Many people aspire to become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses. The dream of having complete control over their time and finances drives them. They wish to work for less time than the typical 9-5 job and have the flexibility to use their earnings to do things that matter to them. These may include spending quality time with their loved ones, taking care of themselves, and leading a peaceful and joyful life.
Key Takeaways
Vision is the driving force: Clarify your entrepreneurial vision to align your actions and motivations, paving the way for success.
Break it down: Transform your dreams into achievable goals by breaking them down into actionable steps, fostering progress and momentum.
Seek support for success: Surround yourself with accountability and guidance through coaching, leveraging the power of support to navigate challenges and achieve your entrepreneurial dreams
We need a vision
As an entrepreneur, having visionary goals is crucial to drive and inspire us. We need to be able to imagine a future that is different from our current reality to make it achievable. It's worth considering that every existing product or service was once someone's dream. Without a dream, it's almost impossible to have a dream life. Once you have a clear vision of the life you want, you can start breaking it down into achievable steps to turn it into a reality.
If you can dream it, you can do it. Walt Disney
What’s the problem with my dreams?
One of the main issues with the dreams that many people make for their businesses and their personal lives, is that they don’t bridge the gap between their current reality and the path to the dream. Then, when they don’t achieve their goals, they blame themselves or the world.
The good news is that we actually have a lot of power over our ability to achieve our dreams with the right approach. Now, there is always some luck involved for all of us. For example, I must appreciate the luck I had just to be born in the US in the twentieth century. The fortune of being born in that place and time has opened up opportunities that wouldn’t have been available otherwise. However, we also have more control over our achievements than we realize.
How to Start a Business from Your Dreams
1. Get clear on what you want and why you want it
It’s essential to have a clear vision of precisely what you envision for your future. Spend time thinking through what you want to be, do, and have. The more detailed you can be in your ideal future, the more likely you are to enable it to happen. It is also helpful to write it out since we are forced to think in more detail when we write out complete sentences. You can do this as a journaling exercise on a regular basis to solidify your visions.
This exercise of getting clarity of a future vision also helps you identify what you don’t want or need. For example, I don’t want a large business that requires more personnel, expenses, and legal and logistical challenges.
As part of your vision, you also clarify your ‘why,’ which can drive and motivate you when times are tough. When you are struggling and ready to give up, you can remind yourself what you are working for, and that may be enough to give you the energy to keep going.
Connecting with your vision can also help you change your self-image to a person who does achieve those dreams. As you change your vision, you then enable yourself to achieve them. There is scientific evidence behind this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Essentially, you are willing to achieve your goals by visualizing what it is like to achieve them. This is a common practice among elite athletes who run through their performance routines in their minds.
If you ever feel like giving up on your dreams, remember that every successful entrepreneur started with a dream.
2. Break down the steps to reach your goals
One of the most significant blocks to taking action is that our vision seems too large or too distant. When the goal is too distant or big, it is overwhelming and appears unachievable. That’s why programs like Getting Things Done by David Allen (affiliate link) encourage people to identify the next steps.
We may have a million dreams for our businesses, but train yourself to focus on 1-3 that you can do in the next 6 months to help you progress towards your ultimate vision. By breaking down your ultimate vision into small next steps, you will be much more likely to take action. Once you take action, you send a message to your brain that you are capable and that small success empowers you to take more actions leading to more success.
Of course, not every action will lead to success, but taking action is progress, and we also learn through our mistakes and actions so that we can continue to progress toward our goals.
3. Start living out your dream reality
I’ve heard many stories of people who had dreams of all these amazing activities they would be involved in when they retired. For example, they would move to Florida, start playing pickleball every week, and go out for drinks with friends. However, the people waiting for that magical retirement event to achieve their dreams almost never end up doing the things they have been waiting their whole lives for. Researchers have found that people with ideas of a lifestyle they want are most successful when they start implementing it immediately. If you want to start playing pickleball, don’t wait until you retire. Figure out a way to do it now!
How does this apply to your business dreams? If part of your dream is to work less, find ways to work less now. For example, while I was still teaching, I set up time boundaries so I would have hard stop times to leave, and I stopped working on the weekends or taking home papers to grade so that I could spend more time with my kids when I was home. If you are waiting to find more time to work out or spend time with friends, find ways to do that now. Maybe you integrate workouts with time with your friends, or maybe you need to wake up earlier or find shorter workouts (like a 5-minute HIIT!).
Use your vision and your identification of milestones to identify what actions you can take today to start living the life of your dreams. Don’t wait for some magic time in the future, take those actions today. If it means speaking to groups, writing, hosting web events, etc., you can start all of those today. Look at the activities you will be, do and have in the future, and figure out how you can start doing them today!
James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits, (affiliate link) outlines how you can identify actions to start implementing immediately and how to make them easier and more attractive to ensure you will do them.
4. Get support
Weight Watchers has been successful at helping people reach their weight loss goals because it employs multiple psychological factors known to keep people on track, such as requiring accountability and a financial commitment along with education on eating and exercise habits.
By hiring a business coach, you can also reap the same benefits. A business coach helps guide you with their expertise and provides an accountability partner, which makes you more likely to follow through and make progress. Also, by putting money down on a coach, you are more committed to the outcome and are more likely to take action so that your money doesn’t go to waste.
Call and book a free coaching session with Cordes to find out what next steps you can make to reach your business dreams.