Everyone has the intention of living their life to the fullest. I am not unique by saying that this is my goal. To me, living life to its fullest extent means that nothing can hinder the choices I make. If I wanted to hop on a plane to Europe right now, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I would miss work and return back to the U.S.A broke and most likely jobless. I am hindered by my responsibility to my workplace from making this last minute trip. Even if I could get the days covered and I could return back to my job, just buying a cup of coffee would cause my card to decline let alone a ticket to Europe. This is obviously an exaggerated situation, but the point remains the same. Money stresses and workplace responsibility can hinder the choices we make. I can’t stand thought of being held back from doing the things that I want to do. I can’t stand the fact that if a dear friend or a family member were to find themselves in a financial crisis, all I could do is stand idly by hoping everything works out for them. I can’t stand the fact that if I wanted to buy a home, I would have to seek the help of banks to make my purchase. I would spend 30 years of my life paying off a loan. The house I live in wouldn’t be mine for a full 30 years! I believe that through the pursuit of business and financial management that I can change these circumstances. I’ve spent 2 years learning and growing. Now, at the age of 24, I believe I’m ready to make the plunge into entrepreneurship. Already I have learned 3 powerful lessons from mistakes that set me back. I hope that this post can keep at least one person who sees his from making the same mistakes I did.
Lesson #1
Focus
Focus is extremely important. Unfortunately, I spent an enormous amount of time buzzing from activity to activity thinking I was making progress. Instead I delayed it. Everyone has heard the old saying “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”. Well, there is a right and wrong way to divide your eggs. Instead of focusing on 2 major activities, I had 5 small projects I was working on. Spending 1 day a week on each project was not an adequate amount of time for me to accomplish the goals that I had set. I would recommend on working on 2 major activities tops. Once you find success with those, you can branch out to other business ideas.
Lesson #2 Time management
SCHEDULE, SCHEDULE, SCHEDULE! I cannot stress this enough. Having a strong schedule can help you from getting distracted. Prioritize your time so that you can make the best use of it. Jumping into your day without a schedule can keep you from getting things done, or forgetting something. I would suggest writing your schedule. For me, it makes it feel more concrete and less abstract. Stephen Covey touches on time management in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. I will write another post going further into detail, but for now I suggest you read that book if you haven’t already!
Lesson #3 Plan
The last lesson I got from this series of mistakes was that planning is essential. Without some kind of plan all the focus and scheduling in the world can’t save you. Business is not a throw caution to the wind type of venture. You take risks in business sure, but they are calculated and revolve around some type of plan. Risks without a plan are no better than gambling. It’s cliche’ but remember “If you fail to plan then you plan to fail”.
Thanks for reading, everyone. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do you have similar experiences? Do you disagree with anything I said?
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Keep Calm and Steem on!
Bill
Don't forget people skills! I'm sure you have that in spades. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is a good book to read -- it's the OG of self-help books -- but any business training will help.
I sold knives at 18, which sounds odd but it was actually a good job and I made more money doing that for 2 months before college than I did in any two-month period until I worked in government relations 6 years later. I didn't realize the sales training was basically training in people-skills, which actually has nothing to do with the product you're selling.
Best of luck with everything!
@vdux I’ve read it. It’s an Amazing book, but I definitely need to work on maintaining relationships better. What company did you work for selling the knives ?