Stay at the Edge of Sanity and Hold on to that Dream

If as an entrepreneur, you think you have bigger problems in your life than making your startup succeed, then you are not prioritizing your startup enough to succeed as an entrepreneur.

I personally do not know anyone or have heard of people who succeeded as entrepreneurs by giving second priority to their startup venture.

You have to prioritize your startup’s success above everything else in your life.

When I say that, it doesn’t mean that you have to prioritize it at the cost of other areas of your life.

Never give up health or relationships for the success of your startup. That doesn’t mean that you cannot keep your startup’s success as your first priority.

As an entrepreneur, you will be required to invest insane amounts of time, energy and money into making a startup work. This will give you very little time for everything else in your life.

However, be productive and disciplined and make sure that you keep your health, friends and family while you are building your startup.

Make your family and friends understand that for a short period in your life, your first priority is going to be your startup. During this phase, you might feel like things are getting out of control.

Since entrepreneurs need 48 hours a day and still feel there is no time, most of us feel like we are just one step away from becoming insane. Endless to-do lists, business plans, strategies, capital management and so on is enough to drive us insane. And on top of it we have to take care of our own health, family and friends.

It is going to be madness. But let that madness be around. You will be missing a few things, but its ok. Many entrepreneurs re-think if they are built for this. They feel uneasy about staying in madness and juggling so many balls. But to be honest, there is no other way.

No entrepreneur ever succeeded but creating a plan, and following that plan like clock work. We have wrong expectations from startup life. We expect a straight four lane highway to our destination, but the path is full of twists and turns.

To succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to embrace the fact that the madness and near insanity is a part of the journey and learn to overcome with personal growth and maturity.

You grow as an entrepreneur when you are at the edge of your sanity. When you are stretching yourself, you will discover how long you can stretch. And you will be amazed at your capabilities.

A few years back, I would have never imagined that I would be able to manage a team of more than ten people and run my own startup successfully. My productivity levels are at least 5x of what it was a few years back. As I tried to do more things, I discovered my capability to do more things and this personal growth never stops.

The number of problems in your life and startup that can drive you insane becomes less overtime, not because the problems have gone away, but you have grown to become the person who is not driven to insanity by the same problems anymore. And such a growth comes only when you push yourself.

Make strong decisions that you have never done before. Have tough conversations that you’ve never had before. Set unrealistic deadlines for projects that looks impossible.

Dream so big that the dream is intimidating to yourself. Keep pushing that boundary of sanity. What looked insane before will no longer be out of your reach.

If you don’t go to the edge of the map, you will not know where the edge of the map is. And believe me, the world is round, you will not fall of the edge!

When you start pushing yourself, your definition of what you can achieve will change. Most of the people around you will be amazed at your work ethic and will power.

They will not be able to wrap their head around your grand visions, if you share it with them. That’s because you have surpassed a level of growth that they cannot even see on the horizon.

Pushing yourself to your limits is a habit that is learned over the years. It is easier said than done to push yourself to a point where you might go insane.

Let the Dream Pull You to Push Yourself

Most of the entrepreneurs who work hard, do it in the initial few months of their business where the enthusiasm of something new in their life is driving them. Everyone has a beginner’s luck and there is a push when you start something new.

Within a few months to a year the enthusiasm of the new venture dies off. What will make yourself push is the pull of the dream.

As an entrepreneur, you should constantly remind yourself of the dream you are pursuing. It might look like its madness to constantly think about a future reality when you are so far away from it, but the more you think about it, the clearer your path will become.

The dream will help you push harder. When you push, you will grow.

You will become faster, stronger and more capable to achieve your dreams. And eventually you will achieve your dreams.

Holding on to the dream will make sure that you push yourself to the edge of sanity.

Holding on to the dream also influences what you believe. What you believe influences what you think. What you think influences the actions you take. What you act on influences your results. Your results change your reality.

So thoughts do become things.

So dream. Dream without boundaries. If something cannot exist in this world, it cannot exist in your mind. What might look like your wildest dream might be one day be a reality.

Whether you can make it a reality or not wouldn’t be the problem. If you tried it, and still couldn’t make it, you will not regret it as much as not having tried at all.

So as long as you are alive and functional, give your 100% to your dream. No one has ever regretted giving their best to pursue their dreams. You have one life. You can take one bet. You have one chance to achieve your dreams.

Drive yourself to the edge, and you will see that the edge is farther than you’ve thought. If you do not feel like you are at the edge of sanity, then you are probably not putting in your 100%. No one has ever achieved anything worthwhile with a half-assed approach to their dreams.

Never put any effort in suppressing your dreams. More often than not, the effort required to achieve your dreams might be less than the constant effort you have to put in suppressing your dreams.

If you are not pursuing your dreams with everything you’ve got, it is probably not a dream and just a fantasy.

You might have to introspect to find out the difference between fantasies and your dreams. Fantasies are just dreams without consequences. You can give up anything for your dreams, but not for your fantasies.

Expand your horizons so much that the dream you once had is now within your reach. Never hesitate to expand.

Once you stretch your imagination, your reality will stretch itself to accommodate that imagination into reality. You just need to let it stretch, without fear. Don’t stand in the way of your dreams.

Give your 100% to your dreams and when it is time for a dream to come true, let yourself 100% into the dream to make it a reality.