Top 5 Lessons Entrepreneurship Has Taught Me.

Happy Monday Strikers!

It's 2020 and it's my first post this year! Unfortunately, I had the flu for a week, therefore procrastinating posting sooner. Today I wanted to talk about how to become an entrepreneur and how it's changed me.

Q: How to become an Entrepreneur?

      So, there's not this straight, cookie-cutter path to becoming an entrepreneur. It generally depends on what you want to do, what problem are you solving and what you're passionate about. It's not like I grew up totally in love with marketing on social media my whole life. In fact, I was always passionate about painting and art in general. I dreamt of becoming an artist.

     Social Media Marketing wasn't even something I was aware of until (I'm going to give my boyfriend most of the credit here) my partner introduced the idea to me and even explained how I could use my creativity to help clients with their businesses.

      What I'm basically trying to say is, figure out what it is you want to do, do the research and make a plan on what you need to get started. It sounds easier than it is, it's mostly being consistent and doing a lot of research so you fully understand what all you need to prioritize.


Q: How becoming an entrepreneur changed my life?

       For starters, it has definitely taught me a lot of lessons that I'm pretty sure I didn't really expect to encounter.
   
       1. You don't have success overnight.

    Don't get me wrong, it could happen. However, depending on what kind of business you are pursuing but overall, it doesn't usually happen in 24 hours. For example, starting your own online business is kind of a lot of work.

        2. You won't get it right the first time.

    You have to figure out the purpose of your business, figure out and create systems to essentially get the ball rolling. There's A WHOLE LOT of trial and error in the beginning stages and even afterward. There is literally always something new to learn and change to make everything run smoother.

        3. "Time waits for no one."

     This used to be a thing a few of my friends in Highschool would say to me all the time and it's never been truer in my life. As an entrepreneur whether you're going all-in or working a job as you figure this out on the side, figuring out your time efficiency and actually being productive is vital. Time not being productive is time wasted. Working in the social media world was HELLA distracting.

          4. Self-care is a thing?

       Okay, true story here, I've never really been very feminine. Always a tomboy growing up which is why we did it all wrong in the beginning. I tend to "bro out" with my boyfriend and tough it out sometimes. In the beginning, sleep was basically nonexistent. Like, I'm talking about waking up at 4 A.M. and go to sleep at 2 A.M. This was literally torture. we had it all wrong. It took us a moment to step back and realize that we were actually hindering our progress and our quality of health. I woke up every morning feeling like death. At one time, we even stopped working out. Finally, we started sleeping a decent amount of hours, we started meditating, reading books, we even started making space for the gym again. We realized that all of these things were essential to us as individuals and that we really needed it to function at our best.

          5. Failure is part of the process.
 
      Look, nobody likes to lose. It's true. HOWEVER, sometimes you need to fail to reevaluate what went wrong and how you can improve your craft. This was something of a mental game-changer for me. I used to beat myself up when, I couldn't land a meeting, couldn't close a deal, or when.....we couldn't deliver to the client. You have to think of this as an endless learning journey. This is why brands ask you to review their products. It's to help them improve the quality of their products/ services. Every business is going to have some unhappy customers in their journey but as crazy as it sounds, it's needed. I mean, don't look forward to it but definitely don't let you tear you apart and use it as a stepping stone to greatness.

There are many more lessons throughout this journey and to be honest, you learn a lot about yourself. I wanted to share my top 5 biggest lessons and pretty much say that anyone has the ability and the potential to be an entrepreneur. You just have to be willing to work for it.