When you’re dissatisfied with where you are in your business – here is my advice about what to do! There are 3 things immediately you can do to think differently about your business that will help you as you grow.
There is a common trend amongst entrepreneurs that I talk to… they feel frustrated that they are not further along in their business. It’s common if we are starting our own business, then that means we are type A, we’re go-getters, and we have a vision that we want to fulfill, and we’re not going to be satisfied until we get it. And that’s what makes us awesome.
At the same time, it also can be that desire that leaves us stressed and dissatisfied with the lives that we’ve already created and so I want to provide you with three reasons why you should stop being stressed out about the fact that your business isn’t where you want it to be.
REASON ONE: Once you reach that goal, you’re not going to be satisfied even then.
The joy of being an entrepreneur, the joy of this climb, this battle to achieve what we want is actually in the process of achieving it. The path that we’re walking, it’s stressful, it’s concerning, it’s exciting, it’s thrilling. The moment you get that first purchase order, these are the moments that you’re going to look back on and remember with so much joy and satisfaction.
This part of the process, this journey is what we like enjoying. If you sat down to watch a movie and you just saw the end, the victory, it’s not exciting. It’s not interesting. The hero is only the hero because of the journey that they have to go through and fight the obstacles that are in their life.
So I just want to remind you, number one, that if you are dissatisfied, stay focused on the fact that the journey, the fight, the battle, this is actually why you are an entrepreneur. The journey is where you’re going to find the most satisfaction in your business. Not in the end result.
REASON TWO: It has to take time.
This past week, I had a consultation with these two incredible men who were launching an energy drink and they have everything. They’ve done everything that it takes and they’re dissatisfied with where their company currently is. They’ve got a realistic perspective. I’m not trying to dramatize their feelings about it. But I’m just saying that we forget it, takes a lot more time than we expect to be able to go from being a toddler in your business where you’re just learning to walk to being able to run. And that is a normal part of the process.
So this dream that we have is good. It’s great to have big dreams. Doing smaller tasks of getting into smaller local stores, for example, might be the best thing for you. That could be an amazing victory. Just getting regional dominance in your category, like a beverage company. That could be the thing that gets you to the place where you’re going to be able to handle larger chain stores.
So recognizing that the journey needs to take time, that there’s a process and you need to take the steps to get to the place where you want. Growth needs to happen in steps so you can handle long-term success.
REASON THREE: Everyone has a different timeline and a different story.
Usually, the reason why we feel frustrated is that we’re looking at other people’s success stories, and we are jealous of their success. But so many people who are telling their stories are not divulging the full truth. I’m not saying they’re lying, but they may not have the time for example, or the memory to tell you how hard their journey was before they achieved success.
I heard Barbara Corcoran speak at an Inc Magazine women’s conference way before COVID and she was talking about the years of suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, and self-doubt that she endured. She’s such an amazing compelling speaker. I just was so moved. She did a great job of actually telling you that her life sucked for a really long time. Her business sucked. It took her forever to get to where she is now, but a lot of people just watch Shark Tank, look at her Instagram or read her books and see her being zany and successful.
You naturally compare yourself to wanting that success and not realizing the amount of time that it took for her to suffer when she tells her story. So some people that you’re listening to or comparing yourself to, are just telling the end results. Because there’s just not enough time to tell you how hard it was in the beginning. Everybody who you admire has suffered. Few people just walk into success and you don’t want to be like those people anyway. They don’t have any story to tell.
You can look at a story and someone’s success and the number of social media followers that they have, because I now have 1.4 thousand YouTube subscribers, and I can monetize my YouTube channel. But you don’t know that I’m not making any money from YouTube. When you look at that, you would never know that I’ve never made a financially profitable client from that. I’m putting time and energy into it. It makes me look more successful, the more I grow my YouTube channel and I may one day be able to make money from it. But if you look at that and you judge yourself, you are going to think that I’m further along than you and I’m not. I’m spending time doing stuff that is not actually generating revenue for me because I enjoy it. I enjoy helping people. You can misunderstand a person’s genuine, true story just by looking at it from an outsider’s perspective.
So it’s not a fair ruler or metric to put against your life. You have your own story. This is the conclusion. You have your own story. I personally believe in God, you can call it the universe, but there’s a reason why you are here on this earth. There’s something you’re meant to do. That desire, that urge, that passion is there for a reason and you’re meant to fulfill it. But that passion does not mean it’s supposed to be easy. It’s going to be hard. That is part of the incredible journey that turns you into a person with just ambition and into a hero. The journey that you’re willing to walk, to get to where you want to follow your heart.
And the final capstone thought that I want to share is what my dad once told me when I started high school, I was so nervous and didn’t know where my locker was. And my dad said to me, “Emily, don’t worry. All freshmen have a hard time. They can’t find their locker. They don’t know what they’re doing. And then by the time you’re a sophomore, you have a little bit more wherewithal and things get a little bit harder in terms of school, but you survive. By the time you’re a senior, you own the school. You own the school and that’s just how it is.”
And in business my dad said to me, “Your business will be like that too. You take four years and it’s going to take four years for you to feel like you’re not an imposter. Like you actually have a business.” And he’s right. So it took four years to make enough profit to pay myself a fair reasonable salary. And it took six years to feel like I can take vacations and time off on the weekend.
So wherever you are in the journey, it’s there for a reason. You’re supposed to go through all those different scales to be able to get to the person that you want to be. So I hope this encourages you no matter where you are in the universe, and I’m sending you my love, my encouragement, and a desire for your sincere, amazing growth. So have courage, take heart. You’re right where you’re supposed to be and you’re going to get where you want to go.
