Procrastination is a phenomenon in which many wannabe entrepreneurs indulge. However, to become a successful business owner, it doesn’t matter what your excuses are. You can justify that you’re afraid to fail or that you’re taking your time to prepare, but this doesn’t change the fact that you’re going busy for weeks, months, or maybe even years without actually working on your business.
It’s such a shame that smart people with great ideas get trapped in almost destructive procrastination cycles. But it’s time to stop this misery once and for all. No more tomorrows and no more excuses. Assume the responsibility, change your mindset, take consistent action, and, finally, start your own business.
As, Henry Thompson, the HR manager from Essays.ScholarAdvisor, encourages “You have to confront your fears and defeat them if you truly desire success.” Therefore, in today’s post, we are presenting useful information which will help you stop procrastinating and finally start your business.
5 Ways to Stop Procrastinating
1. Change Your Mindset
The first thing you have to do so you can finally stop procrastinating is to change your habits, your lifestyle, your environment, and, most importantly, your mindset. You may find that changing yourself and your mindset is often very difficult because of the fear of failure.
If you don’t eliminate it, it will only hold you down and limit your potential. You have to become positive, optimistic and leave all the misery that comes along with the procrastination habits you’ve got used to.
Do you want to make a change? Then start changing yourself, and specifically your mindset. Every entrepreneur has worked on his mindset before reaching great heights, so don’t try to skip this part or else you’ll end up nowhere.
Furthermore, you must understand that knowledge and action are required for any business success. According to your business idea, begin to collect the necessary knowledge. Find the people who have already achieved what you’re trying to achieve and see what they do, how they act, and what they do to be so successful.
2. See Procrastination for What It Really Is
Acknowledge the true meaning of procrastination and start to see it for what it really is. Let’s see and understand what defines these unwanted behaviors. Very simply put, procrastinating means to avoid acting on the tasks that must be accomplished.
This phenomenon usually takes place mostly until the last minute of the deadline. It covers many aspects of our lives such as avoiding the cleaning of the house, going to the dentist, or like in your case, avoiding to finally start working on your business.
Absolutely everything in this world has a cause and effect – a general rule, everything that happens, happens due to a specific cause. Therefore, let’s see what happens when you procrastinate. You keep avoiding and avoiding doing that specific task. The closer you are you became more stressed, you’re feeling guilty, you’re experiencing self-doubt, or start feeling depressed. So, procrastinating causes only negative effects that can even build up in time and create chaos.
Then again, procrastination is about making a wrong choice in the present, even though being aware of the future consequences, which are in most of the cases negative and stressful.
3. Create a Business Plan
Start with the basics – decide the purpose of your business. Ask yourself “why”? Who will benefit from your business? Is it only so you can reach financial wealth, or it’s meant to contribute to something else? How about solving serious problems that people face daily? How about satisfying unsatisfied needs?
Once you decide the reason why you can start thinking about how you’re going to build everything from scratch. Decide if you need a team of employees or you can do it yourself. Understand what type of resources you’ll need in order for your business to be sustainable and eventually profitable.
Then, you should find ways to position your brand in the marketplace. This is part of your branding process, but stop for a moment and ask yourself… “Why would a customer choose my brand instead of my biggest competitor’s?”
What is the unique value proposition that you’re displaying and promising? Find out what makes your brand better and leverage this information throughout your entire marketing process.
Developing a business plan will take time, effort, and energy. When you manage to kick the procrastination habit, you can finally start crafting a complex business strategy that will excite and motivate you to take action on a consistent basis.
Related: 10 Free Business Plan Templates for Small Businesses
4. Develop Concise Goals and Plan Habits Around Them
Develop a business goal and split it into small pieces. Assess and decide the priority of each and note down the most important small steps you need to achieve in order to reach your higher goal.
To eliminate procrastination and improve your productivity, you should leverage the power of habits. Develop habits around your small goals. For example, if I wanted to launch a digital product, one of my “small goals” would be to finish the introduction chapter.
For this to happen, I’ll create a daily habit of writing 30 minutes right after I wake up, exactly the time when my creative juices are flowing.
5. Measure and Optimize Your Progress
Accept the fact that you won’t always make the best decisions, and many will lead to failure. Understand that failure is just feedback – it helps you understand what you did wrong in order to correct your future actions. When you change the actions, you will change the effect. Failures, in the business domain, are the best lessons you can ever have.
Always measure where you put your time, effort, energy, and money. If you keep procrastinating all day long imagine how “successful” you will be and how “stable” your future looks like.
You have to assess and reassess your performance on a consistent basis. This is the only way to be in charge of your life and your business.
Conclusion
All is left to do now is to put into practice what you’ve learned and absorbed. During this process, you must never doubt yourself. You have the power to do everything you have dreamt of. Today is the day when you say no to procrastination and get rid of all the excuses, all the “ifs”, “shoulds”, and “tomorrows” from your life. So, what are you waiting for? Go and finally start your business right now.
Also Read: 101+ New Business Ideas with Low Investment
Author: Jack White
