7 Tips & Tricks to Survive a Journey of Entrepreneurship

Oh the places you will go! Places, of self-discovery, growth and challenges. The ride is not always smooth, certainly bumpy at times, but at the end of your day, the journey is worth the ride.

Here are 7 tips and trick based on my clients’ and my experience.

1. Surround yourself with positive, aspiring and constructive people

Being an entrepreneur is not an easy drift down the river, as you have to juggle with various challenges, expected and unexpected ones…on your own. I recommend being selective with your surrounding in a healthy “selfish” manner. In order to manage and sustain your positive mental energy:

Surround yourself with positive and constructive minds.
Surround yourself with people you trust.
Eliminate toxic people from your life since they drag your energy down.

2. Don’t explore everything on your path

Stay focused on your goal and action plan. Entrepreneurs can be very creative initiating new ideas…however be self-aware that this idea entails distracting you from your goal, investing more time and energy on developing this new idea…away from your action plan. It surely gives you a thrill…however, make sure:

You are not procrastinating into not urgent and not important tasks
Sleep on it a few days and reflect on your resources, its feasibility, and if your reflection result is positive…
Allocate time for it in your agenda

3. “When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really played.” Dr. Seuss

Find other things that keep you passionate and motivated outside your work and allocate time for it. This will allow you to tune out, to reenergize as well as building your resilience, and self-confidence. I registered at High Intensive Training kickboxing classes as a beginner. My objective was not only to work out and stay fit, but to tune out and fulfill a personal need to learn. I then decided to enroll myself for the white glove evaluation 8 month after starting…which I passed successfully. That resulted into an energy and self-confidence boost, as well as contributing to my work life harmony.

4. Identify your work life harmony percentage

Depending on your time, priorities and life domains, set a percentage depending on your time for your work, family time, and personal time…and other life domains. This simple exercise allows you to gain self-awareness of your needs, your time, values and priorities:

Use a wheel of life to list your life domain and your level of satisfaction in each one.
Use the same wheel of life to allocate time and priority level accordingly.

5. Share with your family members of your agenda

Based on the above exercise, once you acknowledge how to allocate your time, inform your family members what your time commitments are for work and family time. That allows you to allocate quality time to your treasured family members.

6. Delegate, seek help or allocate your budget on your weaknesses by identifying what you are weak at

In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes being self-aware entails knowing your strengths and weaknesses. In order to identify what is holding you back:

Identify your weaknesses
Accept them and decide not to waste your time and energy on mind-boggling aspects of your work.
Find alternatives to your weaknesses:

Delegate the task. I hired a graphic designer to help me with my logo
Allocate time for if you think it is something you can learn from and manage.
Ask a friend who has that missing skill for help. I asked my IT fluent friend for help on creating my website on Wix. She saved me plenty of time and energy to focus on activities that added value to my business.

7. Practice the art of letting go

My grandmother used to tell me if God shots a door, let it be and let it go, but continue your focus on other doors. She was a truly amazing lady who ran her household of 5 children and 10 grand children like a brilliant entrepreneur. That entails questioning yourself on:

How am I investing my energy? Is it more on the constructive aspects of my job? Is it adding value? Am I getting closer to my goal?
Use empathy with perspective taking: how is he or she right? Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. It will help you understand, accept and even improve your negotiation skills.
Asking yourself: will it matter in a year?
What is the big picture vs. the current situation like?

Lets end with an inspiring quote by Dr. Seuss: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go…”

I feel so humbled and inspired by my entrepreneur friends and clients, that more self-help articles on entrepreneurship are on the way…stay tuned!

In the meantime, let me know your feedback, what didn’t work and what worked for you.

Last but not least, visit my blog for insightful articles www.internationalcoachingsolutions.com/blog

Wishing you a lovely entrepreneurial journey!

Shermeen Zeidan

Certified Master Coach, Entrepreneur and Blogger