When you’re an entrepreneur, initially the success of your business is all you. This lends itself to exposing both our strengths and weaknesses. For me, entrepreneurship fits my strengths nicely. I’m a strategic planner. I’m creative. Being a “doer”, I genuinely like to work. I like to network and talk shop with people. I’m also fairly brave, so although I have fear about certain aspects of my shortcomings, I’ll forge ahead and do it anyway.
This all sounds great, right? Wait for my weaknesses… I’m terribly impatient with myself. I’m the person that plays tennis once and then thinks I should be able to hold my own against Serena. I don’t understand why building a business should take so much dang time! Second to being impatient, I can be cheap. I’ll try to do something myself before spending the money for a professional to do it. The downside of this is that almost always, a professional can do it better than me and I just end up wasting time. Third, I suffer from anxiety and imposter syndrome. My negative thoughts stemming from my self-critic can really get in the way of my progress.
Lucky for me, I’m a coach, and I have the tools to self-coach my mind so I can redirect my thoughts, feelings and actions towards my goals. I share the unglamorous sides of my personality because I think owning who we are – the good, bad and ugly is so important in being a successful entrepreneur.
When we identify and accept who we are AND who we’re not, we can get out of our own way and ask for support where we need it. For example, after hours fumbling around with building my own Word Press website, I finally paid a web developer to integrate certain functionality I wasn’t able to figure out on my own. This functionality will ultimately create future revenue. I couldn’t have done this without help.
My lesson… recognize that I’m one person. You, nor I, should expect that you can do it all – we can’t. Own your story. Own your strengths. Own your weaknesses and then act in support of your goals. You got this!
