3 Humbling Lessons About Failure I’ve Learned By Being An Entrepreneur
It’s time to be honest. And it’s time to get personal…not that I don’t on a regular basis already.
If you have your own business, you know how this goes. It’s hard.
Probably the most difficult thing you could do – and I can’t compare it marriage, childbirth, or parenting just yet, so disregard those three.
1. Failure is in the eyes of the beholder
The first year of owning my own business was hard…really, really hard. I scraped by on money and was barely able to pay my bills. I constantly worried that I was going to fail; that I was going to have to call it quits.
But the fact of the matter was…I refused to call it quits with my dream. To me, that would be failing. Giving up entirely would be failing for me.
2. It’s not that you’re giving up….you’re just reevaluating
Instead, I had a plan. If worse came to worse, I would find a second job in order to sustain myself until I got my business back on its feet. Once I felt comfortable enough, I knew I’d get right back into full-time on my own.
3. You can still be surprised
And as luck would have it, I made it through my first year. Then I made it through my second…much more successfully.
I’ve learned countless other lessons along the way, but none so humbling as what failure does and doesn’t mean to me.
I don’t know what the future brings for my business and I. But I do know that if the day ever comes when I’m stumbling and about to fall, I won’t fail…because I won’t give up.