How Entrepreneurship Requires Positivity

Start a business. Be your own boss. Make lots of money. Be the only one that controls your destiny. It all sounds great at the start. But then the reality sets in. Entrepreneurship is not as easy as it was made out to be, little things that looked easy turn out to be difficult, and the smallest setbacks look like mountains that are impossible to climb. So why do other self-starters seem able to overcome any obstacle? It all starts in the attitude.

The truth is that everyone faces roadblocks and setbacks when establishing themselves in any business. The ones that overcome them and succeed all have one trait in common: the ability to remain positive in the face of adversity.

This isn’t to say that you have to be happy and accepting when faced with, for example, an unexpected $1,000 repair bill. But a positive outlook from the “grand scheme of things” point-of-view will take the sting out of the invoice. Look at a one-time bill is a setback, and believe you will overcome it.

You have probably heard that attitude is everything in business, but you might not have given much thought to how this applies. Here is an example. Have you ever gone out for a meal, but the service was not up to your expectations? You could somehow “just tell” that the waitress would rather be anywhere but there? Did it affect how you tipped?

Your own enterprise is the same way. Employees, customers, and partners can all sense your attitude. Feel defeated? Everyone responds to it, whether they know it or not. Exude confidence, regardless of the situation? The people around you will feed off that confidence. Your employees will be more productive, and your customers will want to do business with you.

Self-confidence and positive thoughts are self-building entities, as long as you start with a kernel of them. When you believe in yourself and your potential for success, you have a greater capacity for realizing ideas, which leads to a greater capacity to bring them to fruition, which builds your positive attitude, which… well, you get the idea!

But what about those times when you just cannot see that light? How do you take yourself out of that darkness and back into positivity? Here are a few tips.

Spend some time thinking about what you want to accomplish, rather than how you failed. No venture is 100% successful. Instead of dwelling on what didn’t work, concentrate on fixing it to minimize the chances of it happening again.

Look to the future, not the past. Similar to the first suggestion, but this encompasses both the successes and failures. If you spend too much time on “It used to be so good,” that is less time you spend on figuring out how to make it good again, or even better than before.

Spread the weight. When you an’t see any solutions, it does not mean your partners, spouses, and employees can’t. Sometimes you are too close to the problem, and someone that is just slightly more removed can see an immediate answer that you overlooked.

Take some time. Most problems that are severe enough to affect your attitude are not things that require an immediate fix. Walk away from it for an hour, a day, or a weekend if you cannot see a solution. I guarantee the issue will still be at hand when you get back, and you might bring a new perspective back with you.

Don’t give up. It is the easiest thing to do, and probably the most common initial cause of any entrepreneurial failure. Once you stop believing, the rest of it crumbles around you. Until you give in, there is at least a kernel of positivity left.

In high times, low times, and every moment in between, your venture will be at its best when you infect it with your own positivity. That positivity will spread outward from you into an ocean of success.

Now go out there and take over the world; you know you can!