How To Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being An Entrepreneur

Realistic Expectations. The vital importance of a vision that aligns with reality can’t be overstated; while overnight, runaway sensations do happen — your Ubers, your Twitters — in most cases, a successful business takes time to grow and will occupy most of your time (what you don’t see in overnight success stories is the years of hard work it actually took to get there). You probably won’t hit a million dollars in revenue in your first year. You probably will spend some nights sleeping on your office floor. Your team probably won’t gel as well as you expect it to, and you’ll have unexpected competition. There are a million different wrinkles you could encounter, and having a realistic idea of what your first five years are going to be like can and will both help you be more productive and avoid unnecessary stress. Burnout can ruin you, but having a realistic set of expectations can help you avoid it by showing you that you’re on the right path to meeting your goals.