I have failed multiple times and every time I experienced those failures, I learned that it was because of my lack of conviction & clarity in my actions combined with half cooked knowledge about the game I was playing. I lacked focus sometime and messed up badly.
So today I thought to write down a few practical lessons for all you aspiring and ambitious souls which can enlighten you and help you to be more realistic before you plan to venture into any unknown territory full of dilemma and uncertainty. Especially if you are trying to do a startup.
Let’s See Why One Fail ?
You kept on dreaming that you will start someday, you had the passion, the knowledge, the desire but you never ever had the courage to kick-start. Why ?
I will point out 3 major reasons which I have personally experienced and observed in my entrepreneurial journey so far:
1. Fear: Is Your Biggest Enemy
Yes, you never started and failed your dream, your passion just because you never had the guts, the courage to pursue your dream. You always aspired , you were ambitious but that fear of failing loomed so large that you never took that first step to walk the path.
I find the no 1 reason why we fail is because of our fear, we always talk, but never act why because we fear our society, our parents, our friends and many more lame excuses pops which creates such a strong wall that we never dare to break.
Somehow you managed to take that first step, but there are zones of uncertainty, there is a hope but no clarity, there are financial challenges, you need some luck and support but you have no idea from where it will come. So all these testing moments will push your fear to extreme levels. It is at this juncture 90–95% people give up, their fear wins over their vision, their dream.
Is it bad? Not entirely, but if we let our fear win, we will never be able to play or remain in the game, we need to fight out, ponder why these challenges even exist, if we are an entrepreneur, we need to work on these loop holes come out with a solution to get over those challenges, so instead of giving up if we stay strong, introspect, analyze, we will find the answer that there is something fundamentally wrong with our actions and approach.
2. You Are Not Having The Required Grit & Persistency
To build an enterprise out of no where is not easy. You may be rejected, dejected, doubt will creep up, you will feel like everything is working against you, hope will be shattered, people around you will start questioning you, you will be devastated. But remember:
Winners always turn inward to take the responsibility instead of blaming external factors, they remain persistent and never stop trying alternate ways to get out of all the troubles encompassing them. Your grit, you will power has to work in collaboration with your intellect to give you the way out.
Problems have always been out there for anyone who has done it before, what they did differently was to stay calm, determined and humble enough to understand the problem from their root, they worked hard on it without giving up, to come up with required solution.
I strongly believe:
Repeated failures always end with one big success, you just need to stay long enough to taste it.
You will only fail if you fail to address the failure points after you found them.
3. Lack Of Focus Kills You:
One of the biggest reason in my early days, why I failed in many product ideas which I pursued was that I was too much distracted. Had too many things on a single plate and result not the single one clicked.
Similarly, it goes with many tasks we execute, we try to multitask, to consume social media, listen news, frequent mail checking, phone calls all these create a mess and we end up poorly executing the task in hand. We seldom focus and are easily distracted by the ting notification sound our so called smartphone has to offer.
I apologize if I just pointed out the majority of your waking life realities
As an entrepreneur, you may try to handle too many stuffs and yes, you will have to but you need to prioritize your time right and take one task at a time. You also need to ensure you are not wasting your valuable time in unwanted meetings and discussions as they seldom give returns and takes a maximum portion of your available time slot.
Certain discipline has to come in your daily work routine else you will be doomed in handling too many things in a given point of time
All successful people have done one thing for sure they have their daily time table chalked down, they plan most of their time to be spent. They value it more than anything and utilize to its fullest. Yes, they too get all the external distractions, but they don’t act out of any compulsion and have full control over their actions. No, No, they are not robots they are full-fledged humans who are aware and conscious enough to plan their task way ahead of time.
Great leaders lead with full attention and less distraction. They focus, they analyze and delegate their task with full control. They don’t act out of addiction but act out of curiosity and conviction