How often do you find yourself wishing things would move faster? Wishing your business would be further along by now? Or that you had already reached your financial goals?

I know I wish for those things every once in a while.

But every time I do, I have to remind myself that the journey I’m on, the journey to entrepreneurship, is a marathon, not a sprint.

When we started this journey, we knew things were going to take time.

We knew we wouldn’t see results for months, we knew we couldn’t quit our day job right away, and we knew it would take some time before we could make the impact we actually want to make on the world or the people around us.

And we said we were okay with it. We said we wouldn’t be impatient. We said we would keep going, and keep working until we finally reached some kind of success, a testimony of our perseverance and hard work.

So why are we frustrated today when things are slow? Why do we question every decision we made that lead us here today?

It’s because despite that we said we would be patient, in reality, it’s really hard to be, especially when we put in the work day after day and don’t see results.

So what can we do today to help ourselves find peace again on this journey?

Maybe we could look at everything we have done so far, and tell ourselves that how far we have come, is result enough.

And then maybe we could take a breather and remind ourselves that there are other things than work and business in life.

I know I get caught up thinking that my whole life revolves around my business and its success, but that’s not true.

I have made a point of not working at all during the past few weekends and devoting time to my hobbies to remind myself that I am more than my business and that I can be happy without my business, even when it’s successful, and especially when it’s not.

It’s so easy to think that our businesses have become our whole life, our whole personality, our only center of interest.

Especially during the development and creation phase, we are so involved with it, we pour everything we have into it, which leads us to think that this is all we have.

But since entrepreneurship is a marathon and not a sprint, it’s important to make sure that we still do other things on the side and we don’t let our success or lack of, define who we are.

I find peace in spending time thinking about other things than my business. I find comfort and energy in my hobbies, and it’s very important for me to be able to find satisfaction and gratification outside of my business.

Because despite all the work I put in, all my strategies, and good intentions, I cannot control the results. I cannot control whether my business is going to be successful or not. Whether I will have clients or not.

So I have to make sure that my state of being is not dependent on how successful I am.

And maybe it’s an opportunity to redefine what success means to me. Maybe success is doing something I love each day. Maybe success is spending time with my friends. Maybe success is curling up and reading a good book.

When I think of the possibility of my business not working out, of course, I am sad, because I care very much about my work and the impact I want to have, but I’m also ok because I know that other things bring me happiness, joy, and satisfaction in my life.

My happiness does not rely on my entrepreneurial success.

And as long as I am happy on the journey to entrepreneurship, whether I am successful or not, I can keep going. If I can find ways to be joyous and successful outside of my business while I am building it, I know I will be ok no matter what the outcome.

Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint.

Make sure you have a solid foundation, different passions and hobbies, and define what success means to you before you hop on the train to entrepreneurship. If you can be at peace and feel successful no matter what the outcome, you might as well succeed at that too.

Featured