If you ask people in the corporate world “What’s your future plan?” you’ll often hear the answer “I’m planning to put up a business”. This has been a common topic of conversation with co-employees but sadly, not all people take actions.
One of the major reasons why people don’t want to dive into running their own businesses is because of the fear that hinders them to do so. In this article, we will discuss the common fears in starting a business and the things we can do in order to overcome them.
If we talk about fear in general, it’s not really a bad thing. Fear is a natural way, a feeling, to protect ourselves from dangers. However, it can bring negative effects if you don’t know how to handle your fears. It can make you not achieve your goals or dreams if you don’t know how to overcome it. In running a business, there are also these common fears you need to overcome in order to get into it.
5 Common Fears you need to Conquer in Starting a Business
- Fear of taking risks. If you’re into business, you cannot take this thing away. Whether it be a simple sari-sari store, selling services, joining network marketing, or putting up an online business, there’s always a risk. You’ve got to put this into your mind and you need to learn how to deal with it.
What you can do: Since you cannot eliminate the risk, what you can do is to manage the risk. There are many things you can do in order to minimize the risk in your business. One thing is to research and make your plan. Don’t just dive into things you don’t know how to handle. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail. Do your homework, make some feasibility studies.
Another things is to get into partnerships or have investors in your business. It can reduce the risk by limiting your personal liabilities. You might also consider having an insurance to protect your business from unexpected loss or damages.
- Fear of not being good enough. People, most of the time don’t take the actions because they think they’re not ready yet. Those who want to start their businesses always wanted to have the perfect plan, the perfect skills, the perfect tools, and perfect everything. If you share the same thoughts, let me tell you, it doesn’t work that way.
Starters always have this “getting ready to be ready” mindset and a lot of people are getting stuck there. Entrepreneurship doesn’t work that way! Don’t strive for perfection, strive for improvement! You might start with little knowledge at first but as you progress running your business, your skills get better, your strategies get finer and you’ll learn many things along the way. Again, it doesn’t matter much if you’re not that good yet. The thing is you keep on growing.
- Fear of failing in the business. I hate how this fear has been planted in people’s minds because I strongly believe it’s so wrong to fear failure. Many people think that when you fail, it’s the end of the story, you’re a loser, and you can’t do anything about it. Wrong, wrong, WRONG!
“I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 things that do not work.” – Thomas Edison
Repeat reading this and put this into your mind: Through failures, we learn. Failure is a vital part of the process of achieving our goals. Failure should not be feared, it should be understood. You need to understand why you fail and find resolutions for your next attempt. Failure is needed for continuous progress and without it, we cannot enjoy the best of the technologies we’re enjoying right now.
You gotta love failure. Period.
- Not knowing where to start. People get scared because they do not know where to start. This shouldn’t be a big problem. You need to take care to not just simply imitate somebody else’s business who’s already out there and get lost along the way. If you’re just starting out on your business, focus on your strengths. List down the things you’re good at and assess which one can become your business.
You can also search and list down the businesses that you think you’ll be able to love for the long term and do some elimination process. Once you’ve picked one, from there, start doing your research and planning then execute.
- Fear of being different and being rejected. One of the things people fear about is getting rejected by their friends and even their families. Since most of the people are accustomed to go to school and do employment, the idea of running a business seemed to be disregarded.
One of the greatest hindrances in pursuing your business is your parents. They cannot easily grasp the ideas and opportunities businesses can give compared to staying in the corporate world. I and my sister took the courage to not listen to our parents to pursue what we want. Our parents want us to stay in the companies because what they want is “stable income”. Good thing, just less than a year, we’re able to earn more than what we had from our previous jobs.
So that’s it. I hope through this article, I’m able to help you conquer your fears in starting your business. If you find this helpful, share it with your friends, co-workers, and loved ones! 🙂
About the author:
Louren is the founder and the publisher of PowerPinoys where he writes about finance, entrepreneurship, business, and other topics related. He is a web developer who focuses on real estate and e-commerce websites.
In reality, there are always possibilities of your business that might shine or fall. That’s why you should take care of your business when you still have time to fix it. While starting a business with fears, Loansolutions.ph also cater business loan. Visit the website for more information.