Entrepreneurship is a marathon, or at least a long roller coaster ride, not a sprint. Add recharge time to your regular activities.
Entrepreneurship is a Marathon, Change Your Pace to Recharge
I had an epiphany recently: an entrepreneur’s creative design and problem-solving abilities are core to business success. Finding new ways to take full advantage of your skills and continue developing them requires ongoing effort.
Part of the learning and development process is adding recharge time to daily, weekly, and monthly activities. These can be as simple as going for a walk or finding another way to take my eyes off any screens for half an hour, working for a morning in a coffee shop or coworking place, or taking a weekend or a week off now and again.
I often feel that my efforts are not enough, that I am not getting enough done. But I have realized that sometimes the answer is to take a break, change my routine, or go to bed early.
Entrepreneurship is a marathon–or at least a long roller coaster ride–not a sprint.
It’s hard to tell what will gain customer acceptance. It’s delightful when something new–or even something old–does, but painful when something we are excited about doesn’t provoke much of a response. When I hesitate about sharing early versions of an idea for a new product or service, I try to remember Michael Jordan’s observation: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
I started SKMurphy, Inc. in 2003 and have learned that the best way to tell I am making progress is not the absence of problems but the opportunity to deal with new problems. Sometimes, I have created a new problem as a side effect of a prior solution. But new problems also emerge as customer needs evolve or new competitors appear with challenges we must address. Occasionally, an old problem pops up, and I have a moment of satisfaction where I can tell myself, “I know exactly what to do about that!”
Sometimes, it’s not clear what to do, especially when you are venturing into unfamiliar territory.
I regularly meet entrepreneurs at Bootstrappers Breakfasts who are in the midst of that “blooming buzzing confusion” you find yourself in when you decide to start a company. They are trying to make sense of past accomplishments and experiences and use them to organize their next steps. But this confusion and the related need to reorganize your experiences is a normal part of any new project (or job) you do for the first time. The challenge is to start making mistakes that risk losses you can afford and learn from. Francis Bacon observed that “truth emerges more readily from error than confusion,” but as adults, it’s hard to start making efforts that are likely to fail when you feel confused.
“The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.”
William James in Principles of Psychology (1890)
Related Blogs
- Why I like working with entrepreneurs
- When exploring, keep a log
- Ten From Paul Zappia’s “29 Ways To Stay Creative”
- Origin story: why did you start your business?
- August 2023 Newsletter – Origin Story
- Getting Your Startup Through the Downturn is a Marathon Not a Sprint
- Uncertain Times and Uncertain Times Part 2
- Managing Recurring Problems In Your Startup
- Leslie Odom, Jr. on Failing Up
- Embrace Parkinson’s Law As A Constraint
- Triage for Managing Interrupts
Image Credit: @LizAndMollie for “Take What You Need” Creative Commons attribution license)
This post was republished at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/entrepreneurship-marathon-change-your-pace-recharge-sean-murphy-asjrc