You know what, most of the times, the culprit of my business failures is me. It took me some business failures to realise the fact that my inadequate entrepreneurial skills and experience undermine what seemingly great business opportunities.
The worst entrepreneurial habit: Blaming others for our failures
Related article: 7 Bad Business Habits to Break This Year
I admit; I was very eager to point my fingers to others as the cause of my business failures. But I finally realized that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be humble and introspective – you need to assess and re-assess what you do; what you have; what you have done – to see whether you can justify your finger-pointing habit.
Indeed, it’s true – we should remember that every time we point one finger to other people, the other four fingers are pointing to ourselves. In entrepreneurship, this is also the case.
“You know, the economic situation is really bad. If it wasn’t this bad, my business would have survived and thrived.” “It’s Obama to blame. He doesn’t really care about us small business owners.” “My franchisor sucks – my franchise units went out of business simply because the franchisor won’t listen to us franchisees.” “Aargh, the taxes are killing my business!” …and so on.
Stop blaming others – the blame is on us
We tend to reason that our failures are due to outside conditions. The truth is, most of our business failures are simply because we are not doing thing right and do the right things; because we refuse to learn better ways to do business; because we dismiss the fact that we need others for us to succeed; because we are simply not well-equipped with the right entrepreneurial skills.
Well, if you still deny the above, then you might not be fit for entrepreneurship.
You see, entrepreneurs are known for their ability to make things happen. But how can they make things happen if they are not well-equipped with the right mindset, skills and knowledge acquired via continuous learning?
Focus on moving on
People blame others because of the negative situation in the past. My advice for you: Good or bad, things happen. Don’t dwell in the past; just pick up the pieces and move on.
Stop pointing fingers, the blame is on you and me. Acknowledging that we are taking part in our business failures, to me, is liberating; immediately, you will start accepting the fact that if you want changes, you are the one who need to change.
You can’t expect others to change things for you; that’s not how the world works. You need to be an entrepreneur who is able to adapt to various situations; using your creativity to get you out of troubles.
And if you did realised that you can’t turn things around, just accept the fact that your business is failing and never consider it to be a bad business investment. No, it’s in fact one of the best investment you have in your entrepreneurial journey; learn from your failures and try to do things better in the future.
To learn more about other bad business habits you need to break in order to achieve business success this year, check out this article from MSN’s Business on Main, “7 Bad Business Habits to Break This Year,” written by Rieva Lesonsky, CEO of GrowBiz Media, a startup consulting company.
Ivan Widjaya
I befriend business failure – are you?
Disclaimer: I receive incentives to share my views on this particular blog post, but all of the opinions are my own. My blog is a part of an online influencer network for Business on Main.