failure.
But ask yourself … What does failure actually mean to you?
What if failure means to be stuck in the life you don’t enjoy, being tired and exhausted every day, too tired to be kind with your kids, being in depth to have to trade your life to get out of it, to be in a toxic relationship …?
Can you recognise what you are sacrificing if you don’t pursue your dreams?
Relationships, money, time…
So if you re-frame what it means to fail, you will learn failure in business actually happens only when you quit.
3. INDECISIVENESS
Many entrepreneurs have trouble making decisions.
But where does indecisiveness stem from?
To make it simple, it is in not taking ownership and responsibility for your choices.
And not having the courage and confidence that you will be able to figure it out.
It’s funny how people want to build a business so they can be their own boss, to live life on their terms, to have their freedom … but when it comes to actually exercising that freedom and making their own decisions, that’s when they usually back off and wish someone else would make the decision for them.
So what is the obvious solution?
Make quick decisions, accept the fact that they won’t be perfect and learn from your mistakes.
4. MONEY MINDSET AND MONEY PARADIGMS
Many of us have money paradigms that don’t really serve us well.
How can you tell if your money mindset isn’t optimal?
If you are really fearful of not having an income, then you know money runs your life.
If you are making decisions based on money, you are not free.
The most important decisions in life should not be based on money.
So how to break through the unserving money paradigms and scarcity mindset?
The easiest way is to read a book – like Killing sacred cows (G. Gunderson) or Rich dad, poor dad (R. Kiyosaki) or similar books on the topic (comment below on which books do you recomend).
If books aren’t your thing, then listen to podcasts on money mindset or watch videos.
You need to replace the thoughts around money so you can overcome the scarcity and start thinking in abundance. And if you fill your mind with thoughts of abundance (by reading, listening or watching good content on money mindset) you will shift your paradigms.
Gunderson in a.m. book teaches that money follows value.
So go and create value in the marketplace!
Stop working for money and let money work for you.
And instead of thinking you can’t afford something, think how you would be able to afford it.
5. PROCRASTINATION
Leaving things to do for tomorrow or later.
Every person, not only entrepreneurs, does that.
But why do we do that?
Let’s say something is really mentally challenging while the brain is extremely lazy and doesn’t want to do new things.
You need to convince the lazy brain to do the things that challenge you.
In order to do so, you have to become very strategic with them:
Plan to do challenging things when you are most energized.
After that you can do something to recover or reward yourself.
So the fix for procrastination is strategic action and enrolling your brain in doing things that are uncomfortable.
6. DEALING WITH TOXIC AND NEGATIVE PEOPLE
Toxic people and negative people are different.
Toxic people are purposely trying to hurt you. Most of us don’t know people like that. But to deal with them, it is important to set boundaries (even legal, if necessary) and distance yourself from them. If you are in that kind of situation, just remember, the victim has to set the boundaries, don’t expect the oppressor will do that.
Negative people find a problem for every solution. They are usually not that close to you. You can distance yourself from those people and surround yourself with likeminded people and people who inspire you. Be intentional with creating relationships, and be emphatic with the negative people.
There are also protective people that are scared people who love us and want to protect us (from what they consider will hurt us) but don’t understand what we are doing (friends, family). We don’t want to remove them, we rather want to learn how to communicate with them. You don’t have to give them too much information, just try to keep in harmony.
Whatever people you deal with, note that you cannot change the way they think or act. But you can do that for yourself – you are the one who gets to take ownership of your life and your relationships.
7. COMPLACENCY
The biggest problem for beginner entrepreneurs is complacency. That means you are willing to tolerate the circumstances you don’t like in order to keep what you have.
For example:
you are in a full time job and you want to start an online business to start living your life on your terms.
But complacency kicks in when your situation is not bad enough that you would put full attention to your business. And you have the excuse of “at least I have a job” so if this business won’t work, I still have a safety net.
Therefore, you don’t fully commit to your business, you only do what is convenient and not what is necessary.
But, hey! You get what you tolerate.
The moment you understand that that is not ok, you are done with complacency.
The best way to get over complacency is to change your environment – to surround yourself with people who inspire you, to read the books, watch the videos about entrepreneurship, so you can change what you see as normal and grow as a person and a business owner.
8. HOW TO KEEP GOING WHEN YOU ARE EXHAUSTED AND CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE
Consider working on your business as working out and building muscle.
You can’t do it 24/7, right?
You do it for a certain amount of time, then you need to rest. When you work out, your muscle starts to break, but while you are resting, the restoration of muscle tissue occurs.
The same happens with your business. You need to give yourself a break to restore the creative energy.
So work, be concentrated, and take a break when you lose your focus. Then, work again. You need to learn how long until you need a break. Taking 45 minutes work time with 5-15 min pause is a good place to start. This way you can be way more effective with your time.
When you are exhausted, you should not force yourself to work, because your brain will not be cooperating.
When that happens, you need to take time off and remove yourself from everything that would stimulate your brain. That includes TV, social media, videos, house work, even other people … do whatever brings joy and peace to you, whatever will relax and energize you instead.
9. PERFECTIONISM
Many people consider perfectionism as a great character trait. Because to them it means, they are giving the best they can to the people they serve.
And that is great and admirable.
But when does perfectionism become a problem?
That happens when you go back over and over and reevaluate your product or offer and you never release it until you feel it is perfect. You research and learn more and add things and tweak it and …
… you don’t get anything done in time.
People who suffer from perfectionism usually can’t get things done. They struggle to complete anything.
Perfectionism is actually fear of making mistakes. It reflects from the self-judgement and self criticism.
What you need to realise is there is no such thing as perfection, that is just an idea built in us from school. And we are afraid of making mistakes for the same reason.
Mistakes are impossible to avoid. They are part of the process and the only way to really learn.
But you can separate yourself from the mistake you made:
If you make a mistake, it doesn’t mean you are stupid, wrong, unworthy … Making mistakes has nothing to do with who you are.
It doesn’t mean you are not smart or wonderful or great … it only means you were brave enough to try something and learn from it.
Think how many people are too cowardly to make mistakes and consequently don’t allow themselves to experience something new?
So to overcome perfectionism, you need to be OK with making mistakes and learning.
You can still do your best, even if you make mistakes along the way.
10. SOCIAL REJECTION
It may sound weird, but entrepreneurs face social rejection probably more than anybody else.
What do I mean by that?
You create something or announce an idea, but someone doesn’t like it and attacks you for it. Mostly because it interferes with their belief system. So that is actually a defence mechanism from their own ideas that are against your idea.
What you need to do is realise that other people’s opinion has nothing to do with you.
When we are hearing any idea, our brain is weighing whether it agrees or not. If we disagree with an idea, we start to reject it. Most people who disagree with an idea, they start attacking it. They try to protect their own idea, justify that it is better and try to undermine yours. Some even make you a bad person for mentioning the “wrong” idea.
This has actually nothing to do with the person who presented a new idea.
That is because they strongly believe in their idea and mistakenly confuse that idea with who they are. Therefore, they feel the other idea is threatening their well-being. The brain gets in a primitive state and fights back to feel safe again.
When you are aware of the process, you can understand the person who is attacking you and acknowledge that. You get to realize you don’t have to agree with someone else and that other people don’t have to agree with you.
You also get to learn from that – how to communicate your idea better, so people, especially potential clients will understand.
11. SELF DOUBT AND IMPOSTOR SYNDROME
We are usually very afraid of other people judging us but the person who we are most afraid of is ourselves.
Self doubt comes from a place of you never following through what you say you are going to do.
If you face self doubt, you can break your big goal into a number of smaller goals or targets for which you are confident you can achieve.
Confidence is built with time and experience.
You need to commit to everything you say you will do.
Impostor syndrome comes from a certain expectation of who is supposed to be doing what you are doing and you don’t believe you are that person. So there are two conflicting ideas.
First question if both ideas are actually true. Then try to find a way to bring those 2 together.
12. OVERWHELM AND PARALYSIS
Overwhelm is an overflow of things we think we don’t have the capacity to deal with.
In online business, the best way to get overwhelmed is going through a lot of courses and not doing anything with them. Then you have so much information but you have no way of executing that.
So what to do is focus on one and execute it. Do not learn more than what you are able to do.
Stop wasting time on things you can’t implement right now. They actually keep you distracted.
You also cannot and should not be doing everything on your own.
Get or hire help. Build a support system for you.
Analysis paralysis or paralysis by analysis is the state of over-analyzing or overthinking a situation so that a decision or action is never taken. And the effect is paralyzing the outcome.
We overthink because we want to avoid failure or in order to get the best outcome. When expected to act or make a decision, we use over-analyzing to prolong or delay our actions, in fear of making a wrong choice.
Sometimes there are also too many choices – the more data we have available, the harder it is for us to process it. In fact, once the amount of data reaches a person’s threshold, their brain’s ability to process it starts to decline, up to a point when the person becomes paralyzed to make a decision.
The way to break through the paralysis is to prioritize your decisions and make quick and imperfect decisions.
Set the time by when you get to decide.
You can also chunk up your goal into many smaller goals,
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