Doing business is always a very complex process that affects many areas of an entrepreneur’s life. Including psychological health. Let’s find out about what barriers hinder professional development and how to calculate and overcome them.
What Soft Skills Help Establish Successful Sales
Entrepreneurs are the category of people who are constantly in a stressful environment: competition, search for clients, sales, crises, external factors. Under such conditions, their main task is to be able to respond quickly to challenges from the outside, be resilient, withstand stress and not be afraid of uncertainty. Another sign of a successful entrepreneur is that he or she always chooses to change, isn’t afraid of mistakes, and knows how to recognize his or her resistance, but at the same time not to give up control to it.
The mindset of an entrepreneur is different from that of an ordinary person. He isn’t afraid to lose, sees any expenditure as an investment, perceives mistakes as an experience, creates rules himself, isn’t afraid to take the position of an apprentice, is interested in strengthening his environment and freely lets go of what is no longer relevant to him. He also believes that a crisis is always a time of opportunity.
Any task, goal, or dream of a successful entrepreneur can be decomposed into concrete feasible actions that can be measured and that lead to visible results.
Business is always an extension of the entrepreneur. An idea alone will not be enough to achieve effective results. It’s especially important for business owners in today’s realities to notice and be aware of their emotions, especially fear, shame and anxiety, and to be able to manage them.
Psychological Barriers: Why Problems Arise
Problems in today’s business environment begin precisely when they fall into their old dysfunctional psychological constructs and fears, or into those beliefs that have been imposed by the outside world.
The most common request of entrepreneurs is to grow, develop, and scale their business. Many get caught up in the threat of crises and the external news backdrop, and drain all the energy they could have channeled into action into worrying and chewing over fantasies about the future that may never become reality.
Psychological Barrier #1. Fears
Fear is a basic reaction that anyone has, entrepreneurs are no exception. Every business owner sooner or later wonders: “what if it doesn’t work out?”, “what if I don’t meet my clients’ expectations?”, “what if I lose everything tomorrow?”, “what will they think of my decision?”
There are two main fears that most stop an entrepreneur from growing and scaling. They are the fear of not getting it right, and the fear of getting it right.
Fear of failure is expressed by seeing possible failure as too painful. Fantasies about the consequences seem so devastating that the entrepreneur thinks about how to avoid something. He doesn’t think about the likely benefits.
Fear of success seems illogical to many, but it’s the fear that most affects the psychological and emotional state of the entrepreneur. The further you go, the greater the scale, the greater the responsibility, the greater and tougher the
competition. There is also an important point here: development involves giving up something that is no longer relevant to you. It’s scary because you have to let go of what you are already so used to and what has been your support for a long time. Growth is impossible without loss.
Working with fear always starts with accepting it as an integral part of the journey. There are no fearless people, but there are those who are afraid and do. The only thing in life that we can control is the number of times we try to do something.
Psychological Barrier #2. Shame
One of our most destructive feelings is shame. Shame is characterized by depreciation, self-destruction, and emotional exhaustion.
When a person experiences shame, they have anxious thoughts that they do not conform to social norms, that they are different. As a consequence, there is a fear of being rejected. The person is afraid of being alone if he or she doesn’t live up to the expectations of relatives, colleagues or society.
When shame begins to affect the entrepreneur, it restricts his thinking and prevents him from fully seeing the big picture: himself and his opportunities. Because of the fear of public censure an entrepreneur may limit his actions, be afraid to take a new step for his business and forbid himself to develop and miss out on profits.
To get rid of feelings of shame, it’s important to rely on our own values and feelings and try to avoid destructive comparisons with others. Only we ourselves can determine how best to act, what is really important for the development of our business and ourselves.
Psychological Barrier #3. Negative Attitudes
Everyone has attitudes or beliefs in their head that we once heard from significant adults, in the truth and correctness of which we believed. Once upon a time, these really supported our sense of security. For example, “business is as unpredictable as the results of a blackjack online game,” “big money is big trouble,” “you have to work hard 24/7 to make a lot of money,” and “you can’t combine business and personal life.” Let’s be honest, right now not making money and not having a business is in many ways unsafe because, as reality shows, sustainability is greater where you make the rules yourself.
There are also personal attitudes that sound like, “I won’t make it,” “I’m not worthy,” “I can’t change anything,” “this is too much for me,” “who the hell am I?” These are all manifestations of our resistance to the changes that are possible in life if we step forward.
Working with negative attitudes and beliefs is a constant exploration of oneself. Here it is important to include your curiosity and to examine what you hear within yourself or from others. Don’t act automatically, but question thoughts and test hypotheses.
Psychological Barrier #4. Prohibiting Healthy Aggression
Aggression is one of the most taboo feelings in society. Few people know that money and income are directly related to aggression. Showing healthy aggression is energy for change. We use it to build boundaries, take what belongs to us from the world, talk about what’s important to us, are willing to compete for what we want, and can build a close rapport with people. These are the very qualities of an entrepreneur without which it’s impossible to build a business and make money.
To change your attitude toward aggression and learn to show it, it’s important to understand that it’s a natural and necessary condition for life. Since childhood we got used to the fact that aggression is expressed by shouting or arguing, but in its healthy manifestation it isn’t anger, but an action that aims to change the outside world.
Psychological Barrier #5. Desire for Quick and Easy Results
The world is becoming more complex, competition is increasing, and many entrepreneurs are simply trying by all means to “buy” time. When it comes to psychological processes that take time to rebuild, and they try to cram them into a couple of days, it’s kind of scary.
Our brain and psyche for years is an incredibly complex mechanism. Imagine, you’ve been living in one scenario for 30 years, and then in a day or two you want to change everything. It’s great to get a quick kick out of it, but there are always challenges in development. We truly grow only when we endure moments. Different and not always pleasant.
Yes, it’s so easy to give up on everything that doesn’t work for you, while sometimes not even trying it. Visualizing instead of doing.
Quick results are dopamine. High levels of neurotransmitters take us out of our adequate state. It’s impossible to maintain this level of substances permanently, after a while there will be a backlash anyway. That’s the best case scenario. At worst, it can lead to depression. Like when you stretch a rubber band and then abruptly let go. Remember how painful that is?
Psychological Barrier #6. The Inability to Communicate the Value of Yourself and the Value of your Product
An entrepreneur’s inability to communicate the value of what he does reduces many times the level of income for which he can claim. Leaders in any market are people who recognize their own value and uniqueness. When you know and recognize your strengths, you can create a strong foundation within yourself that will be difficult to destroy.
Communicating the value of yourself and your product to your customers is a constant broadcasting of arguments about how a person can improve the quality of their life by buying my product or service. It’s important to note here that this dialogue with the audience must be in the language of the client with minimal use of professional terms so that it isn’t difficult to perceive.
Psychological Barrier #7. Investing Only in expertise, Ignoring the Development of Entrepreneurial Thinking
One of the most common mistakes of the entrepreneur is the idea that you have to constantly invest only in training. Yes, of course, having strong expertise in the marketplace is a competitive advantage. But by investing in expertise, the entrepreneur is pumping himself as an expert. And it’s the entrepreneur who runs the business and sells it.
The strongest growth comes not from other training, but from working with yourself in therapy, strengthening your sales skills and interaction with your audience, and building your business processes.
It’s important to constantly be in a business context, join business clubs and communities of entrepreneurs, strengthen yourself with mentors, and rebuild your thinking from a business perspective. Any path in business can be passed faster if you learn from the experience of those professionals who have already reached the point where you are going.
I am Very Enthusiastic about Writing Tech, Smart Phones, Products Reviews, Offers, and deals. I have been writing on tricks5.com since 2015.