Starting your own business is a tough process. One of the toughest aspects of starting a business for many people is actually starting. You know that you want to start your own business, but you haven’t taken any real steps towards getting a business started. Sure, you write down your ideas and discuss them with your friends. You read every book blog you can get your hands on. You’ve got a burning desire down, deep inside your being reminding you that you want to start your own business.

But you haven’t started it.

Still, others of you may have started creating a business, but you haven’t ever opened your doors for business. Some of you may have done this many times over.

The excuses are grand an innumerable:

• “The economy turned and the business wouldn’t work today.”
• “I don’t have enough experience to start a business.”
• “I want to do more research.”
• “Someone else must have the same idea and will do it better.”
• “I’m only 25, who will listen to me?”
• “There’s not enough time in the day.”
• “I’m too busy with my job & hobbies.”

Give me any excuse you want; the excuse matters not. What matters is that you truly want to become an entrepreneur.

What’s Stopping You?

We all procrastinate. We just don’t all realize when or why we do it.

Let’s take a little trip back in time, to when you were in college (maybe you still are). You get assigned a 30-page research project due in two months, at the end of the semester. Immediately, your head is filled with ideas about how you could complete the project. On several occasions, you head to the library, intending to get started on the project. However, you spend the time surfing the internet, reading magazines, and ultimately getting little or no work done on the research project. Then, four days before the project is due, you panic, head to the library, pull two all-nighters, working without interruption, and handing the report in on time.

Many people “choose” to work like this. The stress of a deadline, they say, forces them to work and to focus. There are some benefits to deadlines (I wrote about them here), but what do you do when you don’t have a deadline? And when you do have a deadline, wouldn’t you like to work without the stress of working right up to a deadline?

Why We Procrastinate

The reason most of us procrastinate goes back to our childhood. Many of us are taught to “do our best” or even “be the best” at everything we do. Anything short of that is a failure. If you ever brought home a report card with five A’s and one C, only to be punished for the C, you know what I’m talking about. Or maybe you tried very hard but never received A’s and were never rewarded for your work. Regardless, if you were constantly given the feeling that you could have or should have done better, this applies to you.

This idea of “anything less than perfect is a failure” is internalized by many of us, as it is constantly reinforced through parenting and the structure of our schools and businesses. When “perfect” is the only option, failure is almost inevitable. To avoid failure, or at least feeling internally as though we’ve failed, we avoid starting the task in the first place. We fear that the ultimate outcome of the task or activity will be inadequate.

So much of our lives are defined by the work we do in business or school. Consequently, we often begin to consider our work products as an indication of our self-worth. This only serves to amplify our fears of failing because we look at less than perfect performances in school or work as an indication that we, as people, are less valuable than those people who do achieve A’s or make big sales.

Back to the research project. You ultimately decide that the consequences of not doing anything are worse than completing the project quickly and in a mediocre fashion. You may complete the project, and may even get an A, but you’re still hurting yourself.

Cramming for a test, pulling all-nighters to finish a project at the last minute, or winging a presentation all feed our procrastination. These actions are actually a defense mechanism, rather than a victorious completion of a task. When you wait until the last minute to complete the task, you know that you haven’t put out your best effort. Thus, should you receive a less than perfect grade or not make the sale, you can rest comfortably knowing that you could do better, so this failure is not representative of your actual self-worth.

How to Overcome Procrastination & Start a Business

Wannabe entrepreneurs seldom, if ever, have an impending deadline that forces them into entrepreneurship. Thus, they are never forced to put together a business. Instead, they delay the process of starting the business – indefinitely, in some cases.

Why does this happen? When we focus on the outcome of our efforts to build a business, we panic. You might put have a picture of a Ferrari on your desktop because it reminds you of the outcome you want: to make enough money to buy a Ferrari. Or maybe your goal is much simpler: building a business that generates enough money to live comfortably. These goals can actually hurt procrastinators, rather than help them. Procrastinators freeze because they fear that their efforts to create a business will fail in achieving their goals.

By all means, everyone should make goals, but procrastinators should approach achieving them differently. The procrastinator needs to focus on the activity of starting a business, rather than the outcome of their efforts.

4 Steps to Breaking out of Procrastination

1. Break down the process of starting a business into small tasks which can be completed in an hour or less. You can focus on the process of completing the task rather than the fear of failing at your ultimate goal. There’s a ton of tools out there to help you structure larger tasks into small ones. A process which I have tried recently is the Pomodoro Technique.
2. Focus on starting rather than completing. Tell yourself “I’m going to begin the task of choosing a domain name, then I’m going to begin the task of researching web designers, and then I’m going to begin the task of developing a budget.” Phrasing your tasks in this way implies open-ended opportunity, rather than a closed-ended task with an end result. You do this becuse the end result is the element of the task on which you can pass judgement. This approach may even help you enjoy the task, rather than making it feel as though you’re laboring towards a goal.
3. Focus on the activity required to complete the task, rather than the outcome. If you need to write a blog post, focus your mind on the activity of writing. Don’t begin thinking about “what if this post goes viral?” “what if this post sparks tons of comments?” or “what if my readers hate this post?” Simply concentrate on putting words down on paper. A good way to get into this mindset is by visualization. Before starting a task, visualize yourself in the process of working – don’t focus on what it will look like when completed.
4. Keep track of your starts. Every time you are able to begin a new task, write it down. At this time you can mark the previous task completed. Waiting to mark a completion until you start a new task helps your work continue flowing from one task to the next and moving you towards your ultimate goal.

I’ve implemented these strategies to great success in my own life. They will work for anyone, not just entrepreneurs or students. I hope that they help you out.

I don’t intend this to be a lesson on parenting and I’m not giving anyone reason to blame their parents. What I am pointing out is that to be successful adults, we must understand & alter the way that we operate.

(Image by gadl)

Tagged as: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, goal, Pomodoro Technique, Procrastination, start-up