Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Building Your Entrepreneurial Muscles
Do you have entrepreneurial muscles? And more importantly, are you building them?

I got back to working out recently after a couple of crazy months where my workouts got kind of scattered. It feels good to feel sore muscles again. But it's been frustrating to scale things back from where I had been before I got away from working out.

My first day back, I ran my usual pace and time. The second day, I had to cut it in half. I just didn't have the endurance to do my usual. My third day, I got near that halfway point and wasn't sure whether to continue.

I didn't really feel completely unable to go on as I had the second day. But I wasn't really sure I could make it my usual length of time. Part of me wanted to play it safe. Part of me wanted to push as far as I could.

I pushed.

I went the whole time I had planned to. I was pretty winded, but I made it. And succeeding gave me a lot of confidence that I could get back to my old times and distances in short order.

Had I played it safe and quit halfway through, I probably would have had the same doubts the next time I ran. Maybe I would have pushed through. Maybe I would have decided again that I simply wasn't ready to go the distance.

Then I realized how much my experience on the treadmill was like building an online business.

Plenty of times we hesitate. Plenty of times we doubt. Plenty of times we're tempted to hold back because we're not sure we're up to some challenging and unfamiliar task. It's easy to stick to the comfortable and the familiar.

But you don't build muscles -- physical or entrepreneurial -- by holding back. You have to be ready to push forward through the discomfort and simply get it done. It's the only way to grow.
Jeff

Labels: mindset, motivation