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Starting a business can feel like swimming against the tide sometimes.
It’s difficult, it saps your energy, it feels like you need to take one step backwards to take two steps forwards. Here’s a little secret, this is all normal.
Remember, nothing easy is rewarding and nothing rewarding is easy.
Hang on in there, because we’re going to share one key technique with you Sustainability Entrepreneurs that will keep you happy, boost your gratitude, and provide balance to the chaos of business life.
Take a pen and write down your victories
Throughout the day, keep a note open on your laptop, or a post-it note on your desk, and each time something good happens, write it down. Someone showed interest in your project. A post got X likes. You had a great business phone call. Your website got more traffic yesterday than the day before. Your lunch tasted better than usual.
When you start to dip, look at these victories and remind yourself that you are making progress. Instant dopamine. They can be the littlest things falling in your favour.
This habit comes straight from the realms of stoicism and positive mindset behaviour. Recognise the good things that come your way and give less (or no) energy to the bad and negative things. Any event that takes place will take place regardless, but your reaction and relationship with that event will define how it impacts you and your life. You have far more control than you realise.
Forming a habit
You’ve got to be prepared to make mini victories a regular daily part of your working life if you’re really going to soak up the benefits. Aside from post-it notes, you can also use a journal, put things in your calendar, or start an excel spreadsheet. The final option is actually one of the best places, as it gives you a very good format for not only recording you wins, but collecting data on them.
When your progress is so visible, it can help you to believe that anything is possible.
Evernote
Perhaps the best app for recording your mini victories is Evernote, that’s because it offers so many different formats for note-taking. Photos, scans, written messages, drawn messages, bullet points, lists, voice notes, and so much more. You’re going to build a story of your victories and reading that story is going to show you that you are on an incredible path and doing fantastic work.
The alternative to this advice is missing out on these opportunities for confidence and motivation boosts.
An accumulative process
Sustainability Entrepreneurs, on day one of building this habit you might get two or three things to put in your note. Over a week that could be a couple of dozen. Over a month, it could be a hundred, over a year, it could be well over a thousand. You’ve got yourself a story, a feedback loop, a dopamine booster, a memento, and a symbol of your fight.
Many entrepreneurs will tell you that when they look back on their business journey, it was the beginning, the struggle, that was their favourite part and that they wish they could relive that feeling. Here’s your chance.