No one said it would be easy. The whole being an entrepreneur and starting a business thing. But you knew that when you made the decision to, well, do it.
You could fail! You better have a plan B.
Maybe you should just finish up school first. It’s rough out there!
Pay your dues, put your time in, and just work your way up.
Be patient. Because good things come to people who wait.
You’ve heard it. You may have even believed it. Maybe you still do.
Plan B’s. Waiting. Paying dues. Putting time in. More waiting. Combine that useless conventional wisdom with complacency, dis-satisfaction and serve it up with a side of uncertainty and fear. It’s the perfect concoction of mojo that slowly poisons (and eventually kills) desires, ambitions, and ideas.
The thing though? You’re not conventional. You’re more inventional. And invention beats convention every time. You know that already though.
Yet, you’re still scared. You’re still uncertain. And that’s awesome, my friend.
Because fear isn’t a signal for you to stop. It’s not the same thing as your intuition or your gut feeling.
Fear, by way of acronym, is false expectations appearing real. It’s your very own made up ideas about the outcome of a situation that seem possible. But it’s never that you’re afraid of what’s going to happen, it’s that you’re afraid of how we’re going to feel and react when that situation happens.
Those feelings and thoughts: they’re you. So you’re not a victim of fear – it doesn’t have power over you. It’s more so you are a victim to your interpretation of the fear.
When you’re feeling fearful and unsure, it means that something is right. Not that something is wrong. Feeling scared and uncertain accompanies risks and unfamiliarity. The new deal. New city. New client. New contract. New brand.
Feeling this way is the antithetical of complacency and doing nothing – which is not where you want to be.
I’ve woken up at 2am a lot over the past few weeks. Can I do this? Am I good enough? Is this going to work? Will people really get something out of what I’m doing? Could I be moving faster? I’ve woken up with more questions than answers. More fear than confidence. More uncertainty that sureness.
But each time I recognize that it means I’m in the right place. It means that I’m doing new, unknown, awesome things that are going to make a difference.
Understand that having a heroic life, launching your business (and yourself) into the stratosphere, and doing what other people label as “impossible” is in a space that is unknown.
There are no pre-defined pathways like degree plans in university. There is no clear title or job description like a position summary from the human resources department. There is no picture in the frame.
That’s all to your advantage though. Because what you’re doing is innovative, remember? You are doing your own thing. You have to carve the pathway. Give the title. Paint the picture. You are providing input that has a tremendous output. That’s the ideal measure for true productivity, after all.
I won’t doubt that being an entrepreneur is scary. I won’t say that you’ll ever be totally fearless and confident. Because it just doesn’t work that way.
Fear will always be there. Doubt and uncertainty will also accompany it. But when you understand that it’s good and not victimizing you, it starts to work to your advantage. It begins to work for you, not against you.
Even though you are biologically a reactive organism, you can be proactive with your reaction. You can define how much power and control you give your fear uncertainty. Will you let it daze you or mobilize you? Play or pause?
So my scared, uncertain friend: you’re exactly where you need to be.
What you’re feeling and thinking – it’s innovation. Creativity. Cutting-edge. Stratospheric and heroic alike. That’s all right, not wrong.
Keep doing it. Don’t stop now. Don’t stop ever.
Tim Frie is an idea incubator and launch genius for young entrepreneurs who want to implement their big, audacious business (and life) ideas. He is hell-bent on eliminating ‘zombieness’ from the planet and turning people into the heroes of their businesses and lives. You can find him at www.timfrie.com, where he writes about how to come alive and take action in life and entrepreneurship.
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