Photo by Pearl
So you’re an entrepreneur and your business has started seeing some success. We hate to be the ones to burst your bubble, but don’t get too excited. Of course, you deserve a huge congratulations for taking the risk of starting your own business and seeing it start to payoff—but we’re here to remind you why it’s critical that you stay grounded in reality and how to do so.
IT’S EASY TO GET CARRIED AWAY
Maybe you just landed a huge account, or superstar/tastemaker/influencer Taylor Swift was photographed with your product. That’s awesome! You deserve to pop a bottle (or maybe even a few) of champagne. But don’t let your imagination get the best of you. Once you start daydreaming about your imminent success and inevitable takeover of your industry, it’s hard to come back down and let go of those ideas. You definitely don’t want to waste your time planning out fantasies that haven’t even happened yet. And if those daydreams don’t come true, you’re only setting yourself up for huge disappointment. Celebrate your current accomplishments, and then keep working toward the next goal that will take you to your imminent industry domination.
LUCKY STREAKS DON’T LAST FOREVER
Just ask your friend who’s always going to Vegas. Your luck can change at any second. Even if everything has been going your way for 2 years straight, there’s no guarantee that after 2 years and 1 day, your success will stay the same. Not to say that your entire business is reliant on good fortune of course, hard work, dedication, and passion are what drive your business forward. But after you’ve put in that hard work for awhile, it’s easy to want to cruise and enjoy the fruits of your labors instead of keeping up your intense forward momentum. Go ahead, take some time to celebrate all that you’ve achieved, but be ready to jump right back into working hard for even more growth.
So how do you stay firmly in the middle between near delusional optimism and overwhelming pessimism about what you can achieve?
HERE’S HOW WE DO IT:
Start off in that crazy optimistic mindset. Imagine you have an unlimited budget with a dream team that produces quality work 24/7. Write down your wildest dreams and loftiest goals based off of your imaginary unlimited resources. Now, check back in with yourself (before you wreck yourself). Look at where you are now in terms of your budget, time, and other resources and be brutally honest. Come up with feasible actions that you can take now to help you reach your ambitions. Remember to reevaluate these action items every so often to reflect any changes in your capacity to reach your goals. And there you have it, our secret to staying grounded in reality without having to give up on our wildest dreams.
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FROM THE EDITOR
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