The difference between success and failure in entrepreneurship can have a lot to do with your own traits and habits. If you take the time to study successful people, you’ll find that they tend to cultivate certain traits, while avoiding others. In order to stack the odds in your favor, you should know what traits to avoid, so you can develop better ones. Read more about The 8 worst traits of bad entrepreneurs.
Here are some of the worst traits for entrepreneurs:
Making excuses
Everyone makes occasional bad decisions. Successful entrepreneurs own these bad decisions and learn from them. If you’re blaming your bad results on outside forces, you’re taking the focus off your own role in the decision-making process. This can keep you from seeing what you could’ve done differently. The only way to get to the root of a problem is to take a complete and honest look at it. You can’t do that effectively until you own your role in its development.
Failing to plan
One of the hardest positive traits to master is time management. Although everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, those who manage their time most effectively are the ones who achieve success. This involves planning your day from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. Without a plan, all sorts of distractions will interrupt your progress and after dealing with so many, you won’t even know where your time went. Know what your goals are and plan your entire day by dedicating suitable blocks of time to each task.
Focusing on the past
Whether you like it or not, the past is gone and it’s not coming back. What’s done is done and your focus should be on what’s happening now. Eventually, you’ll face hard times and you’ll probably fail many times before getting things right. However, these bumps in the road don’t have to become brick walls. Practice making decisions and learn to maneuver around whatever obstacles might land in your path. Push forward and avoid looking back.
Envying others
As an entrepreneur, your focus should be on your own business and your own bottom line. If you’re observing others, it should be to motivate yourself and learn how they’ve achieved success, so you can apply this knowledge to your own life. Anyone that’s even considered entrepreneurship should be aware at some level that success can be achieved by anyone who’s willing to work for it. If you have time to envy others for their own achievements, you’re not busy enough.
Fearing change
Change is a part of life. As a matter of fact, change is constantly at work in some form, whether you realize it or not. At some point, remaining successful may require you to adapt. For example, change is ongoing in the world of technology. Businesses that were founded decades ago had to adapt to these trends to stay afloat. How many long-running businesses do you know of without their own websites? Without adapting to the changes around them and keeping up with the times, they could not have remained competitive.
Focusing on money
There’s no shortage of people in the world who become entrepreneurs just because they want to make more money. However, successful entrepreneurs know they’ll earn more by providing value than by focusing on the cash coming in. If you create quality goods and services that make a difference in your customers’ lives, they’ll keep coming back. They’ll probably also recommend your business to others.
Associating with negative people
The journey of an entrepreneur can be a difficult one. It’s lonely at times, because others can’t relate to what you do. They can often get away with the same negative thinking that would sink an entrepreneur. Such people make excuses and complain frequently, without ever proposing solutions. Entrepreneurs are supposed to focus on solutions, not problems. You don’t need anyone in your life that’s going to tell you that your dreams are “unrealistic” or that you’re not going to make it (just because they haven’t made it). Associate with quality mentors and like-minded individuals who face the same types of challenges.
Giving up
Successful entrepreneurs know they’re going to fail many times before they succeed. As a matter of fact, research shows that 8 out of every 10 new businesses fail. One of the reasons there aren’t more success stories is that a large number of new entrepreneurs give up, sometimes without realizing how close they might be to success. Remember, success is not guaranteed in any venture. What is certain is that if you throw in the towel as soon as you fail, you will never achieve success.
Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. It requires hard work, dedication and plenty of attention in the area of personal development. As an entrepreneur, you simply can’t be a cut above the rest if you continue to think like the herd and do the same things they do. Success is indeed possible if you’re willing to give up those negative traits and exchange them for traits that all winners share.
