When you become an entrepreneur, you sign an oath, and one of the things on that oath is to accept that there will be chaos in the journey. The chaos people experience varies by the individual. Steve Jobs’ version of chaos was getting fired from Apple, and Richard Branson founded Virgin Vodka, which failed. Then are the bloggers who experience many problems throughout their journey such as the blog not displaying properly, an error page instead of a landing page, and plugins with a negative impact on the blog.
If you continue with the journey as an entrepreneur, you will have to go through chaotic times to reach the end goal. That is why the beauty of success is not in the success itself, but in the struggle. However, getting through the chaos is just as challenging as reaching success. The key to getting through the chaos is by staying calm. Here are seven ways to stay calm through the chaos of being an entrepreneur.
#1: Think About How The Chaos Struck
One of the main reasons chaos is despised is because chaos represents uncertainty. If there is a problem on your blog (maybe it suddenly decides to redirect to the homepage every five seconds. That happened to me once), the uncertainty is the cause of the problem. When chaos strikes, ask yourself what you did prior to the chaos that could have created the chaos in the first place. When something happens to my blog, I ask myself which plugin I activated recently.
For some people, it may be more difficult to pinpoint the root cause(s) of the chaos since some chaotic moments in an entrepreneur’s career are based on events that happened weeks, months, or even years ago. However, I encourage you to spend as much time trying to identify the root cause(s). Identifying those root cause(s) will bring back a sense of certainty into the chaos.
The more uncertain chaos is, the stronger it becomes. By bringing back certainty, not only do you weaken chaos, but you also get closer to approaching the solution. You can’t fix a problem without knowing what caused the problem in the first place. Other tips in this blog post will go into detail about how you can get out of the chaos, but before that, you need to have the right mindset. The second and third tips are designed to strengthen your confidence so you can attack chaos with the right attitude. Having an optimistic attitude is essential towards getting out of any type of chaos that you encounter.
#2: Think Of What You Have Already Done
Many times, entrepreneurs feel bogged down about where they are and desperate to get out of the chaos. It is at this point when entrepreneurs need to take a step out of the chaos and look at the good things they have accomplished. In It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey finds himself trapped in so much chaos that it affects the way he acts and thinks about himself. Then, George’s guardian angel fulfills his wish of never wanting to be born.
In the classic movie, George quickly realizes all of the things he has accomplished, and how the lives of people he knew fell apart since he was never born. He saved his brother’s life, the drug dealer from getting arrested, and he married his wife. Since George was never born, the drug dealer accidentally killed a customer, George’s brother died at a young age, George’s mom was a wreck, his wife was unmarried and worked at the library, and his kids were never born.
When Clarence gave George his life back, George embraced the chaos and gleefully said he was going to jail. Not everyone has a transformation like that, but thinking about what you have already done as an entrepreneur and a person can weaken the chaos and make it look less frightening.
#3: Think Of The Stepping Stones You Have Taken To Reach Your Destination
Part of looking back at you have already done is looking at what steps you have taken to get closer to your goals. Instead of looking at goals that seem so far away, look at the progress you have already made to get to where you are. This will ignite the motivation you need to continue making progress.
#4: Think About Where You Want To Be
After you weaken the chaos by thinking about what you have already done, think about where you want to be. When you think of where you want to be, have an optimistic attitude that you will reach this destination.
#5: Identify The Next Stepping Stones You Need To Take
Once you know where you want to head, identify the stepping stones that will allow you to reach your goal. Identifying the stepping stones allows you to see where you are heading instead of you trying to go all in with blindfolds. Stepping stones further establish that sense of certainty that is essential towards wiping out chaos.
#6: Take Those Stepping Stones
Once you identify the stepping stones, the only way to move forward is by taking those stepping stones. You have to put in the work to get the results you want to achieve.
#7: Repeat
Throughout your journey as an entrepreneur, chaos will come up multiple times. There is no magic bullet journey that avoids chaos, but there are entrepreneurial journeys that effectively cut through the chaos. You can constantly use these steps to get through any chaos you have in your business or life for that matter.
In Conclusion
Chaos thrives on uncertainty. The less we know about what we are dealing with, the easier it is for us to get overwhelmed and belittle all of our accomplishments in life. It is an unfortunate truth that people fall so far down into chaos that they become their own prey, and their own predator. People become predators when they think badly about themselves, and they become prey since they are being surrounded by self-induced negative thoughts.
Instead of being the predator of your own actions and the prey of your predator side, champion around yourself, your accomplishments, and where you want to go.
What are your thoughts on this seven step process? Do you have any additional tips for getting through the chaos? Please share your thoughts and advice below.
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