Having entrepreneurial dreams while being in a bad financial situation can be demoralizing. Feeling that you’ve failed can burn away whatever passion you have, and when you start losing the fire for your passion, the difficulty to go back up is just exacerbated. But many entrepreneurs experience a rough patch in their lives but move on to become successful.
While this might not be a definitive, end-all, be-all guide, the information here can help you get started.
Learn To Pick Yourself Back Up
Picking yourself back up is difficult, but it’s crucial to finding your own success. It starts with sorting out your current situation, whatever it may be. It might involve getting a bankruptcy lawyer, going on refinancing, or even working your credit score back up- these things must be done. All the inspirational and motivational words in the world are next to useless without action, and picking yourself back up is all about action.
Once you’ve picked yourself back up, the next thing you need to do is to prevent yourself from sinking back down. This entails creating some sort of safety net to catch you. Familiarize yourself with all the facets of personal finance. You won’t be able to achieve your dreams on an empty stomach and making a way to make ends meet is necessary to keep moving forward.
Keep Moving Forward
Failing is human. We will inevitably make mistakes, and we will continue making mistakes despite thinking we’ve learned. The important thing here is to keep learning from each mistake. And to hopefully not experience the same mistake twice, because that would mean not learning from it the first time.
Study how other entrepreneurs found their success. Many major businesses were formerly failing startups, but now enjoy a tremendous amount of success. Analyze what they did wrong, and then what they did right. You’re bound to find some lessons that can help you there.
Figure Out What Your Passion Is
If you’re coming from a low place, it might be difficult to look up. But to succeed, you need to constantly be looking for ways to improve yourself. Keep looking for ideas wherever you are. It might not be a eureka moment, but once you figure out what it is you really like to do, other steps will slowly come clearer ahead of you. As they say, one step at a time. And when you know what you want to do, you’ll keep finding ways to get to where you want to be.
You can even take your experiences as inspiration. What is it that went wrong in your situation? Perhaps there’s an avenue of learning there, and maybe you can even teach this to others. Or even provide a service that can help people avoid it- or help people currently experiencing it. Figure out where your passions lie and where your skills are and success is sure to follow.
Be Quick And Flexible
When the pandemic struck the entire world last year, many businesses were blindsided and had to shut down. What makes the survivors different is their ability to quickly adapt to the new normal. These businesses are the ones who “figured it out”, and as a result, they enjoy not just survival, but even success.
There were businesses that were able to leverage the use of delivery services to keep their business alive. Others had to quickly change to a hybrid work setting to accommodate the work-from-home setup. Also, shops had to quickly shift to a click-and-mortar model to take in orders online. The point is, make use of what’s in front of you. When others see limitations, you have to look past those and come up with your own solutions.
Work Smart Not Hard
Hard work and endurance are admirable qualities. But the problem with working hard and enduring is that they all have a limit. You will eventually run out of energy. So how do you keep at it? Working cleverly. That’s the secret many entrepreneurs don’t even bother hiding: it’s not about working hard, it’s all about working smart.
Working smart, as opposed to working hard, involves taking what’s effective and utilizing it in your process. Learn to leverage work-to-hour ratios, learn efficient ways to get the job done, learn business operations techniques to make your business work for you and not the other way around.
Of course, each one of us would have very different experiences in life. But through these differences, we learn more about our own situation. The secret really is to never stop learning and to never stop trying.
